I began my adult life at eighteen protesting the war in Vietnam. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin delivered our high school graduation address decrying America’s militarism, and I took up the cause. Admittedly, my impression of the army was influenced early by watching Phil Silver’s Sargent Bilko, but by the time I was old enough to be drafted the Vietnam War was raging and the idea of killing others became serious business.
That was nearly 60 years ago, yet here I am again today joining others in mass protests and singing the same songs we sang so long ago. So it goes; protest and dissent form the bookends of my life.
I never would have predicted this trajectory. Like so many others of my generation, I took America’s story to heart and grew up believing that despite our country’s regular failure to live up to its moral code – liberty and justice for all – America was on the right track. The passing of generations provided ample evidence; as the decades advanced marginalized, dismissed and otherwise rejected people found acceptance, legitimacy, and emancipation. Women, blacks, gays, and immigrants from diverse cultures were afforded opportunity, protection, and safety under the law. Albeit slowly and not without effort, the promise of America was afforded to a widening spectrum of people.
When I was growing up, my father used to tell me the politics of human society works like a pendulum, swinging from one side to the other; movement in one direction is inevitably followed by movement in the opposite direction, but over time, American democracy betters itself and advances in a process of perfecting a “more perfect union.” I still believe this is true, but admit I find the process exhausting. At eighteen, standing for hours at a protest demonstration energized me; at seventy seven, it makes my back hurt. One thing hasn’t changed for me, however; I still don’t like the “fight” idiom.
Back in the sixties, fighting a war is what we protested, but the message was that we needed to fight to succeed: to fight The Pentagon, Richard Nixon, and the war mongers of the military-industrial complex. Today, we’re still talking about fighting: fighting Donald Trump, Elon Musk, The Billionaires, and the fascistogenic GOP. Of course, there is “fighting against” and “fighting for” and the distinction makes a difference, but fighting is the primal human problem we need to overcome. I much prefer a different idiom: loving.
Just as with fighting, loving is of two types: selfish and selfless. Selfish love is about getting, and selfless love is about giving. Of the two, giving is the more powerful and effective, and every bit as world changing as what comes from fighting. Rather than asking people to fight at a protest and focusing on anger, a different approach is asking people to love – to love others, their communities, diversity, opportunity, and the moral values America stands for. Loving these things selflessly means sacrificing time, effort, and space for others rather than oneself, because creating a good society requires effort and commitment.
Loving selflessly requires as much energy, if not more, as fighting; it requires patience, generosity, and forbearance, which in times of stress like these are challenging to mobilize. Nevertheless, a more perfect union cannot be built on anger, only love.
Chant it: “What do we want?” “Love!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”
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