Spiritual Roots of Political Depression
Since the 2016 election and rise of the MAGA party, I have felt a deep depression, not only in me, but emanating from my soulmate, my associates, my friends and family, and my faith community. I have experienced psychological depression and studied economic depression. Though many of the symptoms are similar, this depression is different. I believe it to be a political depression, a crisis of hope in the speech and action of citizens, a loss of faith in, and a growth in fear for, the future of our world.
I have been using my blog reflections to wrestle with our situation. Why did we get here? What does it mean? How do we respond? I studied and discussed the resentment of the working poor, the end of capitalism, the decline of democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, seeking to understand the malaise we experience. These meditations provide a few indicators. They help me go on — but to where?
A lot of books and articles I read focus on the American economy of un“free market” capitalism which is creating large and growing inequities in human living; and they refer to the culture which supports capitalism over against the culture of democracy. Many point to the racism and white supremacy that has been a dominant strain in the American and Western culture including language, history, religion, and education that grounds the American economy and politics and leads to new divisive tribalism in American society.
Jefferson and Adams and the great leaders who followed appreciated the religious sentiment in diverse cultures. While they had disagreements on policy coming from different perspectives, they realized that to resolve those differences they had to appeal to a more fundamental unity beyond culture and its diverse languages, arts, philosophy, and religions. To become a united republic, they agreed that all citizens must have the rights to choose and practice the culture they wanted, especially the right to practice, or not, their religion. The unity is in a democratic faith in the dignity and future of humanity. A faith in freedom and justice for all.
I used the notion of “disruption” now popularized in entrepreneurial business, technological advance, and management consulting. The MAGA faction is disrupting the American world order by promoting Christian Nationalism and a mass-based populism of individual rights over democratic responsibilities. However, this threat could also be an opportunity for progressives because the MAGA mass demonstrate the habit of thinking and action in the American world order that got us here. It needs to be disrupted.
But instead of using the tools of fear and resentment, the progressive might use hope and concerted action, to advance a new democratic social order: An economy that replaces the predatory capitalism which commodifies workers, people, money, and thought but empowers persons and associations politically. In a culture that is inclusive and tolerant with a politics that reaches for the ideals of a democratic republic.
While culture is a very important (shall I say “essential”) dimension of society, I believe that this political depression we are experiencing is at root existential and spiritual, and therefore a crisis of faith beyond its cultural expressions. I just read a piece on John of the Cross and his Dark Night of the Soul. The article reminds me that this new dark age beyond the “American century” is a dark night of the soul of America and its world. As a dark night of the soul, it is also a possible transition to a new enlightenment. We can accept our impasse and embrace the dark night of our American soul in order to dismiss our gods and open ourselves to a new emerging consciousness of who we are.
Perhaps this will enable us collectively to move from meditation to contemplation, from these words to the silent experience from which comes the speaking of our world, from self-consciousness to universal consciousness, from our formulas in and about space and time to the point where space and time originate “before” our formulas, i.e., from the things in our world to the nothing from which they come. This makes no sense in philosophical meditation on cultural expression. I can only sense it in spiritual contemplation of the pre-objective consciousness of human activity.
How do we apply John’s Dark Night to our Dark Age — combining the spiritual with the political.
My soul is intertwined with all the souls I feel beyond their beliefs. My soul can only be “saved” if all souls are. Not by me contemplating in private, but with my neighbors speaking and acting in concert. Nor can souls be saved with doctrines and words, i.e. proselytizing, converting others to my language, culture, and world perception. I cannot save our souls myself. In fact, we can only have soul when there is no more purely individual conscious self. No more solipsistic “I.”
How can we collectively open ourselves to the radically new God who does not yet exist — not just in monasteries, churches, mosques, workshops — but into the public space beyond the separations of religion and ideology? How do we as a nation and world community climb the holy mountain, cross the Red Sea, discover the Holy Grail — all event-symbols for passing through the darkness to transcend all the icons that block us — all products of our own making.
I thought of, and eliminated, events where that universal consciousness and solidarity might be present: National celebration of VE and VJ day, DC coming together to celebrate the Capitols winning the Stanley Cup, Political campaigns and rallies: victories in war, politics, sports. Over others and the Other.
I also thought of national grief celebrations, e.g., when Lincoln, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King died. That is closer, I think. Suffering is an occasion for deep silence and the appearance of spirit. Shared suffering is a prerequisite for solidarity beyond and within diversity. But I refuse to believe that the biblical Apocalypse that brings universal suffering and death is an event to work towards. Or maybe I should just recognize that this apocalypse is here and now in this dark age of disruption.
I do experience, although darkly, an enlightening, universalizing moment in community-based political events — not in the words, slogans, or even outcomes of the events, but in the very act of getting together and collectively speaking out. I feel strongly that political acts of solidarity, resistance, and appeal for the future is where I most discover and nourish soul even in the darkness. I cannot divorce politics from spirituality nor spirituality from politics. Which allows me to include the culturally or religiously diverse into my consciousness which is our consciousness.
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In the works: Theory, Policies, and Experiments in Democracy: How we renew and transform our republic through democracy. To help me I am studying and discussing Sheldon Wolin’s Politics and Vision, Danielle Allen Justice by Means of Democracy, and reports on specific actions to restate the Rules for Radical Democrats. More to come.