Fleeing Fundamentalism

Can We Transcend and Include Our Polarized Present?

Engrav’d Printed & Sold by Paul Revere Boston. The print was copied by Revere from a design by Henry Pelham for an engraving eventually published under the title ”The Fruits of Arbitrary Power, or the Bloody Massacre,” of which only two impressions could be located by Brigham. Revere’s print appeared on or about March 28, 1770. / Public domain https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Boston_Massacre_high-res.jpg

Transcending our polarized present is impossible without actively exploring how polarized understandings of the past continue to sow division. Joseph Campbell loved to quote the line from Hindu scriptures. “Truth is one; sages call it by many names.”[1] By understanding multiple perspectives in history, we can begin to see those in the present. Learning about theories of individual and group growth can help us empathize with individuals who are at different stages than we are.

From the earliest colonial contacts, American history has been a collision of myths and people. The indigenous inhabitants of the Americas experienced incredible pandemics, genocide, cultural displacement, and loss of land and community. Similarly, Africans were ripped from their homes at gunpoint to be sold as commodities in the Atlantic World. While many whites gained enormous profit and privilege in the New World, others were locked in indentured servitude and exploited for labor or sex. These stories of loss and triumph exist in a preconscious layer of trauma beneath the American Revolution and the complex development of the United States.

Any individual’s story is too small to hold the multitudes that are America. If my character arc depends upon defeating and exiling others, then I am…