The separation of the individual from his roots is a salient one. I relate the need to separate to maturity and to humanism.
The small group retains its patterns. Roles are set. The dynamics are pre-ordained. Inevitability. As time has passed during the history of our species, the purity of each person’s relationship with existence has developed significance. This is easy to understand; we developed methods of coping with shelter and sustenance. We are always involved in improving these methods. As we have striven to do so, we have emerged as individuals who fulfill specialized tasks, who contribute more or less, and who articulate ideas, given us a means of understanding one another and thus of surviving. I base this observation on what seems to me to be true…our particular species has survived by seeking agreement and then taking the actions that seem most constructive. Democracy, brought into being, or, at least, brought forward from its roots in England and Greece, in these United States, seeks to ensure that what is constructive for the many will triumph over the needs of the few, and that in the end greater stability and well-being will assert a long lasting and healthy structure. History has shown that following dominance creates a fragile structure. Symbiosis is ideal. Leadership that recognizes the whole brings the hypothetical future into the picture, and a real synthesis of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander can ensue. The caveat, the difficulty, lies in the fact that the law of the jungle is natural, and democracy is not. It takes understanding. It takes work.
Because patterns of dominance favor the dominant, groups of people have been disenfranchised and social patterns such as institutional racism exist. Therefore, achieving fairness for all requires acknowledgment of patterns and actions of redress that break the patterns. It is frustration with these efforts that have led to identity politics. The celebration of ethnicity and the insistence on developing power in relationship to diverse portions of society, women, blacks, native Americans, etc., has been compensatory. I regret the existence of this kind of tribalism, and wish that we were more willing to solve problems without shifting emphasis in what seems to me to be an intrinsically regressive way, back to groups, away from the individual.
It is only by restoring respect for the individual as the essential core of identity that we can restore criteria for the definition of responsibility and character, and agree that our shared values, as a nation, revolve around the way each individual responds to his own conscience, regardless of his ancestry, familial status, wealth, or poverty.
The paradox is that people are often exploited or oppressed in relationship to identity. There ought to be nothing that causes suffering in being part of a minority. We can understand the need to assert strength through numbers by identifying with one’s ethnicity. It shouldn’t be necessary. We should strive to reach a level at which we can celebrate our backgrounds, cultural, ethnic, whatever, if we choose to, but not need to rely on it in order to find the strength to live as a full person, to express oneself, to be respected.
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