Love One Another

Larry Brown taught my boys at Cape Cod Academy for many years.  Here's his column from last Saturday. Considering the split in views at CTK on politics, and we all are guilty to one extent or another about not loving our neighbor, I thought I'd post his commentary at King’s Corner.

Deacon David Pierce

To my Cape Cod Times readers

Recently, I wrote a column on race. It generated a lot of mail, some of it very angry. I’ll not respond to individuals here as I’m already doing that privately. But I’d like to talk to all of you.

 

We’ve just had our Fourth of July, America’s birthday. “Patriotism” means “love of country.” But what does it mean to say we love our country if we can’t stand half the people living in it?

 

I’m beginning to think the gulf opening between us — and the anger filling it — is a greater danger to our country than a victory by the left or right. Maybe, contrary to appearances, we are separated more by our ways of being political than by politics itself. We’ve become a self-polarizing society, scanning the news for items we can weaponize to hurl against each other. It’s happening to us here on Cape, as it is to people everywhere.

 

Perhaps every civilization is defined by the things it can’t stop arguing about. Should America have a strong federal government — or should each state be linked, but be almost sovereign in its ability to make policy for itself?

 

We’ve argued about slavery and who gets to be an American. We’ve argued about the role of faith in governance … our proper role in the community of nations … and whether the government has any obligation to protect the people from poverty or exploitation. What makes us American is that once we’ve had reasons to argue our essential questions for the first time, we’ve never stopped arguing about them.

So it can’t be the arguments themselves that threaten us. It has to be how we disagree. We already had a Civil War. We slaughtered each other by the thousands. If we don’t want to go through something like that again, we can either start the healing now, or we can wait ‘till we’ve torn each other’s flesh and broken each other’s hearts — and try to heal from that.

 

The founders had partisan newspapers in their day, but they’d never imagined politics in cyberspace. It’s not facts that are being monetized; it’s conflict. The most outrageous and inflammatory remarks get bumped to the head of the line. Turns out our brains are hardwired for signals of danger. Keep scaring people and not only can you earn our undivided attention, we can even be convinced that the folks scaring us the most must have our best interests at heart.

 

Most people struggle to be their best when they’re hungry, afraid or in pain. If we want to live in a society where people are their best selves, then it seems reasonable we’d want to keep hunger, fear and pain to a minimum. This impulse isn’t just charitable. It’s in our own best interest to live in a society where people have at least enough, feel safe and don’t hurt. We’re doing this here on Cape. Watch for future columns about how.

 

If patriotism is love of country, and if America is us, then as patriots, we must love each other. This is difficult. We’ll find some people really annoying. That’s why this love cannot be based on mutual attraction. It must be based on policy — a simple determination to get out of bed each morning and greet the world, each person with a gentle benevolence.

 

Meanwhile, we are doing the opposite. We’re succumbing to politics as emotional gratification rather than as a fact-based enterprise. The more wicked we imagine our opponents to be, the more righteous we feel in opposing them. This is an emotional hook that’s set in deep. Wedge issues are being driven into the body politic like nails into a crucified man. The donations keep rolling in. Advertisers for Fox and CNN are happy. We’re being kept scared and furious.

 

It’s like smoking. There’s profit in it for the tobacco companies, the makers of ashtrays and logo T-shirts, then for doctors’ visits, CAT-scans, chemotherapy drugs and, finally, coffins. In short, smoking fattens lots of people’s bottom lines. It’s good for business. It’s just killing us.

 

Politically, we talk to change other people’s minds. Spiritually, it’s different. We talk to each other so we can know each other. We know each other so we can love each other. Spiritually, that is the point. We have come to a place in history where the high road isn’t just the best road morally; it’s the only road left to get us through in one piece.

 

Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times