{"id":14622,"date":"2020-11-06T13:41:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T18:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=14622"},"modified":"2020-11-06T13:41:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T18:41:56","slug":"how-we-heal-after-a-contentious-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2020\/11\/how-we-heal-after-a-contentious-election","title":{"rendered":"How We Heal After a Contentious Election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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needpix.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The voting may be over, but the issues and partisan resentments that divided Americans for the past four years will likely survive the election and ensuing court battles that could determine who is the next president.<\/p>\n

This leaves a battle-weary nation with a dilemma: How do we heal?<\/p>\n

On one hand, the divisions so evident on a map \u2014 the wide swath of red in the country\u2019s midsection and South, the blue on the coasts \u2014 seem unfixable. Memes were circulating on social media Wednesday that said if you voted for Donald Trump, or for Joe Biden, we can\u2019t be friends.<\/p>\n

But the nation has recovered from worse wounds before, historians point out, most notably in the aftermath of the Civil War when Americans had to stop thinking of each other as us versus them, North versus South, Confederacy versus Union. We were blue or gray then; now we\u2019re red or blue.<\/p>\n

But a renowned political scientist at Harvard believes that it\u2019s not the Civil War, but another period of history that can show Americans the way out of the current climate of acrimony and division.<\/p>\n

Robert D. Putnam says the circumstances sowing division in America today \u2014 to include rising inequality, sweeping technological change, moral decay and cultural narcissism \u2014 were also present in large measure at the end of the 19th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back to a time Mark Twain disparagingly called the Gilded Age turns out to feel eerily like looking in a mirror,\u201d Putnam writes in his new book, \u201cThe Upswing<\/a>,\u201d co-written with Utahn Shaylyn Romney Garrett.<\/p>\n

But instead of staying mired in the muck, America clawed its way out, by becoming less of an \u201cI\u201d society and one more focused on \u201cwe,\u201d Putnam and Garrett say. It didn\u2019t happen after one election, but history shows a steady ascent that occurred over decades. Perhaps most significantly, it didn\u2019t happen through the work of a single, charismatic leader, but collectively, through a society determined to change.<\/p>\n

In fact, when and how we heal is up to all of us, analysts say.<\/p>\n

The \u2018I-We-I\u2019 curve<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that Putnam pinpointed an American problem and proposed ways to fix it. He explored the decline of community, social capital and civic engagement in his 2000 book \u201cBowling Alone<\/a>\u201d and the need to rebuild those facets of society.<\/p>\n

A professor of public policy at Harvard and former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Putnam went on to write other books, including \u201cOur Kids: The American Dream in Crisis<\/a>,\u201d which he had decided would be his last book until he stumbled across what he calls a \u201cconfluence of historical patterns\u201d linking the late 19th and early 20th centuries to today.<\/p>\n

When looking at where America was 125 years ago in four areas \u2014 economics, politics, society and culture \u2014 he found startling resemblance. \u201cInequality, political polarization, social dislocation and cultural narcissism prevailed \u2014 all accompanied, as they are now, by unprecedented technological advances, prosperity, and material well-being,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

To track the country\u2019s achievements, or failures, in each of those four areas over the past 125 years, Putnam created charts and found a pattern that he found \u201cbreathtaking.\u201d In each case of cultural relevance \u2014 on topics as diverse as income inequality, the cultural salience of responsibilities versus rights, and cross-party collaboration in Congress \u2014 the trend line is an inverted U.<\/p>\n

In other words, from about 1900 to the period between 1960 and 1970, America was steadily getting better, with greater economic equality, more cohesion and a stronger social fabric. Then, sometime between the 1960s and 1970s, we began to descend. We went from cooperation to polarization, from championing strong families to prizing individualism. While we have made progress in some areas, \u201cwe have sharply regressed in terms of shared prosperity and community values,\u201d Putnam and Garrett write.<\/p>\n

They dubbed this the \u201cI-We-I\u201d curve, since it shows an upswing of greater cohesiveness and community from which the nation ultimately descends.<\/p>\n

While the turning point is easy to see on a graph, the causes of the reversal aren\u2019t easily defined, Garrett said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit like watching a flock of birds in flight,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of a sudden, the entire flock will go in a different direction. And you think, well, which one turned first? But you can\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, \u201cwhen you look at all these disparate data trends, they turned at roughly the same time, with a couple of exceptions.\u201d One exception is economic inequality, which Putnam and Garrett say is a lagging indicator, and not the trigger of other societal problems.<\/p>\n

