Imagining ourselves into one country though fictive kinship
At last month’s Living Room Conversation, we talked about demonization:
what distinguishes demonization from acceptable, if harsh, rhetorical framing for political opponents
what kinds of real-world action such a political strategy softens the ground for; and
how each of us knows where to draw the line in our own political behavior
None of us is immune to the impulse to diminish the humanity of an opponent for political advantage. Because it works. Demonizing the enemy taps into our reptilian brain, all instinct and territoriality. It's a theory of cooties with delusions of grandeur. Feelings of disgust and contamination are part of moral psychology. When applied to social engineering campaigns, directing these visceral feelings at an object defined by its Otherness seeks to dehumanize the target to the point where their actual deaths become permissible because their social death has already been accomplished. Who’s sad if “rapists and murderers” are interned without due process in a concentration camp? People might even cheer.
But…what if it’s gardeners and manicurists and children? This scenario is easier to accomplish when buttressed by a campaign to delegitimize empathy for the people upon whom this campaign of “cleansing” is being executed. As we discussed in January, center-left media has noted several prominent MAGA influencers redefining this classic social virtue as “toxic”, “sinful”, even “civilizational suicide”. It is understandable to hear white supremacists, social Darwinists, and the Ayn Rand-adjacent extol the virtues of hardening your heart against the suffering of the poor, the sick, and the weak, who are disproportionately structurally people of color. To hear self-proclaimed Christians do the same—perhaps this is when people use the phrase, Jesus wept. Pope Leo’s Catholic Church has hewn to Francis’ position, denouncing these twisted theologies.
The kernel of truth in this situation: there are real differences among people in this country, because of the unusual nature of a nation founded on Enlightenment values and ideals rather than pre-modern “blood and soil” mythology. That said, the United States has always been a stage for white supremacist violence, because there have always been social castes premised on ethnic/national hierarchies. At the same time, there always has been the idea that anyone can become an American, even when the practice wasn’t fully living up to the ideal. That concept can’t work if it’s only a top-down relationship between state and citizen. You need lateral acceptance, from citizen to citizen. We have to look at each other and agree: we are in this together, with a shared interest in our common good—even as we also maintain our private interests as individuals.
Which brings us to the topic of our next Living Room Conversation: after so many years of polarizing politics have brought us to this “house divided” moment in an ever-imperfect body politic, how can we now recommit to imagining ourselves together as a country, to being citizens in the kind of relationship that encourages standing up for each other’s human dignity and caring about each other’s welfare in certain basic ways?
We'll discuss the concept of "fictive kinship". What values do Americans today share that can bind us, like kin? Are there limits to the metaphor of family?
What shared historical experiences become origin stories about generational relationships to the country?
What role does the Constitution, as our common contract, play in our sense of civic kinship?
Does a republic by nature call for fictive kinship? France's slogan liberté, égalité, fraternité contains a classically republican set of values with a common model as the USA: ancient Rome. The founding concept e pluribus unum, “out of many, one”, derives from ancient political theory about friendship.
What is the role of mass media in fostering the kind of “imagined community” that a country requires, for its populace to inhabit a shared world of facts and reality?