This post was originally written for a Quaker audience. I have added to it in much detail and made some clarifying points for non-Friends.
I've been doing some serious thinking about the greater trends that characterize this time in history. Aiming not to be too heady about it, I think one of the reasons we see so much division in the Society of Friends as well as so-called Western Society, is that we have promoted postmodernism in organized religion for decades and are now in the midst of embracing a liberation movement.
Postmodern thought calls everything into question: it encourages a deep skepticism. A liberation movement advances the notion that, to a degree, matters are either absolute good or absolute bad. It is no wonder that we are so confused. The two cannot exist together.
Currently, as I have written about here before, we are all undergoing great change. I’ve argued that erasing the detrimental and offensive aspects of our past removes our collective understanding of the changes that had to be made. One example to support this involves the late John Lewis, who in 2015 stated that he did not want the name of the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge to be removed and replaced with his name or anyone else’s. To Lewis, doing so took the Civil Rights Movement completely out of context. I would add to Lewis’ argument that whitewashing our past, even with good intentions, erases the memory of the noble struggles that lead to great societal reform. Generations after ours might forget entirely how we got to where we are in this point in time.
I was trained as a historian, and I see evidence again of how poorly we understand the greater context of how things are today. The longer time progresses, the more we forget. It is a race against time, in a very real sense. To reiterate, no wonder we are confused. I fault our education system for that, in part, but a study of human nature shows that this may be an inevitability. In past generations, students were required to study the Greek and Roman Empires, learn Latin, read epic poetry, and take seriously the examples that inspired our Founding Fathers to establish this radical new nation.
I want to conclude with a quotation or two from a book I just finished reading about gender. It is entitled Gender Trauma: Healing Cultural, Social, and Historical Gendered Trauma. Its author is Alex Iantaffi and it was published in December of last year. The section I am quoting begins like this (I am paraphrasing to make my point):
Pausing and slowing down can help us view more clearly whether we are being attacked or feel attacked. Being able to slow down can lead to an opening where we see that our struggles are connected, that we do not need to be pitted against each other.
If we slow down, it also becomes harder for forces in opposition to render us so confused that we end up in alliances we never thought possible or desirable.
It underscores the challenge in unifying the vast coalitions we see around us: The Democratic Party, people who identify as LGBTQ, people who identify specifically as transgender, people who favor taking down statues of Confederate generals and notable names of slave holders on street signs, to name but a few. President Joe Biden has thus far indicated with at least one act, removing the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, that he seems to favor those who, according to conservative voices, are engaging in cancel culture.
In a Quaker sense, this starts with Yearly Meetings and even into the interactions of fellow Friends within Monthly Meetings. Our individualism and personal demands that no one has a right to speak for all of us can have drawbacks. But we should not view each other as enemies. Not offline, and certainly not online. The ugliness exposed by four years of Trump has tainted all of us, and we in many ways, even with our opposition to his policies, we have adopted some of his unforgiving bluster. Such is human nature.
Returning to the Iantaffi book, they advance this point by saying,
All/nothing patterns are insidious and, if we are not careful, we tend to reproduce the same discourses that oppressed us, creating and recreating boundaries to make we know who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “with us” and who is “against us.” While these patterns are understandable, when people are hurt, in survival mode and trying to protect themselves, this is not conducive (emphasis mine) to healing or liberation.
And this debate goes even further up the chain. President Biden’s personal faith, Roman Catholicism, is being challenged by more conservative members of the Church. Religion and politics are two separate entities, I fully realize, but they intersect all the time. If we really want the unity that we need, organized religion, in its pure and intended form, in all of its many permutations, offers a solution. I value Christianity and lament its decline, but for those compelled to embrace it, don’t lose faith. Put aside your postmodern skepticism. Cast off your cynicism. Put in a totally different context than our now-Ex President did in a self-serving appeal to the black community: what do you have to lose?