urgent problem we face, they are also a symptom of a longer-standing breakdown of America's wholeness of moral vision. And to understand that larger cultural context, the dynamics of polarization are key.
Here is a piece that I wrote almost a decade ago. It's is an exhortation for us Americans to enter into meaningful dialogue across that divide to work toward a higher wisdom that would create in America the greater wholeness of wisdom, harmony, and good order. And it was suited to a happier time when one might presume goodwill on the part of people from both sides of the divide.
Today, regrettably, such dialogue is not the first order of business. One of the sides of our divide has been hijacked by forces whose "goodwill" can hardly be assumed. With those forces, the task is not to enter into dialogue but to defeat them.
But even if some good people have been seduced by evil forces, it is worth bearing in mind that the people on one side of the divide are in general no better than those on the other. And that dialogue among those on both sides who genuinely care about the good will still have to be part of the healing of America.
THE DANCE OF POLARIZATION
And The Next Step Beyond
For those of us who feel ourselves to be participants in America's present culture war, it is difficult to understand the conflict other than as a battle between an "Us" who are right and a "Them" who are wrong. Whether the issue is law and order, the expressions of human sexuality, the balance between rights and responsibilities, or any of today's other charged and divisive issues, we see ourselves as embodying wisdom and virtue and our opponents as misguided and possibly even evil.
This view of our cultural polarization leads naturally to a view of how the conflict should be resolved: by the victory of our side in the arenas of persuasion and political power. On the right, for example, Pat Buchanan has used military images of fighting house by house, street by street, to "take our culture back." Progressives on the left are calling for mobilization to block the advancing forces of the Christian Coalition.
For the combatants, the culture war is about division. But let's look at the polarized sides as components of a cultural whole and inquire how polarization occurs in human systems and what a better alternative might be.
Polarization is something we can see happening constantly in human relationships, on scales large and small. I have observed some relatively benign examples in my own life.
When I drive with my mother -- who can envision accidents occurring at every turn -- she voices the need for caution to a degree I regard as extreme. In response, an impulse arises in me to drive less carefully than I usually do. In the presence of what I see as my mother's over-cautiousness, I have to work to maintain my more typical prudence. This dynamic leads to a division of labor concerning the polarity of caution and daring.
Something analogous happens between me and my 18-year-old son. To my mind, he procrastinates too much; I lean on him to take care of business more promptly and reliably. His tendency toward procrastination may have developed in reaction to my tighter relationship with my inner Taskmaster. But whatever its origin, when I am in his presence, I tend to become even more like myself than usual: my taking-care-of-business muscles get tighter than even I am comfortable with.
You have probably noticed how married couples can polarize in various ways -- between the slob and the compulsive straightener, the spendthrift and the miser, the one who does all the feeling and the one who is always rational and controlled, etc.
When people divide on an issue, unless they find a resolution, they tend to push each other further out toward the opposite ends of the spectrum. Each end represents a value that is legitimate, but that also must be balanced against another value. Polarization is one way the system preserves balance, but it is an unstable and conflictual balance. Far better if the actors in the system, instead of dividing into mirror-image opposites of one another, could achieve the healthier balance of integration.
But such integration is difficult. It represents that high human achievement: wisdom. In the absence of wisdom, people are compelled to struggle in their folly. Each side, wedded to its half-truth, sees the other as the problem. But the problem is a property of the system: the polarization and conflict are symptoms of the failure to find a way to bring together those values that are in tension.
The polarization of our culture around a variety of "hot-button" issues --such as whether or not to prohibit the burning of the American flag, to stigmatize the birth of children to unmarried women, to teach the canon of the Western tradition, to execute criminals, to accept homosexuality, to allow religion into our public institutions-- represents a failure to integrate a deeper polarity that has always been at the heart of the American experiment. On the one hand, we cherish the value of the free flowering of the human spirit; on the other hand, we also honor the value of a coherent social order.
The present battle between the defenders of the traditional social order and the advocates of more countercultural values is a message to us of a challenge yet unmet by our present civilization: to find an integration at a higher level of human wisdom than either side of that war has yet attained.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
