I assume that you know this story, but I do wonder how often we see this horrendous treatment of fellow humans as an integral part of European and American identity. I didn’t take it this way until recently.

Actually, there is a strong tradition of ignoring our past completely. Various types of utopian thinking, even science fiction, focus on the future and what we might make of it. These thinkers seem to follow, more or less, Buckminster Fuller’s advice that instead of trying to fix something that is not working, build something new. Not a bad idea if you are looking at a wrecked bicycle, but not so great if you are looking at crimes against humanity.

In my book, Corporate Integrity: Rethinking Organizational Ethics and Leadership (2005), I focused on the future not the past. I asked the question: “What would corporations look like, if they had integrity?” Then I explored 5 dimensions of corporations (cultural, interpersonal, organizational, social, and natural), in terms of what they could be like and how to get there. It was a kind of utopian thinking, not science fiction, but not including the past either.

I assumed then that a carefully drawn picture of a good future would be enough to move us toward it. I think now that was a mistake, which I first realized when doing research for what became my next book, Civilizing the Economy: A New Economics of Provision (2010).

I discovered that Adam Smith, the “father” of capitalism, had been meeting with the “tobacco lords” of Glasgow when he was writing The Wealth of Nations. He knew that the source of wealth he enjoyed was based on the slave-based tobacco trade with the colonies, but instead of giving us the facts, he wrote about an “invisible hand.” His dismissal of the role of slavery in capitalism has been continued by many others including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and even Amartya Sen.

In Civilizing the Economy, I argued that there were other elements of our past—the caring for families, the civic sphere, and the making of provisions—that could give us a foundation for changing the past and thereby changing the future to a “civilized economy.” Early capitalism was a slave economy, but there were other stories to tell.

I can now see the direction I was going. Our history of injustice toward people and land had never been repaired, so in The Climate of Justice, I started with the observation that our country began in a climate of injustice and that until we dealt with this injustice, we would not have the capacity to face our environmental crisis. In a tragic way, Trump’s reign seems to support my argument. His destruction of our social relations matches his dismissal of our Earth’s demolition.

Trump and his cult leaders have also tried to sanitize our history, which would return us to the days of Adam Smith that ignored a major source of their wealth: the Atlantic slave trade.

We have all heard stories of the Scientific Revolution or the Industrial Revolution, without any reference to the “middle passage.” What’s wrong with that. Well, it violates the principle of coherence. The principle says that if you cannot understand Africa without understanding Europe, then you cannot understand Europe without understanding Africa. Furthermore, if you cannot understand slavery without understanding capitalism, you cannot understand capitalism without understanding slavery. And what is the problem with incoherence? I don’t see how one can get a coherent future with an incoherent past.

Not that people don’t try. A recent attempt is Jeremy Lent’s description of Western development in his book, Ecocivilization ( 2026). Lent explores the conditions and possibilities of multiple social worlds, from agriculture to technology, and provides the reader with a wealth of information about how “making a world that works for all” could happen in each sector. Lots of good things to know about what we could do and what people are doing. Very little, on the other hand, about the past injustices that have not been repaired, At the end of his utopian book, he does tell his story of European development:

“In early modern Europe, for example, a rare set of characters emerged, such as the sophisticated economy with paper currency, productive agriculture, movable type printing, the use of gunpowder, a network of roads and canals, large-scale iron production, and cosmopolitan cities. This was rare but not unprecedented. The same set of conditions had previously arisen in Song dynasty China in the 11th century. However, they had little effect on China’s historical trajectory, whereas in Europe they led to the transformation of the Scientific Revolution. A major reason for this contrast is a shared manifold of meaning that arose in Europe around the vision of “conquering nature,” as championed by Francis Bacon and other contemporary philosophers. This overriding and revolutionary narrative integrated the various breakthroughs occurring in mathematics, philosophy, and empirical science into a new coherence that led to one of the great phase transitions in history.” (347)

This seems like the story that many of us learned in school. It’s not untrue, but we now know that this story is not a “new coherence” but incoherent because it leaves out that during this time, one to two million Africans suffered the middle passage. Maybe the reason Europe “developed” and China did not was that Europe extracted wealth from the people and the land of Africa and America and China did not.

