Dialectic America

In 2014, my family and I took an opportunity to do something amazing. We spent a year away from the US.

I was in seminary. The seminary had a long standing relationship with the Lutheran Church of Finland. It started following WWII in order to give students opportunities to experience a different culture. Most of the exchange went in the direction of Finnish students coming to the US. But in our case, I, as a US student, went to Finland for the year to study at the University of Helsinki. I was in my late 30’s, married, and we had four children (5, 7, 9, 11 at the time).

The biggest shock to my system was looking back at the US and seeing so clearly the ever present and ongoing conflict of two options and only two options. Observing the US from afar caused me to finally see that clearly. It actually bothered me immensely. It didn’t matter what we might be talking about – we have this tendency to always narrow everything down to two options, an either/or. Even when we have multiple options, we do everything in our power to force those multiple options into one of two categories, or teams, or beliefs, or parties, or whatever.

And we make the assumption that these two sides must be in conflict – that only one can win. It’s all or nothing.

But that’s false. That’s just people trying to make things simplistic. Because the reality is much more complicated than that. Not only are there always more than just two options, but more often than not, we live in a dialectic.

A dialectic is when two opposing things are both true at once. This, I would argue, is what the US actually is. America is a both/and.

We see the dialectic of the US in politics, religion, culture, and more.

We have amazing aspirations of equality, justice, and freedom. We love to claim these things and say that we love them. We have laws that enshrine these things. And at the same time we have policies and laws that are the antithesis of these things as well.

Both of these are a part of the United States. It’s not an either/or situation. It’s both/and. We are heading in two opposite directions at the same time.

In some ways Donald Trump is the most unAmerican president we have ever had. He has been impeached twice, a convict, broken norms around the Presidency, over reached the law, used the National Guard against our own people, and acted like a king with ultimate authority.

And at the same time, Donald Trump is the most American president there has ever been, or rather what he represents is the most American thing ever. With him, we get America’s greatest (terrible hits) – the Gilded Age greed and disregard for working conditions and use of tariffs, Andrew Jackson’s ego and drive to take land and displace people, John Adams Alien and Sedition Act coming down hard on dissenters, Warren Hardings corruption, Herbert Hoover’s homelessness in America, Richard Nixon’s enemies list and attack on the media, and more.

We also get Donald Trump’s tapping into several American Myths – the Frontier Myth, the Founding Myth, and the Lost Cause Myth. Myths often carry aspirational values of some sort.

And we like to say that Donald Trump and his administration is not who we are. Yet here we are. This is exactly who we are. We just don’t like what we see. We’re like alcoholics who just can’t stop no matter how destructive continuing will be. We tell ourselves that we can quit anytime we want. But it’s a lie. We have stopped on that path multiple times in the past. And when we do, when we focus on living into our aspirations, we self sabotage by voting for the destructive path again. “I’ll just have one. What harm could it do?” And like an alcoholic that falls off the cliff, we end up binging and being destructive, ruining relationships and lives. The US needs more than an intervention. We need more than just rehab for a few months. We need an ongoing 12 step program with an accountability partner to keep us honest. Otherwise, we shouldn’t really be surprised that we keep voting for the addiction.

But again, it’s not an either/or. Our history is full of the efforts and policies and laws that show how dedicated we really are towards the aspirations we claim. The right to vote has expanded since the beginning of this country in incredible ways. LGBTQ+ people have more rights now than ever. The same for women. We have improved working conditions. And more.

I think part of our challenge is that the either/or is so very appealing. It simplifies everything. When we can compartmentalize everything into an either/or, we get to protect the lie that we are separate beings that are not connected to anything else. This also protects are belief that we are in control. We can’t control the universe, so we keep believing that we can control ourselves and our immediate environment. And if we are really good at fooling ourselves about this – we even believe we can control other people. And while we believe we can control others, we find it ridiculous to believe that we are somehow connected.

Control is an illusion. To believe that we have any control over anything is delusional at best. Sure, I can pick up a pen if I want to. But that’s not what control is. The definition of control is “the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.” But is that really what happens? Doesn’t it require the other person to submit? Do we really, actually have control without someone else agreeing to do what we want them to do? No.

So we just lie to ourselves. A lie is more comforting than the truth. The Puritans, one of my favorite punching bag groups, loved to impose their ways on others. They aren’t still around thankfully. But their ideas live on unfortunately. Causing just as much damage as ever.

When I think about religion, especially Christianity, it is becoming quite clear of the dialectic that exists in the religion. The dialectic comes down to this – Christianity the religion that imposes itself vs. Christianity which is about following Jesus. These are two different paths that are both taking place with varied results.

I think we have a uniquely American challenge with Christianity. And that centers on individualism. We have a whole strand of Christianity that sees faith as nothing more than a private piety, a personal relationship with Jesus, and/or a set of rules/morality to be imposed on individuals. It is a privatized individualistic faith ultimately. Even if it uses government or the institution of the church to impose these things on people, the focus is on the individual, separate from everyone and everything else.

This is the antithesis of Scripture’s message and the long history of the church. It is an Americanized twisting of faith to remove any communal aspect of faith.

When faith is just a compartment like that, individualized, then it makes it easy to separate everything else and continue to maintain the illusion of independence and individuality. We see the implications and consequences of this. It’s part of why our churches are struggling. This compartmentalization, in a broader sense the compartmentalization of our lives, leaves us disjointed, detached, and wandering. We see it in our politics, our communities, our education system, the criminal justice system, and all the variety of support systems designed to help people. I think this is part of why we continue to face so many of the challenges our society has – like gun violence, poverty, abuse, corruption, environment disaster, and more. It’s why we don’t deal with mental health. It’s why we are even having debates about whether people should be fed or have access to health care.

America is a dialectic. It is moving in two opposing paths at the same time. Making progress on both, if you want to think about it that way. But progress isn’t always a positive in terms of how it impacts people.

Maybe we’ll finally recognize this reality. Because once we do, then we can finally be honest about ourselves.