John, I resonate with your struggle to choose an identity that clearly represents my convictions which are so often nuanced in a way that a label can not describe. I also struggle that I identify more with progressives on many biblical values but more with conservatives on governing principles. For instance, debt relief is a biblical value at certain times of compassion and the Year of Jubilee. But it is not a sustainable principle for normal government functions. I guess that moderate progressive or moderate conservative are the best general approximations but discernment is needed in all political decisions that can’t be easily reflected in a label. But would a “principled moderate” identity help in at least communicating less than extreme positions while also prompting inquiry into “what principles?”
I appreciate this. Here in Canada, our politics are perhaps less polarized than yours, but there's still a tendency to want to sort everyone onto the left-right, conservative-progressive spectrum. I think Patrick Deneen's distinction, in Why Liberalism Failed, between left-liberals and right-liberals is a helpful one. He argues that the left and the right are two sides of the same ideological political project, mainly differing on whether they put the accent on unlimited individual expression or unlimited use of the natural world and its resources (but both agreeing more than they appear to disagree).
As a Christian, I've always found the conservative-progressive dichotomy to be unhelpful. Try as I might, I just can't see how Jesus could properly qualify as left or right. But since I've began working with an organization that partners with Indigenous communities here in Canada, I've found it increasingly difficult to locate myself on this political spectrum at all. For the most part, neither side represents the interests of Indigenous peoples, because doing so would undermine the Canadian political project in ways that would quickly lose politicians their jobs.
I think which communities and people we make investments in (and the shape of those investments) is more important than where we are located on the political spectrum. What I mean by this is that it's more helpful to divide the political spectrum this way: On the one end, we have people who are investing in their own social group and its social welfare in a way that gives little thought to people who experience marginalization. On the other end, we have people investing in people and communities experiencing suffering, marginalization, oppression, violence etc. The way politics is today, if you're on the former end of the spectrum, it's pretty easy to put a political label on yourself. The more you make investments on the latter end of the spectrum, the more you're forced to be a political pragmatist or political subversive, and the less labels stick.
Now I admit this is a simplistic comment-sized suggestion, but I think there's precedent for this kind of political reading (Augustine's reading of political history in the The City of God comes to mind as an analogous example).
One of the unexpected upshots of all this is that perhaps genuine healing of the toxically polarized political divide can only happen by forging genuine partnerships with people who are already experiencing the underside of the system. To me, at least, that's a good place to start.
This is a great reflection, and an important observation about how both partisan sides can neglect, tokenize, or otherwise use marginalized communities.
John, I resonate with your struggle to choose an identity that clearly represents my convictions which are so often nuanced in a way that a label can not describe. I also struggle that I identify more with progressives on many biblical values but more with conservatives on governing principles. For instance, debt relief is a biblical value at certain times of compassion and the Year of Jubilee. But it is not a sustainable principle for normal government functions. I guess that moderate progressive or moderate conservative are the best general approximations but discernment is needed in all political decisions that can’t be easily reflected in a label. But would a “principled moderate” identity help in at least communicating less than extreme positions while also prompting inquiry into “what principles?”
I appreciate this. Here in Canada, our politics are perhaps less polarized than yours, but there's still a tendency to want to sort everyone onto the left-right, conservative-progressive spectrum. I think Patrick Deneen's distinction, in Why Liberalism Failed, between left-liberals and right-liberals is a helpful one. He argues that the left and the right are two sides of the same ideological political project, mainly differing on whether they put the accent on unlimited individual expression or unlimited use of the natural world and its resources (but both agreeing more than they appear to disagree).
As a Christian, I've always found the conservative-progressive dichotomy to be unhelpful. Try as I might, I just can't see how Jesus could properly qualify as left or right. But since I've began working with an organization that partners with Indigenous communities here in Canada, I've found it increasingly difficult to locate myself on this political spectrum at all. For the most part, neither side represents the interests of Indigenous peoples, because doing so would undermine the Canadian political project in ways that would quickly lose politicians their jobs.
I think which communities and people we make investments in (and the shape of those investments) is more important than where we are located on the political spectrum. What I mean by this is that it's more helpful to divide the political spectrum this way: On the one end, we have people who are investing in their own social group and its social welfare in a way that gives little thought to people who experience marginalization. On the other end, we have people investing in people and communities experiencing suffering, marginalization, oppression, violence etc. The way politics is today, if you're on the former end of the spectrum, it's pretty easy to put a political label on yourself. The more you make investments on the latter end of the spectrum, the more you're forced to be a political pragmatist or political subversive, and the less labels stick.
Now I admit this is a simplistic comment-sized suggestion, but I think there's precedent for this kind of political reading (Augustine's reading of political history in the The City of God comes to mind as an analogous example).
One of the unexpected upshots of all this is that perhaps genuine healing of the toxically polarized political divide can only happen by forging genuine partnerships with people who are already experiencing the underside of the system. To me, at least, that's a good place to start.
This is a great reflection, and an important observation about how both partisan sides can neglect, tokenize, or otherwise use marginalized communities.