The beginning of the European “scientific revolution” was also the beginning of the African and American devolution: the “floating holocaust.” Thing got even worse during the century of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson. Freedom and slavery “developed” together taking twists and turns through the decades to our upcoming midterms.

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There are 3 bases in baseball, 1st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. But there is also Home Plate. There is no “home plate” in the Trinity.

Plato had three levels of society: rulers, military, and peasants. Doesn’t that about cover the topic?

Aristotle had an interesting way of thinking about triads. The virtues were in the middle between the two extremes. Justice, for example, was not getting too much, or too little, but just right.

What about the philosopher Hegel? He had thesis, antithesis, and syntheses. What a dynamic triad!

We have three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. That seems to work; except some would include the “fourth estate.” The press. And what about referendums, initiatives, and protests? What about lobbyists, think tanks, donors, or influencers? Does sticking to a triad model limit our vision?

Well, at least three is better than two. Who wants to live in a world of “either-or” right or wrong, saved or condemned, free or slave. Better to have some room for a middle ground, or maybe even a scale from one to 10. How bad is crossing the border without permission compared to robbing a bank?

Mybe we should not always think in twos, or in threes. Home base, after all, is just as important, if not more important, than any other base.

Speaking of home base. The Christian Triad of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, appears to leave out our home base: the Earth. The Trinity is about the one God in three forms, but none of the forms are about the living Earth: our human home. There are at least two reasons for this. First of all, the Christian God of the 2^nd and 3^rd century was separated from the fertility gods and goddesses of animistic religions. The worship of one God replaced the gods of hearth and home, and the gods of fertility.

The second reason is that all three slots of the triad were already filled. True, the Earth was God’s creation to be dominated by humans, but it was not part of the holy triad. I think you can see why the Christian church, for the most part, has not been a protector of the Earth.

In the Introductory Chapter to my book. A Climate of Justice, I shared the research of the anthropologist Georges Dumezil that demonstrated that triadic thinking belongs to Indo-European languages. I then proposed that we engage in quadradic thinking instead by including in our analysis the Earth, our Humanity, the Social, and the Civic. Religious language would belong to the social.

There is a sequence among the four. If you begin with the Earth. our home, then you look at our humanity, as living in the biosphere, with others in society, and for others in the civic realm. There are other frameworks, of course, it depends on where you begin. If you limit yourself to three things, that may cover the key bases, or it may not.

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It’s a moral and legal failure for Trump to use Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as his own military force to capture, detain, and deport the undocumented and act as though they were combatants.

The undocumented, of course, are also legal persons, with the right to due process, as stated in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. In1982, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that undocumented immigrants were “persons” entitled to due process and equal protection.

Corporations are also “legal persons.” They can make contracts and can be sued for wrong doing. The Supreme Court said that corporations can talk and they can talk with their money, but corporations are not civilians. The Undocumented are. It’s OK to buy and sell corporations, but not civilians. Civilians are fathers, mothers, children, workers, and builders of community. They are persons in relationships, relationships not among combatants, but among civilians.

So what? So, civilians do not belong to the battlefield, but to the civic realm, or civic space, a space grounded in our shared humanity. The undocumented are not just legal persons, and their rights should never be forgotten, but they are also human persons, just like any one of us..

There is a story that the United States military has repeatedly attacked civilians to win wars. They did it in the Indian Wars, in the Second World War, especially Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Vietnam, and now in Trump’s domestic war against undocumented civilians.

I know that crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor like driving without a license or shoplifting or disorderly conduct. These are crimes, but they are called misdemeanors for a reason. It’s bad behavior. Something people should not do, all things being equal. As we all know, things are seldom equal. In most of these cases, if some injustice was done, it doesn’t take much to restore justice. They certainly do not deserve the militaristic intervention of ICE.

I assume that you are as outraged by ICE tactics as I am. True, the undocumented are not citizens, but they are civilians. We should not be at war with them. It turns out that we are civilians too, and if our government will not protect them, we cannot assume that it will protect us.

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Perhaps Orlando Patterson’s view of freedom can help us out. Patterson is a sociologist, who has done foundational research on the sociology of slavery, and as you might have guessed, also on freedom (The Paradox of Freedom: A Biographical Dialogue 2023). He sorts out three types of freedom: “personal freedom,” which is living without constraints, “sovereign freedom,” which he defines as the freedom to act regardless of the wishes of others, and “civic freedom,” which is the capacity of adults to participate in the life and governance of their community (p. 195).

