I wholeheartedly support the progressive movement championed in the pages of DailyKos. However, one can be a strong advocate for progressive policies and values and not a partisan. Unfortunately I have also embraced partisanship, and recently experienced its sometimes devastating effects.
I am staying at the house of an old friend in a once affluent mid-sized industrial city that lost its industry many decades ago. I have been helping to coordinate care from the local visiting nurses’ association for his relative. It appears that most, if not all of the people at this agency are Black. In a recent phone call, one of the nursing supervisors let me know that she found my tone and choice of language offensive. I was very upset, felt very hurt, and at first resolved to avoid all further contact with this woman.
This incident turned into an important learning opportunity for me after I read a recent article on White Fragility. The author, a white woman who facilitates diversity training workshops, frequently encounters reactions like mine when white people are made aware of unintentional slights towards Blacks and other minorities.
So what does this have to do with Partisanship? I, for one, often find myself thinking of “our side” as the good guys, and people on the other side as evil. I enjoy posts on this website that mirror this theme. But it’s just this type of thinking that can be disabling in certain situations. When the VNA supervisor insinuated the possibility that I might be a racist, I panicked. How dare she suggest that I might not belong to the good guys, that I might be evil! If I hadn’t indulged in the idea that I am perfectly good and all evil resides in the other, perhaps I could have taken her words as an opportunity for self-reflection and dialogue. If I had been humble and not overly prideful I wouldn’t have shut down and retreated, as the workshop participants did, but would have been open to the one feeling discounted.
Many wisdom traditions have addressed this problem. Eckhart Tolle, Eastern Philosophy including Buddhists, and others will talk about the dangers inherent in the ego and the importance of letting go of false identifications. Christians have warned of the negative aspects of pride and the value of humility. We see all around us the dangers of tribalism: the us-versus-them thinking that leads to violence.