While Garrett is a fan of the Progressive Era and its policies, she said it wasn\u2019t America\u2019s political leadership that was responsible for the upswing, but ordinary citizens wanting change. For example, Teddy Roosevelt did not create, but capitalized on an issues-based movement that had begun decades before, she said. And the Social Gospel movement, which introduced Christian ethics to social problems, was a cultural response to social Darwinism and its creed of \u201csurvival of the fittest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upswing began long before the charismatic leadership came onto the scene. We think about the Progressive Era and Teddy Roosevelt, we tend to think about the big signature \u2018we\u2019 programs, Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal,\u201d Garrett said. \u201cBut when you look at where the curves begin their upward climb, it\u2019s a couple of decades before that 1912 election. The charismatic national leadership is not what saved us last time. \u2026 America\u2019s salvation actually comes from the vast upswell of citizen action.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cites Francis Perkins, Tom Johnson and Ida B. Wells, among others, as citizens who made a profound difference, along with the anti-lynching movement and the labor movement, as well as the push to build hundreds of new service-oriented civil society organizations in the new century. These groups, and others, were all \u201cso diverse as to be barely coherent,\u201d Putnam and Garrett write in the book, but that was what the Progressive movement looked like, Garrett said.<\/p>\n

Invite people back<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Tuesday\u2019s results made clear that the 2016 election wasn\u2019t an anomaly. \u201cA lot of Americans are more concerned about me than about we,\u201d U.S. Sen.-elect John Hickenlooper, D- Colorado, said Wednesday morning on MSNBC.<\/p>\n

As co-executive director of the Boston nonprofit\u00a0Essential Partners<\/a>, which deals in conflict resolution and trust building, John Sarrouf is talking a lot about healing these days and warning of what is lost if America doesn\u2019t do the hard work of repairing itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019ve divided ourselves in half, which statistically we sort of have, and tomorrow we stay in these camps, as a country, we\u2019re only half of ourselves, and we are missing the richness of each other, of our regional diversity, our religious diversity, our ethnic diversity. We\u2019ve lopped off half of who we are from each other,\u201d Sarrouf said.<\/p>\n

Sarrouf believes that it\u2019s important for Americans to put the election behind them, maybe even while the votes are still being counted: to put the campaign signs away, and to allow our political identities to retreat while focusing on our other identities, such as a parent or neighbor or person of faith.<\/p>\n

Also, he said, \u201cI would say we have to invite one another back into our lives. People unfriended people in the heat of the election season, stopped inviting people over for meals. I think inviting one another back into each other\u2019s lives is an enormous and important first step.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI think there is going to have to be a lot of caring for one another. A lot of people are going to feel misunderstood, not included. So this means caring for people whose side lost the election, whoever that is, and to help them feel that they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Detroit Free Press, bestselling author Mitch Albom\u00a0wrote\u00a0<\/a>that no matter who wins, the election means nothing if Americans don\u2019t do the hard work of repairing relationships and begin to treat each other better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all been behaving badly. I don\u2019t mean every single American citizen, but I do mean wide swaths of us, in all states and in all walks of public life, politics, media, businesses, entertainment,\u201d wrote Albom, the author of \u201cTuesdays With Morrie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe dog each other. We point fingers. We fight over candidates, judges, medical experts, masks. Almost always these days, exaggeration is chosen over understatement. Anger over calm. Mean over kind. We have more than taken sides in America. We have tunneled moats,\u201d Albom said.<\/p>\n

Noting that the pandemic was an opportunity for Americans to become more united against a common threat, Albom said we allowed it to further divide us. If this month\u2019s winners gloat and the losers protest, our society will further deteriorate, Albom argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is, our future won\u2019t be determined by who we choose to lead us this week. It will be determined by how we act after we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To that, Sarrouf adds that there will be no solution to common problems if we remain in our divided state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you care deeply about the causes that you advocate for and the beliefs that you hold, and you want to do something about them, you have to include everyone in these conversations because we are so divided that we will not get anywhere by ourselves. Anything that gets done in one election cycle will get undone in the next,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While there are close parallels in America of 1895 and America of 2020, they are not identical, and Garrett said it\u2019s important to acknowledge the failings of the earlier time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a fully inclusive movement. It was not a movement whose circle of all concern extended to everyone. It was still very much a white \u2018we\u2019 so whatever upswing we might see today must be fully inclusive,\u201d she said, adding that lingering strife over race must be addressed before America can meaningfully address its other problems.<\/p>\n

That said, both Garrett and Putnam are optimistic that America can be on the upswing again if we can collectively work toward that future by taking steps to build another \u201cwe\u201d culture, such as focusing on moral and civic education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always hope for an upswing but it depends on what we, the average Americans do. If we keep looking to Washington as our salvation, and then hating on Washington when they can\u2019t solve our problems, we\u2019re going to be stuck in this cycle forever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it all comes down to choices, she said. \u201cNo matter what the outcome of this election, ultimately what matters most is what we do locally. How we respond personally. That\u2019s the only place real change will take hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written by Jennifer Graham. First seen on Desert News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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