Personal freedom, as the term implies, is the freedom of persons: of individuals. For Patterson, the Western value of personal freedom emerges from the existence of slavery. In contrast to slavery, which denies a person’s dignity, personal freedom affirms it. Personal freedom, in Western culture at least, shares its history with the history of slavery. Personal freedom also implies the power of ownership. No one owns me. I own myself. I am not a slave. It seems to me that both individual and social democrats would affirm “personal freedom,” because it is essential for democracy.

For the most part, individual democrats assume that the social constraints that people encounter are not insurmountable, and individuals can usually overcome them. Social democrats, on the other hand, see some social constraints, such as poverty, illness, and white supremacy, as likely barriers to personal freedom and some social services, such as public education, social security, and affordable housing, as conditions that advance personal freedom.

Patterson’s second form of freedom, sovereign freedom, gets its power from its location in a set of social relations. Sovereign freedom does not emerge from the value of personal power but rather from one’s social position of domination over others. It’s the freedom to enslave others, which, as you know, was a freedom exercised throughout much of Western history; from the Greeks, the Romans, the Middle Age serfs, to the Atlantic slave trade.

Individual democrats tend to dismiss the function of sovereign freedom in our social and civic institutions as well as in the family. The white supremacists and Christian nationalists that now dominate the Republican party provide ample evidence of the power of sovereign freedom. Social democrats exercise their opposition to such authoritarian forms of sovereign freedom through support of labor unions, universal health care, and community organizing. In a sense, democracy depends on the creation of severe limits on sovereign freedom as signaled by the recent “No Kings” protests.

For the advancement of a climate of justice, the third type of freedom, civic freedom, is the most attractive. Of course, it relies on individuals who coordinate the exercise of their personal freedom with others who also experience personal freedom or at least the desire for such freedom. The claim for mutual personal freedom, in fact, is the voice of justice, of caring and protecting the vulnerable among us. The climate of justice draws on the claim among humans for equal freedom. The civic does not erase social differences but rather addresses them when they constrain personal freedom.

The key difference between social and individual democrats is not their appreciation of personal freedom, but rather their acknowledgement of the social and historical context of personal freedom. Neither one, unfortunately, has given enough attention to our deep relationship with the Earth, which continues to suffer from the “sovereign freedom” of our current administration.

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Fitrst, according to AA, we have to admit our addiction. What seems to drive us toward a future we do not want for our children, but we don’t seem capable of stopping? It’s no secret that the collective desire for more and better and bigger things is in the driver’s seat. Behind that drive, however, resides a fear that “others” will get in our way or take our share, and that fear often shows itself as hate for the other, which we see displayed daily by Trump and his administration.

The second step is to “come be believe that a Power getter than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” and then step 3, “make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.” In a democratic society, especially with collective addictions and systemic dysfunctions, the power that could be greater than our collective addiction is the civic realm that is diverse, equal, and inclusive, and grounded in our shared humanity. Civic practices such as political representation, voting rights, and the rule of law, provide a power to mitigate this type of social failure. The problem here is not the individual will, but rather a general will, grounded in the civic realm.

Instead of trying to destroy the civic realm, as Trump and Christian Nationalists are wont to do, a successful recovery program requires that we make it a safe place for all sober citizens. It’s a place for mutual recognition of each person’s humanity, which can serve as an antidote of the fear of the other.

Another significant step is to honestly take stock of what we have done and to make amends to those we have harmed. Instead of trying to hide our wrong doings, we need to create narratives that include them. We value freedom, of course, but we began as a slave colony. We love our land, but it was the land of Indigenous peoples. We created great wealth, but we did not share it equally. We took much from the Earth, but we did not return much. Perhaps this anniversary could be a time for making amends.

Finally, we need to admit that we cannot do this alone. We need our allies and even our critics to help us chart a new path, one that some of them have already begun. We are a powerful nation, but right now, this power enhances our addictions, not our recovery.

The power for our recovery, as I suggested, exists in the civic realm, It is the foundation for democracy, It’s true that the Civic must be freed from moneyed interests and corporate domination, and that’s possible, and perhaps necessary, for our recovery.

It’s like each person giving according to their ability and receiving according to their need.

It’s like building a ramp for wheelchairs.

