Aligning With the Future I Want to See

• Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Director

Writing in the New York Times opinion section last week, Roxanne Gay was not having it about civility, which she described as “the idea that if everyone is mannered enough, any impasse or difference of opinion can be bridged.”  She challenges this idea hard, “If you want to talk about incivility,” she writes, “let us be clear about how deep those roots reach,” pointing out a cycle of state-sponsored and supported violence that goes back centuries.  

Roxanne Gay is making a case for rage, and dismisses calls for civility that would silence it, “If we dare to protest, if we dare to express our rage, if we dare to say enough,” she writes, “we are lectured about the importance of civility. We are told to stay calm.” *

She begins the last paragraph of her essay this way, “The greatest of American disgraces is knowing that no amount of rage or protest or devastation or loss will change anything about this country’s relationship to guns or life.” 

Gay means this as an indictment of what she names, “a craven political system” that has failed to act to stop the epidemic of mass violence in the U.S. evidenced again last week in Uvalde, Texas.  But I’m struck by a different read of this phrase, “no amount of rage or protest or devastation or loss will change anything about this country’s relationship to guns or life.”  I agree, but for me, that agreement implies hope.

My hope lies in action beyond rage and protest, beyond acknowledging the absolute horror in places like Uvalde and Buffalo, and Newtown. 

Please don’t misunderstand; I made myself read the stories this week of the children and teachers who lost their lives at Robb Elementary, my own, acute, remote grief just a whiff of the mountain of grief in that town. I’m still trembling about the carnage in Buffalo.  I still weep for the 21 dead at Sandy Hook School. I’m not interested in a civility that means tamping down any of that. I am stony with rage.

But my rage is not reserved for the systems and leaders who fail to act. I have also raged these weeks against rigid thinking and self-righteousness, the arms folded, my-way-or-no-way stance of people at all points on the political spectrum in response to this latest horror.

There is just no more time for all that.

 “No one wins in that scenario,” wrote adrienne maree brown this week in Yes! Magazine. She explains, “Seeking to dominate others leads to contention, violence, and a disconnection from reality.”  

And yet so much of the response to each wrenching tragedy amounts to pointing fingers: my way is better than your way, or worse, I and mine are better human beings- more moral, more deserving to thrive, than you and yours.   

brown makes her case for another way, “internal accountability,” which she describes simply as, “Let me act in alignment with my values.”  Without this kind of individual, internal accountability, brown argues, “nothing really changes. . . if I act like I care about equal rights for everyone, but internally I believe I hold a superior position to one group of people, that internal superiority will find a way to surface.”  And that, brown argues, will only continue cycles of harm.

This kind of internal alignment is a lesser-known aspect of Satyagraha, the form of nonviolent resistance introduced by Indian lawyer and political activist Mohandas Ghandi.  In her exploration of Ghandi’s philosophy of conflict, philosopher Joan Bondurant reminded readers of his injunction that a Satyagrahi, “must consciously examine his (sic) own position, for his opponent may be closer to the truth than he is,” and that Ghandi had often spoken of the requirement that Satyagrahi, “maintain an unceasingly open approach” to those with whom they differed.

Toward the end of his life, Ghandi was criticized for speaking and acting differently than he had during the time of resistance to British rule.  “But the fact of the matter is,” he objected, “that conditions have changed ...  and I have reacted to that as a Satyagrahi.”

There’s a thread of accountability here, curving the pointing finger back to ask: Am I acting in alignment with my values?  with the future I want to see?  Do I examine my own position?  Do I leave open the possibility that I’m not right?  Am I allowing myself to be changed as conditions change?

None of this is about civility. It’s not about standing down, or standing by, or accepting things as they are.

But Roxanne Gay said it herself, “No amount of rage or protest or devastation or loss,” will change this country.   adrienne maree brown would seem to agree, “the most likely outcome of our currently ruptured society is that humans go extinct.” She goes on to say, “I want us to continue as long as we are meant to, which I believe means breaking cycles of harm.”

Someday, I believe, stories will be told about this horrible time when teachers died shielding their students from gunshots, when Black grandmothers were murdered in grocery aisles, and Asian grandmothers on city streets. But degrading others’ moral positions will do nothing to stop the slaughter. Disconnection and rigid ideas have not worked so far, and I don’t believe they ever will. 

We will only see the backside of this moment if we do things differently.  Beyond stalled arguments and power-plays about who’s right, certainly beyond mere civility, there are other paths forward to find.  For me, there is way too much at stake not to consider my own agency in that equation, to think harder, and align my actions with the future I want to see.