As the pendulum of politics swings back and forth, the fate of Western Democracy swings with it. I characterize these swings of fortune with a physics metaphor of centripetal versus centrifugal dynamics, to help capture the way in which a society moves towards the center, together, or out to the edges, apart, pushed by the winds of historical change. The new Social Media have greatly exacerbated centrifugal political turbulence with their ability to create instant constituencies for innumerable causes, pushing out across the whole political spectrum.
Currently, the socio-political evolution of concerns about diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace and on university campuses operates like a centrifugal force that risks fracturing already fragile democracies in North America and Western Europe. National politics have become more controversial than ever, as the neglected struggle to become the respected, while the respected struggle not to be ignored. Principles like ‘common good’ seem to lose currency, as the new bitcoin of D&I drives the marketplace of political ideas.
As a combatant in such culture wars, my personal reflections on the health of our democracy have been inspired by both contemporary insights as well as historical spiritual advice. For instance, I have found inspiring mentors in St. Paul and Barack Obama—the latter often seems to be channelling Paul in his philosophizing about democracy.
Paul has much to offer students of democracy. Although framed within a Christian ethic, his homilies about the human condition often teach lessons that anyone can understand, regardless of belief. For me personally, his inspired characterization of love in his letter to the Corinthians offers a prescription for optimal democracy that fosters winners not losers, truth not lies, hope not despair.
More recently, that other powerful preacher, Barack Obama, in his last epistle to Chicagoans in 2017, echoed many of Paul’s prescriptions for a healthy democracy, stressing a ‘badly needed sense of common purpose.’ Obama’s priorities were clear—in his two-hour speech, ‘diversity’ appeared only once, while ‘common’ appeared several times—common good, common purpose, common sense. His was not a State of the Union address, but a State of Democracy sermon.
Obama’s emphases find a precedent in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1:12), where he reflects upon two principles that are both critical and controversial in modern Western society: unity and diversity. During the bitter presidential election campaign of 2020, it seemed as if these concepts were treated as incompatible, mutually exclusive polar opposites. However, as Obama insists, unity and variety can and must co-exist harmoniously in an integrated democracy; the challenge is how to blend them into one organic whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. E pluribus unum.
Obama in Chicago identified at least two prerequisites for this goal: a national politics that ‘better reflects the decency of our people,’ and a people willing to put ‘party affiliation or particular interests’ aside in order to restore a ‘sense of common purpose.’
The fostering of ‘particular interests’ has been either a bane or a boon of social media. In his Nelson Mandela Centennial Address in South Africa in 2018, Barack Obama spoke of the potential role that new social media might play in fostering Mandela’s ‘long walk towards justice’: while it had the potential to be a mechanism ‘to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity,’ it could also be a platform for ‘spectacle, outrage, or disinformation.’ Such misuse, claimed Obama, meant that, instead of being a vehicle for promoting justice, social media ‘has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.’
To offset these kinds of separating centrifugal forces, Obama channels Paul’s ideology to posit a necessary functional reciprocity between what diverse individuals bring to society and how well that society functions as a unitary whole. Western democracy becomes a balancing act between unity and variety, between parts and wholes, between serving the needs of a pluralistic society and maintaining a unified system of governance. Democracy is the instrument whereby the people form ‘a more perfect union,’ argues Obama.
The political-philosophical challenge (and the task of the American Experiment for the last 245 years) therefore is: how do we capture and bring social diversity into one unified tent for mutual benefit? Paul—a tentmaker by trade—would thoroughly appreciate our dilemma.
If we emphasize tent-unity too much, we risk becoming a totalitarian society, where freedom of thought and speech gets squashed for the sake of conformity to the state. Yet, if we overemphasize individual variety and diversity, we end up with the current polarization and fragmentation of national life, where identity politics blinds us to the sense of national unity and common purpose necessary for a democracy to function optimally. When splinter groups set up their private soap boxes on the agora to pitch non-negotiable demands for their self-proclaimed rights and interests, democracy soon loses its heart and its soul. And when that agora was the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, the consequences were all too painfully obvious.
So how do we strike that part-whole balance whose synchrony and harmony are so essential to the success of democracy?
For starters, Paul (Corinthians 1:12) urges us to be more aware of the spiritual gifts we each bring to the task of melding unity and variety. We all and severally are endowed with different kinds of spiritual gifts, enabling us to contribute different forms of service for the good of the whole society. Paul lists a portfolio of talents which benefit others: for example, to one is given the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge; to another faith; to another gifts of healing; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another interpretation of tongues.
The distribution of individual gifts and talents may seem random, perhaps arbitrary, so that its application to social organization may not be readily apparent. To illustrate the interconnectedness of everything, Paul uses a metaphor that unifies variety, relating parts to the whole. He offers the image of one body made up of many parts: ‘As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body […] If a foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.’
Furthermore, there should be no division in the body, says Paul, ‘but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honoured, all the parts share its joy.’
This kind of solidarity stands in stark contrast to the isolationism of 21st century identity politics which 1st century Paul would likely denounce. His civics lesson reminds us of our common humanity and destiny: we are all members of one body—‘whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons’—we all drink of one spirit.
Obama concurs: ‘Understand, democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders quarrelled and compromised, and expected us to do the same […] But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity – the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.’
Together, Paul and Obama teach us to understand the intrinsic relationship of the part to the whole that defines the goal of both secular democracy and the Christian ethic, namely, inclusiveness and common purpose centred on shared, enlightened interests.
Democracy flourishes, therefore, when multiple parts all work together in harmony for the good of the whole enterprise. Each of us contributes our talents not only for private self-realization, but also for the public good. Your country is less without you, and vice versa. We cannot all be prophets, teachers, healers, workers of mighty deeds, speakers of tongues—but in this, the land of opportunity, Paul is our personal trainer and life coach, urging us to ‘strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.’
Paul’s ancient message is broadcast anew by President Obama:
‘What a radical idea, the great gift that our Founders gave to us. The freedom to chase our individual dreams through our sweat, and toil, and imagination—and the imperative to strive together as well, to achieve a common good, a greater good.’
Amen.
Dr Arthur McCaffrey, Harvard University, is a psychologist and social scientist. He is writing a book on Repairing Democracy.