It’s like an economy that provides for all.

It’s like a spring rain, refreshing our hopes and dreams.

It’s like the NorthStar, guiding us through the night.

It’s like an agreement on how we will live together.

It’s like a scale, balancing opposing claims and petitions.

When it prevails, it’s like a knife that cuts through all the crap.

It’s like a pregnancy; we cannot wait until the new-born arrives.

It’s like a thorn in our side, keeping us from being satisfied with the status quo.

It’s like a mighty stream, pushing us toward a new day.

It’s like the “balm of Gilead,” soothing the pain of injustice.

It’s like a foundation, the basis for our social order.

It’s like a framework that puts things in their place.

It’s like a dream of our country making good on a debt.

It’s like a good breakfast that energizes us to face the day.

It’s like a trumpet that alerts us to coming danger.

It’s like the glue that holds us together.

It’s like the. promises our ancestors made to us.

It’s like a wedding, where vows are made and relationships are named.

It’s like a gift that brings joy to all.

It’s like a time when groups get what they deserve.

It’s like a candle that lightens up the darkness.

It’s like the dawn that promises a new day.

It’s like a song that rings in your ears long after you first hear it.

It’s like a Civilian Review Board that addresses the concerns of others.

It’s like the ocean: a home to all its creatures.

It’s like a treasure in the attic, forgotten by some and unknown to others.

It’s like a wolf howling in the night.

Justice is like us when we stay with the injured and protect the vulnerable.

When we find joy together in such solidarity, we may experience a noticeable shift from a climate of injustice to a climate of justice.

I recognize that “loaf more” is appealing to some. “Just wait until the storm passes.” Loafing, however, does not have a good record. We now know that after the moral gains we achieved in the 1960’s and 1970’s, our forward movement faltered. Once the Republican party succeeded in their “southern strategy,” our gains evaporated. We may not have been loafing, but we were not paying attention to the rise of what we now know as the neo-confederacy.

“Believe more” sounds a bit strange. Yes, if more people had believed in women’s rights, we may have passed the Equal Rights Amendment. But it could also be true that if more people had actually thought about women’s rights, the Amendment would have gotten more support. While a disagreement about beliefs will seldom be resolved by people believing more, it could be by thinking more!

Another problem with beliefs, especially, religious beliefs, is that politicians use them for political purposes. Some politicians and preachers, for example, have turned the conflict between capitalism and socialism into a battle between Christianity and atheism, or between believers and non-believers. There are also “true believers” such as the core of MAGA members, who have tied their group identity to their sense of self-worth.

Thinking has its dark side as well. Thinking can be overly abstract, can divert attention from emotions and empathy, and fail to engage people’s care for others. Popular models of thinking are based on self-interest, or calculation, or interaction. That’s all OK for its purposes, but these approaches to thinking take most of the valuable aspects of thinking for granted, such as what should we be thinking about, how can we think together or even how does thinking sustain our humanity.

After all, we are thinking animals. We are “biological plus,” and the plus is our participation in language, first our mother tongue, and then the language of family, friends, school, science, work, religion, and civic life. Thinking is a bio-social experience. Just as we become alive when we breathe in the air of the biosphere, we become fully human when we are spoken to and participate in the language of our caregivers: in the language of care.

The fact is that we were born of a woman, and if we were born well, we were born into a caring family. Think about that! What happened to us? Why did it happen? So what?

If we men could think about these things, and think about the history of patriarchy, of sexual violence and abuse in our society, and even think with women about these things, what would be thought-provoking in such a conversation, what would be our stance toward something as simple as an Equal Rights Amendment?

Sometimes, our beliefs get in the way. They prevent us from moving forward with care and curiosity, with realizing our potential to actually enjoy thinking something we have never thought before.

Take the issue of migration. You may agree that people who crossed the border without permission should be expelled because you believe in law and order. But what happens when you think about it. First of all, you must bracket your belief and consider the relevant facts: their everyday life, your everyday life, and then listen to things-that-come-to-mind that you had not thought before. Such thinking allows you to learn more about others and about yourself. Sometimes, the development of thought takes place between persons instead of inside persons. People participate in a mutual dialogue where they learn together.

