This spring my husband and I enrolled in a continuing education class at Rice University. It was an all too short look at political philosophy that was packed with people searching for explanations for the behaviors and beliefs that have so divided the United States. Of course there were no hardcore answers. Humans have been searching for universal and viable definitions of justice in governance for thousands of years with Aristotle being perhaps the most famous individual of old to tackle this knotty topic.
As the arc of the class discussions reached the halfway point a kind of frustration emerged as one member of the group asked why we were so unhappy at this point in history and wondered when we might track back to a time in which we were content and more in agreement and willing to work together with one another. His was a plaintiff cry that spoke to all of us and left me stewing over his question for days.
I began to track back through my own experiences and those that my parents and grandparents had shared with me. I thought of the lessons in history that I had learned in school and as I mentally moved back and back in time I realized that at any given moment there always seemed to be dissatisfaction of one kind or another that was sometimes simply grudgingly endured or other times loudly protested. In particular, I remembered my grandfather’s descriptions of political issues at the end of the nineteenth century when he was emerging as a young man.
Grandpa often related the hardships and prejudices of the era insisting that the times were far more difficult than anything that later happened in the twentieth century. He described Coxey’s Army of disgruntled, unemployed and starving Americans who marched through his town on their way to Washington D.C. to demand help. He spoke of people in his community struggling to the point of desperation. He described his own travels in search of work that took him all over the United States where he witnessed extreme prejudice and greed hurled at Native Americans. He was an eye witness to both the glory and the underside of our nation and somehow remained optimistic in spite of it all. He always believed that we were progressing even when we appeared to be moving backward in ugly ways. His stories provided strong evidence that the good almost always outweighed the bad.
Grandpa was an orphan and eventually a ward of the court. He was the kind of person who might have complained that if it were not for bad luck he would have had no luck at all and yet he always managed to find human kindness even in his darkest times. He was a survivor who marveled at what we humans had accomplished while accepting the reality that we have often messed up quite badly. He included himself in that judgement but pointed out that all we can do is just keep trying to set things right.
I suppose that the fact that so many people paid to fill a university classroom in the hopes of learning how to repair the damage that seems to plague our country and so much of the world at the present time is testament to Grandpa’s belief that good people are always on a mission to repair the rifts and damages that our humanity seems to create over and over again. it seems apparent to me that we might look back hundreds and even thousands of years without finding a time in which everyone felt happy with the situations in which they found themselves. At any given time there are prejudices and disagreements and wars that rupture our relationships. Sometimes those negative responses to life grow louder and more destructive but on a more personal level we can learn from them and overcome them like my grandfather so often had to do. He understood that he could cry and bemoan his fate or find ways to work around his difficulties which is what most of us do.
Fear and distrust often tear apart our relationships on both personal and community levels. There have always been winners and losers in the political landscape. Some have historically suffered more than others. At the present time we seem to be torn asunder but history tells us that we can indeed find our way back to a more inclusive state of compromise for the sake of the health of our democracy and each other. We can only accomplish such a thing if we stop talking over each other and take a breath to hear each other rather than judge each other. The destructive rhetoric and tribal behavior gets us nowhere and the real question is how long we intend to continue this way. It will only be when we reject those who would actively divide us that we will be able to come to a reasonable consent about how to repair the rifts that have grown so ugly. At least here in the United States we still have the right to vote unlike places like Russia where elections are foregone conclusions devoid of real choices. Our best bet for changing the things we do not like is to become involved in our nation’s political life. We need to understand that our vote is our voice and if we do not use it we have nobody to blame but ourselves when things go awry. We must be active citizens who make our concerns known.
When my grandfather was over a hundred years old he was still voting at every opportunity. On one occasion he walked to the polling place because he was unable to find a ride. He understood the remarkable gift that democracy had been for him even when the outcomes were not aligned with his views. He never gave up on this nation and taught me that as long as we retain the right to vote we have hope.
I suppose that Aristotle was right when he said that each of us has a duty to be involved in the life of the community in which we live. The power that we weld when we vote is our hope and never should we take it for granted. We will win a little and lose a little and maybe sometimes mostly agree that protecting our incredible gift for everyone just might be the way bring us back together.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 