What If

“Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces.” Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

In 1958 Hannah Arendt wrote these words as part of her treatise in The Human Condition. Arendt was no romantic when it came to politics. She believed in action based upon a plurality of people and views. And she believed that agreements to what seem intractable issues among people come from the very tension and conflict that arises among members of society. She herself presented no solutions per se to any of the world ills. But she was a great observer of human behavior and actions and understood the power of the mind and the imagination of a collective people to forge their own futures.

So if this is so, where do we go from here? Where is here? Where are we now? I was talking to a friend recently about possibilities - how we cannot know the future but because we are so uncomfortable with uncertainty, many of us imagine the worst, some of us hope for the best, some of us have no clue but only a bucket full of raw emotions. But what if we live in the understanding that we cannot know the future, but we can try to imagine the way we’d like it to be and go ahead shaping it. This ability does not rely on reason alone based on data or facts or the result of our AI inquires on how to save Democracy. After all, how much data and information and different sources do each of us need to know that what we see happening every day needs correction?

I suggest that we have all that we need and our choice and our ability to choose does not lay in more data or more waiting or more angry retorts on social media. Reviving democracy rests upon our ability as citizens to imagine a better way - to switch our perspective from the rear view mirror - no we are NOT going back - eyes ahead please. But where are we driving to? That is the question, and I hold no suggestions for what that should look like. Why? Because the vision and the road map must arise from community conversations, from entering into dialogue with open minds, with good will, and honest intent.

In The Human Condition Hannah Arendt wrote:

“Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.”

No we don’t know the solutions or rather we shouldn’t think we do - how many people believe if we could only just rid ourselves of the current administration with one fell swoop, that we’d all be OK again? I submit too many, because as I wrote in my last piece “What Are You Doing Today” there is much to be rooted out in America’s entire political and social systems.

We can only realize the number of possibilities for the overturn of America’s racism and inequality by not reacting from fear, anger and despair but to begin to respond from a place of imagination and wisdom - this is an open space, a non-constrained space, a space that allows the voice of others but, as importantly, our own deepest voice. It is a place that lets everyone breathe. 

Recently, Democracy Is Us Founder Peggy O’Neal asked this most urgent question:

“What if, instead of just reacting, we could bring wisdom - the kind that sees clearly but doesn’t give up? What if we could bring love - not as an escape, but as a real force for strength? And what if we could bring determination - steady, unshakable, and grounded in what truly matters?”

What if, indeed?

By Susan Wright, Democracy Is Us Board and Council Member