Now some would say that without belief, you don’t know what to think or think about. I’m not so sure. Care is not a belief or a doctrine. It is a lived relationship with another. Because we have had care givers, we can think carefully about what we should do. People may desire more guidance in their family, social and work lives, but I think caring is enough in the civic realm.

Those who fight for a Christian nation, or a White Christian nation are trying to destroy the civic realm, because it is all-too-human. It’s where the people care for each other. People bring to the civic space their values from their various religious and non-religious beliefs, but inside this space their task is to care for the people. They are tasked with thinking carefully about how we all should live together as contemporary human beings with equal dignity. We have guidelines—our Constitution and its Amendments—but just believing in them will not meet the challenge. We must think together as carefully as possible about how we can design and build a common life for those in our care.

The Tailwinds of American Prosperity

The tailwinds are strong

They carry our wrongs,

If things don’t change,

we’ll get where we’re going.

Some suffer some don’t

Some go with the flow

They fit right in

Others get it on the chin.

If you can go with the flow

You won’t feel a thing.

Until it’s too late

Then you’ll feel its sting

The tailwinds are strong

They just keep on blowing.

Pushing us toward a future

Where we cannot go.

It didn’t have to be this way

Human choices created today

The tailwinds are ours

They reflect the color of our skin

They reveal the white man’s sin.

Yes, the tailwinds are strong

They have such force,

But the headwinds are growing

We could change course.

It’s a turbulent time

Our stories are clashing

The Oceans are rising and

Civilians are uniting.

We share a humanity

born in Africa,

Inhabiting the Earth

Searching for a home.

With every breath we take

The wind does us make

It’s the breath of life

that holds us together

It’s that simple;

It’s like the weather.

I have always appreciated the example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in addressing these questions. King drew on his Christian faith not to lead a religious movement, but a civil rights movement. The fight was not about different interpretations of the Bible or of non-Christians, but about segregation, voting rights, and poverty. The Christian leaders who were involved in this movement transferred what they found as meaningful in the Christian context to the civic and work contexts.

They did not try to “Christianize” our civic and military government, or “Christianize” the workplace, but rather fought for equal rights and fair wages. Instead of Trump’s Sunday event at the National Mall in Washington of a “national jubilee of prayer, praise and Thanksgiving,” they organized a march on Washinton where Dr. King spoke about his dream of the end of segregation.

Finally, King did not base his arguments on “God’s love,” as some politicians do today, but on the promises implied in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Christian nationalists seem to ignore the fact that Jesus did not know beans about the civic or democracy. He lived under Roman occupation, was not a Roman citizen, and hoped for a kingdom (the Kingdom of God), not a democratic socialist republic. The lesson here, as I see it, is that the civic context is not the same as the Christian context.

The civic context is not based on religious beliefs, but on a shared humanity. Its Western historical roots are in the 6^th century BC Greek city-states, and it has developed since then to serve as the context for the protection of human rights and justice for all. All religions have a right to help develop the meaning of the civic from their perspective or context, but none have the right to dominate it. The civic sphere is the context for democracy that relies on citizens who guard it against authoritarian invaders.

So, what is the Christian context? The best answer I have found comes from my mentor, Prof. Paul Lehmann. His book, Ethics in a Christian Context (1963) defines the context as the “church,” but he defines the church not so much as an institution, but rather as “ the fellowship-creating reality of Christ’s presence in the world” (49). This “fellowship-creating reality” is not about believing in some doctrine. As Lehmann writes:

“The difference between believers and unbelievers it’s not defined by church membership, or even, in the final analysis, by baptism. The difference is defined by imaginative and behavioral sensitivity to what God is doing in the world to make and keep human life human, to achieve the maturity of men (persons) that is, the new humanity.”

This does not mean that belonging to a Christian community is irrelevant. It does mean that the church does not own God. God is acting in the world, and Christians celebrate and interpret that activity. Instead of the movement from God to the church to the world, the movement is from God to the world to the church.

So, the Christian context, according to Lehmann, is the communal activity of discerning and interpreting “what God is doing to make and keep human life human.” For Christians, the Bible and its history of interpretation express this work, which means that they must use the language of other contexts, such as our civic language, to make their insights available to participants in other contexts.

