In a recent article in the Daily Beast titled “The Left needs a Spiritual Renaissance. So Does America,” Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Ian Marcus Corbin, a philosophy professor in Harvard University, wrote about the collapse of a sense of community and spirituality throughout the country.
Everybody acknowledges that we live in a time of hyper-divisiveness. A clear majority of Americans has sided either with the MAGA or the anti-MAGA culture. Only a decreasing number of undecideds are still left wondering in the middle.
Senator Chris Murphy.
Over 50% of Republicans would oppose marriage of a family member to someone supporting the opposing party, and similar prejudices are found among many Democrats. Rudyard Kipling’s famous line applies to the chasmic cleavage in American politics: “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.”
Senator Murphy feels that people must step back from politics and away from what is now considered normal behavior to confront the basic questions about human purpose and how to lead a full and happy life. What has gone wrong that so many Americans live lonely and anxious lives, functioning on the edges of society, alienated from and often fearful of their neighbors and community?
People can argue and debate about responsibility for the January 6th insurrection, but at this stage very few people have altered their beliefs about the sad events that happened on that day. This implacable standoff between two groups has convinced Murphy and Corbin that we are facing a spiritual malaise, a societal crisis evident as much among liberals as among adherents of the MAGA mind frame.
Governor Ron De Santis.
They urge people in every community to start conversations about finding a different and more meaningful direction.
They are suggesting a need for spiritual revival. Surely, we can begin by accepting the equality of all human beings irrespective of race, religion or sexual orientation. The three main religious traditions in the United States, Christians, Jews and Muslims, all affirm this principle.
Why are the prevailing relationships between these denominations often so negative and begrudging? Why is antisemitism showing its ugly face again with Jewish communities increasingly wary of the motivations of strangers who show up in their synagogues and meeting halls?
Many MAGA supporters also have a dark view of Muslims. Operating from ignorance, they want to greatly reduce or eliminate migration to the United States from Islamic countries, just as the powerful Know-Nothings wanted to exclude Catholics in the 19th century.
At a big rally in New York City during the last presidential primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders, at that time a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, challenged his audience “to look around and find someone you don’t know, maybe someone who doesn’t look like you. Are you willing to fight for that person’s rights as much as for your own?” The important moral challenge in Senator Sanders’ words has surely been heard from many pulpits.
The kinds of community introspection that the Connecticut senator and his academic friend are advocating involves setting aside political differences and focusing instead on family and community conversations.
The first mandate of ethical living points to respectful treatment of others. This is a fundamental principle in the Koran, as well as both testaments that inform the Judaeo-Christian belief system.
Senator Murphy states that he and his family have returned to weekly churchgoing because it provides an opportunity to meet and converse with people in a congenial setting. He points out that with the decrease in religious observance across the board, valuable human interactions are greatly diminished.
A sense of social ostracism felt by many individuals and families in America has led directly to blaming so-called elites who allegedly show no understanding for people feeling cutoff and isolated. This dynamic provides easy pickings for political leaders who point the finger at the priority given to black power and demands from the LGBTQ and transgender communities. We were doing fine, they say, until these groups started making loud demands.
Recently, Florida governor Ron DeSantis launched his campaign for the presidency by repeatedly promising harsh treatment for the so-called woke community, whoever they are, but now identified as Public Enemy Number One. This shameful approach of splattering negatives about “other” groups heightens divisiveness in the country leading to far too much focus on us versus them.
Voltaire’s wise admonition about honest communication must be honored and has to be accepted as a basis for every step forward. “We are all formed of frailty and error. Let us pardon reciprocally each other’s follies – that is the first law of nature.”
Corbin and Murphy point to the spirit of acquisitiveness, central to the capitalist system, as a major source of the social disconnectedness and unhappiness among Americans.
The economy has boomed over the last fifty years, but workers have not benefited from the increased productivity as most of the new wealth transferred to those who already have plenty. The writers in the Daily Beast article put it this way: “People are hungry for a way out of the frantic competition for a piece of the ever-shrinking pie.”
The great English poet, William Wordsworth, captured this sentiment well when writing about the 19th century industrial revolution in one of his sonnets: “Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. – We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.”
Instead of neoliberalism, which cossets the rich at every turn, Corbin and Murphy want to debunk talk of trickle-down economics which, instead of an alleged financial overflow making its way south, the money gushes up to people who have an abundance but still can’t get enough.
The two writers draw on the magnificent example of leaders like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Kennedy, all of whom proclaimed powerful spiritual messages about virtues which they name in the article as “goodness, compassion, harmony with nature, self-discipline, mindfulness, holiness --- the pursuit of something other than material reward.”
It is easy to dismiss such high-minded idealistic thinking as utopian dreaming. However, the alternative involves a continuation of American politics spiraling downwards into a cynical black cave where lies and chicanery prevail.
Gerry O'Shea blogs at wemustetalking.com
