A broad community is a healthy one
As I reflect upon the state of our country, and recent events that have left us feeling at best discouraged and, at worst, completely helpless and angry, I see some unfortunate parallels between the increasing polarization of our society and the endless, ancient and tribal strife in the Middle East. We are clearly not yet at a point at which our differences have painted us each into sectarian corners, but I believe we are drifting inexorably in that direction if we don’t step back and remember what it is that holds us together as a society.
Our social structure is increasingly asking us to firmly align ourselves in one camp or another, to choose one “side” or another: conservative or liberal; law and order or social justice; business or labor; government or individualism; capitalism or income equality; Republican or Democrat; the Second Amendment or gun control; Fox News or MSNBC; and, of course, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. To me, those are largely false choices and not ones I believe that most people who care about their broader community think are so black or white. Personally, I’m unwilling to choose a side.
It seems to me that what makes for a healthy community is the capacity for people to foster understanding, empathy and progress across a wide range of differences within that community. A healthy community recognizes that erecting figurative or literal barriers between those who disagree with one another is a dangerous movement toward a divided society. America’s great promise is pluralism, the belief in the notion that we are a nation that is strengthened by its multiplicity of views and cultures. I fear that we are losing that unique American quality. Too many of those who attract attention as “leaders” of one particular movement or another today call for a purity of perspective, asking us to believe that their side is right and the other side is not just wrong but out to destroy us all. True leadership is about finding compromise while not walking away from one’s personal beliefs. It’s hard and often painful, but it’s the stuff that success is built upon. It’s easier to lead a “movement” when one chooses to ignore dissent, complexity, nuance and reality.
At the Y in Central Maryland, where I’m the president and CEO, we don’t believe that a community is simply those who live within a few blocks of one another. A community is not a set of people who look alike, think alike and are all in one set of circumstances. We believe that a community is something larger, something that knits us together despite our differences and reminds us that we are all in this together — regardless of income level, religion, race, place of origin, gender, political beliefs, occupation, etc. A healthy community invests in itself, understands its differences and listens to disparate voices. A healthy community finds common ground, fosters volunteerism and looks to lower the boundaries that divide us. A healthy community has places that people from all walks of life come together to achieve well-being, to get to know each other and to encounter people that are different than each other.
As a country, we’ve faced much harder times than we do today. Every time we stumble, we have found the capacity to re-center ourselves around that which affirms and broadens us. Rather than narrowing our conception of community, let’s do us all a favor and broaden that conception as wide as possible.