Empirical research in multiple countries with various groups has found evidence to affirm Lerner’s core definition of a just world as one in which people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Believing in a just world allows one to make long-term plans and work toward goals with confidence that the effort will not be in vain. As you might imagine, such a belief allows a person to feel good about their success. The belief also significantly impacts the perception and understanding of innocent victims. Innocent suffering can be seen as a contradiction and therefore a threat to the belief in a just world.

If an injustice does not threaten one’s belief in a just world, but seems more like a challenge to overcome, then it is possible to correct the injustice and continue to believe in a just world. If the injustice is not easily corrected and especially if it is a structural injustice rather than an individual behavioral issue, then the injustice is seen as a threat to one’s belief in a just world. In this case, to maintain the belief, the injustice is either denied or reinterpreted as being deserved. “People deserve what they get.”

Could it be that the millions who deny or ignore systematic racism and white supremacy do so because it threatens their belief in a just world? If that is the case, then the belief in a just world prevents us from moving toward a climate of justice, because a climate of justice comes about when citizens with resources care about and reach out to civilians who are vulnerable and need the protection of the rule of law (see “The Citizen’s Role in Creating a Climate of Justice” in my book Climate of Justice: A New Foundation for Environmentalism.)

There are several assumptions behind the research on the belief in a just world that can help us understand why it functions as it does. First of all, it assumes that whatever one gets is deserved. Instead of thinking about what people might deserve, like respect or recognition, it simply assumes that we deserve what we get.

This approach also assumes a radical individualism. Individuals need a “world” that assures them that if they work hard to achieve a goal, they will be rewarded. “People get what they deserve.” In reality, our worlds are composed of human relationships with social histories and projected futures. In Western societies, of course, some people find themselves isolated from others and alone, and maybe the “delusion” of a just world will give them comfort, but only if they do not run into the reality of injustices.

A third assumption is that justice can be separated from injustice. That’s the delusion. Human communities are imperfect, and at least in Western communities, we live in systemic trends of some dominating and exploiting others. The calls for justice arise out of the experience of and the witness to injustices.

If you do believe in a just world, you may well have a different view of justice than Lerner’s focus on the delusion of merit. Still, it’s probably true that many people avoid or deny social injustice because it threatens their confidence that they will be rewarded for their work. Such a belief, however, prevents them from sharing the world with their contemporaries who have suffered not only from injustices, but also from not being recognized. It may seem ironic but true that those who believe in a just world would actually be a barrier to the creation of a climate of justice.

The phrase “Age of Disability” comes from Sunaura Taylor’s book, Disabled. Ecologies: Lessons From a Wounded Desert (2024). Now, you might have thought that we live in the age of technology, or AI, or the age of right-wing backlash, but did you think this time was also the “age of disability”?

I had not, which is why I bought the book during a visit with friends in Tucson, AZ.

An Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, Sunaura Taylor tells the story of how the contamination of the aquifer below the southside of Tucson by Hughes Aircraft and other military contractors brought injury and death to thousands, as well as the story of residents organizing to protest and to protect their neighbors. Central to her story is that both the aquifer and the people were injured, and that we need to stop making the mistake of separating them into environmental and health issues.

We have heard similar arguments for acknowledging the solidarity of nature and humans from Indigenous authors and environmental justice writers. Taylor takes this a step further. She proposes that the “age of disability” is not something we can eliminate, but rather something we must live with. Taylor writes:

“Ableist ecologies emerge when disability is purged from view, abandoned as a sacrifice zone, neglected in disaster preparedness, erased from our solutions of how to build a just society. In this Age of Disability, we can fear disability and see it as the antithesis of the future we wish to build, or we we can center the damaged, the vulnerable, the ill and the injured, the contaminated and the poisoned, and build a new world from there.” (278)

This does not mean that we do not try to heal the planet and people when we can. Or that we stop demanding accountability from those who cause harm. The truth of the matter is that there are limits. Whether we recognize limits and how we deal with them depends in part on what Taylor calls our “origin” story.

For example, the origin story of the climate of justice project is that our country was founded in a climate of injustice that has never been adequately corrected or repaired. A climate of justice focuses on and responds to those stories and events that promote or impede necessary changes.

If I were to follow the model of Taylor’s book, I would have named my project “the climate of injustice,” and then explored how we can all live together with our shared history that aims for a climate of justice. The point, it seems to me, is that the call for justice always arises out of the context of injustice.

