Solidarity Forever Maybe.

April 30th, 2008 Posted in The People, Solidarity

Paradoxically most of the active confrontational fronts in America can be mitigated by the recognition and acceptance of an overriding shared link, a band of unity that is based on and establishes a curing solidarity.

A relationship of solidarity is characterized by a concern for the other involving recognition, empathy, loyalty, support. The link can be as simple as a rooting interest in the same athletic club or the acceptance of a joint political objective. It is visible in the togetherness of the members of a sports team, a trade union, a military unit, a class at school. At implies unity in diversity, togetherness despite difference. It is a transcending of otherness even as this otherness is affirmed. It suggests the emphasis of altruism (service and attention to the other) over egoism (primary attention to the self.) It functions to maintain the group’s focus on its goal even where an opponent might try to upend it by manipulating differences and distinctions.

A stalled car with a dead battery. No tools, only ourselves. Our best hope would be to all join together to push it. We get our largest number into the solidarity circle by not applying an extraneous test involving gender, ethnicity, religion, style of life or whatever. All we want, as we face the inert vehicle, is to put it motion. Why not have all who agree in the goal join in? (Example: major political parties in Pakistan form a broad coalition to replace a military dictatorship. They join together even with well understood political differences to jump start back toward their democratic tradition.)

But there are blocks against even a limited solidarity. A few obvious ones, you can think of more.

(1) An absolutist commitment to one’s side of a distracting disagreement which is always kept in the foreground to block any possibility of joint action elsewhere. The curing solidarity can not form. Over recent years the priority given to the fundamental-secular conflict has blocked populist initiatives in access to medical care and in economic policy toward global warming that both sides would support otherwise. One band of solidarity suppresses another.

(2) An insistence on the iconic governance of a past event as in a feud that continues on and on past reason. It involves an exaggerated concern for balance and revenge. The persistence of conflicts over centuries, the calling up of the ancient iconic moments to undermine any newly discovered unity of purpose The repeat of this block is part of the history of the Balkans. The possibility of a curing solidarity is always negated. There is a long memory and a short foresight.

(3) Failure to recognize the acts of solidarity of the other, see solidarity as a statistic rather than a process. Acts of solidarity are always between individuals. For it to be seen as group mediated some consciousness within the group’s membership, a general recognition, has to be involved. The righteous people of Poland who, at serious personal risk, assisted Jewish brothers and sisters escaping the holocaust were acting alone or in small groups but the Danes, whose king (as cadre) had signaled a unified defiance against the fascists, were in a group defined and recognized effort. It is also possible to see a group effect in a pattern of action. Even without cadre leadership and directive the pattern of the sum of individual acts can be seen as a group connect. Even where the cadres in place negate the possibility of solidarity, the contrary acts of individuals can be seen as a silver lining.

In the history of ethnicity in the America there is an insistence on absolute distinctions of groups. A person belongs to one ethnic group or to another. There is an excluded middle of the person belonging to both or the fourth possibility of rejecting the distinction, dropping the category. The absolute distinction within the culture is heightened. There is a seemingly general agreement, a consensus, that establishes it. Frequently it is enshrined in law, philosophy. the historical record, but the people’s option to change is always in the wing. Distinctive group identities and cultures emerge and submerge. Where are the Visigoths, Vikings, Druids, Huguenots now? The descendant peoples continue but with new identities and cultures. Where were the Mormons before Joseph Smith’s walk of discovery into the the upstate New York woods? Historically and in fact the Afro group in USA is to some significant extent Afro-Euro and the Euro group has Euro-Afro links. There is a generally known but officially ignored overlap. For all of our ethnic groups this overlap goes off in all directions. Mexican intellectuals at one time defined an overriding Mestizo (Mixed) identity in the margin between Spanish and Amerindian. We in the USA could asserts a similar unitary identity as well (the mix-together with which most, if not all of us, could identify.)

I am not advocating, merely pointing out. One can not approach this subject without ruffling sensibilities in all directions. Search your own consciousness to test this assertion.

In the other direction, as I write ethnicity (and the other fronts) as an object is rapidly changing. The ideas we present can quickly fall behind the actual facts. We may be writing on the wind. But if we do not talk about it, we can not grope our way to a new, even if temporary, consensus. We have to constantly renew our metalanguage of understanding. If we don’t share we can mistake where we actually are.

In the current political cycle of the run for the nomination for president this question has arisen insistently and the need for a new language is imperative.

First the idea of race is out. We still can recognize physical differences but we understand them always in a cultural context. Socially recognized differences are always ethnic, the recognition is cultural. We don’t have groups based on eye color, but we could if we built up a new consensus. Second in the USA ethnic order varies considerably by place. We need to recognize this variability. One size does not fit all.

Whenever possible the rectification of inequities over time should move against institutions and organizations rather than against other people. Getting one’s own back is usually too late. The guilty party, the actual plantation owner for example, is long gone. The cowboys and Indians of the plains myths are shadows now. The later target for revenge might be a simple chicken like yourself. Take a deep breath and consider this before flying off the handle in public. Two wrongs do not make a right. Right? The values we claim are not limited to a zero-sum game. The freed woman does not have to be an alone-without-a-mate Amazon. There is enough freedom and equality and respect and honor for everyone. Always negotiate to find the resolution that will not destroy the achieved or hoped for solidarity.

The notion of synthesizing the difference, of finding the overriding conception, is never easy since it requires a negation of what is. We may be very reluctant to give up our revered categories. It may be dangerous to disarm before the other does. So solidarity is another level of possible resolution. We keep our differences but by finding our band of unity, no matter how narrow or how temporary, we abate our disagreements, conflicts and suspicions enough to act together to achieve what we all want and by maintaining our solidarity can get.

If the dike is breaking we all want to fill the gap regardless of ethnicity, gender, style of life, religious or philosophical difference and etcetera. Later for them, right now pass the sand bag.

Solidarity forever maybe.

Notes.

Examples of searching out the curing solidarity way.

* A judge and jury of one identity render fair justice to a defendant of another identity against all extraneous and distracting ploys. See the whole person and not the stereotype.

* Students of different identities want a fair chance to enter law school. As a society we want to balance past injustices whose consequences continue into the present. A temporary adjustment is required. Do we expel a person of one identity in favor of another or do we add a seat, expand the class size, place the cost on the school instead of the vulnerable pupil? May I suggest that we get the redress from the institution and its agencies and maintain the solidarity of the identity groups, the possibility of a unified people.

I recognize that I have slipped into advocacy. I find it very difficult and disconcerting. But it’s where my head is at the moment.