This is part of an ongoing series about the 12 Steps as applied to ideological attachment and political polarization. I reference this book by Rabbi Rami Shapiro.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice the principles in all our affairs.
Part of me is relieved to be at this step. There were times whem having to write about political polarization week after week, it felt like such a slog. But arriving at the end, I can see how much I’ve changed. When I began, I was frustrated, champing at the bit to make others see what I was seeing, longing for others to share my frustrations with.
Now? Having tired myself out writing about this topic, I think I’ve come to a place of being less polarized around political polarization. Not that I don’t think it’s worth still talking about, but I have less need to. I’m less angry about it. I so appreciate the small band of comrades I’ve had on the Zoom calls each week. Having a space where people can honestly discuss their frustrations with the political landscape, share their passions and interests, and the things they’re doing to build relationships and meaning has been its own kind of healing. Consequently, I can honestly say I feel a bit freer to write and talk about other things that interest me.
I think this is what the spiritual awakening looks like, at least for me, in this context. Shapiro says just like the 12 steps allow us to define God for ourselves, so they allow us to devine what a spiritual awakening looks like. What it isn’t, he says, is an escape from the inherent limitations and struggles of behing human:
“There are those who imagine that being spiritually awake means being free from addiction and all harmful and hurtful behaviors. The spiritually awake person, we imagine, lives in a state of perfect satchitananda: being, consciousness, and bliss. I have no doubt that there are people like this, but I have never met one. Nor am I eager to. Someone who has transcended this world has nothing to teach those of us still seeking to live authentically in it. I don’t want to escape this world. I don’t imagine that I can end suffering for myself or others. I think suffering is no less a part of authentic living than is joy, anger, love, or any other emotion. I don’t want to stop feeling; I want to stop being driven by my feelings.”
I think this is where I’ve come to. I’m much less angsty over the minefield that is polarized public discourse, and much more open to just being myself and saying the things I want to say. It still worries me from time to time, but the worry doesn’t have so much of a hold on me.
What does it mean to carry this message to others? Probably less pointing out to other people how hypocritical and dogmatic they are being (something I will confess I occasionally took pleasure in doing on social media) and more practicing these principles in my life, and letting that speak for itself. Not out of fear— I have less of that, particularly after someone tried to “cancel” me recently and I was able to shrug it off— but more from a place of wisdom, realizing what’s worth my time and energy and what isn’t. I’m interested in talking about things I’m passionate about with nuance, not talking about the need for nuance.
I don’t imagine I’m going to rid the world of polarized thinking, or even myself, entirely. From another passage, later in the chapter:
“‘It is the disease of the ego, the addiction to the illusion that it is God, that chaos can be controlled, ordered, commanded. God is wild, creation is wild, living is wild. And that’s what makes it so damn wonderful.’
It is wonderful. I have come to see that more and more clearly as I live the Steps more and more authentically. Yes, there is terrible suffering in the world, and great evil, but there is also unimaginable love, and compassion enough to match and exceed all the horror. We cannot prevent suffering but neither can we avoid reaching out to help those who suffer. It is all of a piece: life and death, love and fear, horror and hope, injustice and justice. We cannot have one without the other, and trying to do so is at the heart of our addictions. We sought to create for ourselves a world of light alone, and when that failed, we sought to shield ourselves from the dark through acts of self-medication. This ultimately numbed us to the fact that life is constantly changing and that we don’t have to initiate change and cannot control it, but can simply allow it and learn to navigate it.”
The paradox is that you try to eliminate polarization, fight against dogmatic or polarized discourse, and you end up creating a new kind of dogma, a new set of good guys and bad guys. You mirror what you oppose. We can’t completely avoid polarities, but we can learn to see people on the other “side” (whatever that side may be), not as enemies, but perhaps, as dance partners, the necessary yin to our yang.
Someone will undoubtedly point out that that’s really hard to do when you are engaged in a battle to the death, like the current war in Gaza. Agreed. But I would argue that situations like that arise because lots of people on both sides have been choosing to ignore wiser modes of being in conflict. I certainly can’t tell anyone how to fix the situation in Gaza. What I can do is suggest that, in our own lives, we learn to dance and co-create before we are forced to run from a scorched earth.
Here’s a video of me chatting about T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets with John G.I. Clarke and Dr. David Cosser. John invited me onto his channel to talk about Girard several months ago, and he invited me back when he learned I had some lines from Little Gidding tattooed on my back.
Thank you! ❤️🔥