Disability, in itself, is not an injustice. It depends on how we interpret what happened. As you would expect, the military contractors, the EPA, and even local government had a different story than the Tucson southside residents who had suffered decades of illness, disease and death. They also had a more comprehensive view of remediation than corporate or government agencies.

“From the earliest days of their organizing, southsiders offered a far more capricious vision of remediation then the EPA, let alone the polluters, was willing to consider. On the ground, this sentiment was and still is often articulated in terms of care: care for both the aquifer and the community. Remediation, to Tucsonans for a Clean Environment, Included demands for strict aquifer protection regulations, treatment of the contaminated environment, comprehensive health studies, immediate federally sponsored health care for community members, and the punishment of industries and government agencies responsible for the harm. Through it all these calls were consistently framed—both overtly and covertly—as part of a broader struggle against the systemic racism of Tucson’s local and state government toward the Mexican American population in the long history of white supremacy and colonial dispossession in the borderlands.” (205).

These remedies will still leave people in wheelchairs, or with cancer, or dying. They also leave the aquifer polluted and “the desert wounded.” Taylor’s hope, I think, is that by learning from injured environments and peoples, we will move toward conditions of “vulnerability, interdependency, and impairment to build a more just world.” This is a hope that arises from solidarity with the injured, rather than from their abandonment.

As I enter my second year with Substack, I wish to express my gratitude to Substack for providing this platform. If you would like to support A Climate of Justice on Substack. please consider upgrading or renewing your subscription.

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“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

When I looked at the place of this statement in Kennedy’s whole speech, I discovered that he was saying more than I thought. In the beginning, Kennedy affirms the belief that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God,” and then he closes the speech with: “let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that on earth God’s work must truly by our own.” So, challenging his request opens up fundamental issues about the source of our rights.

Kennedy’s use of the phrase “the rights of man,” stands out not only because today we would expect one to speak of “human rights,” but also because Kennedy could have done so. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was written in 1946! In any case, we can speak of our human rights today. What is not so clear is whether Kennedy thinks the state does “God’s work on Earth?

What was Kennedy doing when he sent 3000 federal troops to protect the country from harm when James Meredith enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1962? Was he doing “God’s work on Earth,” or was he doing what was right according to the Constitution and its Amendments, especially the Amendments added to the Bill of Rights following the Civil War?

The Bill of Rights does not seem to be from “the hand of God.” Just imagine how the right to the free exercise of religion (Article One) messes with Christian missionary practices, especially the practices of Christian nationalists. If not from God, then the Bill of Rights, as well as the later amendments, could be supported and even evaluated by the United Nations’ understanding of human dignity.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights does include the right to religious freedom (Article 18), and it is based as our other rights, on human dignity. It may seem ironic, but also true, that religious freedom is not based on religion, but on human dignity. As the Preamble of the Declaration of Human Rights states:

“. . . . recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,”

And where is this inherent dignity located? I think it’s the foundation for the civic sphere—the sphere were citizens and civilians protect their rights and enjoy their privileges.

I’m afraid that we have been so affected by MAGA’s focus on America that we tend to ignore the international cooperation that was achieved after the catastrophe of two world wars. The current administration seems totally oblivious to this humanitarian achievement, especially to the international humanitarian laws protecting civilians.

So, what should we ask our country for? In terms of the upcoming elections, we need the government to protect the civic sphere—the sphere of voting, political parties, free press, the rule of law, and citizen initiatives—from anti-democratic interference. We should also ask for repair of the civic sphere, through restraints on money, preventing intimidation, and honoring standards of civility. Trump has already done so much harm to the civic sphere and seems likely to do more, so we must all be vigilant as we move toward November.

Finally, we must ask our country not to commit crimes against humanity, or shall we say, to stop committing such crimes.

This may seem like a. distinction that does not make a difference, but I will try to show that it does, especially if you think words make a difference, which I obviously do.

During the pandemic, we learned about the significance and necessity of caregivers: in hospitals, in medical offices, and in many of our homes. Health care workers risked their health to help the sick and dying not because they “loved them,” but because it was their job to care for them. They were caregivers. Some may have loved their job, but some acted out of duty rather than love, or both.

The “ethics of care” gained recognition in the 1970’s and 80’s with works such as Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice(1982). Her research demonstrated that boys and girls displayed different decision-making patterns. When presented with an ethical dilemma, girls inquired about the relationships among the parties involved while boys focused on the moral principles. In A Climate of Justice, I used an ethics of care to describe the citizen’s role in creating a climate of justice (Chapter 10).

The politics of love, like the ethics of care, came out of the Western tradition, and one could say that they are two words for the same thing. Caring is loving and loving is caring. That may seem correct and yet it overlooks the force of male patriarchy that has historically dominated gender relations.

In the Christian tradition, we are asked to love others as we would love ourselves, which is not the same as to say that we should love others as they would like to be loved, or to care for our relationship with others so that they can be themselves as we become ourselves. In short, the Christian approach seeks unity and the caring approach acknowledges diversity. There is a long trail of tears created by missionaries who followed the Gloden Rule.

For the most part, the politics of love today is rooted in a belief that humans are created equal, which, of course, is stated even in our Declaration of Independence. This eighteenth century belief in creation, however, did not have the advantage of modern evolutionary research and discoveries, advances in neurobiology, nor the experience of multiculturalism, which have demonstrated that our dignity is grounded in our consciousness of ourselves in relationship with other worthwhile beings. The UN Declaration of Human Rights reflects these developments by grounding human rights not in a theory of creation, but in our human dignity.

It does seem to me that the ethics of care has the advantage in the civic realm, because it focuses not only on intention—doing the loving thing—but also on the impact or the consequences of an action or policy. Being careful with the power of one’s position may well be the first duty of holding public office.

The saying “being in but not of” has its origin in the New Testament Gospel of John. John has Jesus saying to the Jews at the Temple: “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” (8:21). You can note the source of antisemitism here, as well as the distinction between “of” and “in.”

If we read John from today’s context, our idea of the world is not the same as John’s. He thought the evil world would soon end with the coming of Christ, and those “of” the world would perish. Instead of that, we see the world as a set of conditions and practices, such as the world of sports or the world of medicine. We even talk of the world of religion, which refers to a set of beliefs and practices by believers.

Most of us move in and out of different worlds, and in some worlds, such as sports and music, go “all in” to perform our best. After the event, we move on with our daily routines. We participate in these worlds, but we are not of them. This doesn’t seem to be the case with MAGA believers.

For most of us, we may believe in things, but we do not become our beliefs. There remains some consciousness of a distance between the beliefs and the “I” who is believing them. Most of us believe “in” something, but we could say that we are not “of” it. The “in” refers to a sense of participating. The “of” refers to possessing or owning. What I am of is what owns me. This may seem simple, but it’s a bit more complicated that one might think.

I agree with those who say that we are fundamentally “relational beings.” Anthropology, psychology of attachment theory, as well as my interpretation of my life supports this view. Often, what I thought was my “I” or myself turns out to be another white male European American. I continually find myself “in” the soup of Western ideology and yes, a part “of” it. My beliefs and attitudes are not what I have chosen, but rather what has been given to “me.”

If we only had the two pronouns of “I” and “me,” we would probably not make much progress in understanding ourselves. There is another pronoun that helps us out: the second person “you.” “Who are you?” You need someone to ask that question. You cannot call yourself a “you.” Maybe that’s one meaning of “second person” pronoun. Another person has to speak first. It’s being called out by someone else that allows us to become somebody (as Jesse Jackson would have said).

The dilemma here is that the “call of the you” addresses a person’s inner self—their human capacity for responsiveness (responsibility). True believers, of whatever strip, have become so encapsulated in their beliefs that they cannot respond to such a call. Their inner self has merged into the world of their beliefs,

This is one way of describing what happens to members of cults or even addicts. They lose their moral agency or decision-making capacity because they have been swallowed up in a world that defines them.

What do you own? Are you your own owner? Do you own yourself? The neurobiologist, Antonio Damasioi, writes about three selves: the protoself, the action-driven core self, and the autobiographical self (for a fuller description see Climate of Justice Chapter 3). It seems to me that it’s the protoself that is a kind of witness to what happens to me in the world, and it’s this self that becomes conscious of being alive—a conscious being that is in but not of the world.

Would you agree that MAGA “owns” around 25 per cent of our population? Why so many have sacrificed their self-ownership to the MAGA world is another story. Perhaps they have forgotten the lesson at the Oracle of Delphi; “Know Thyself.”

Some Trump followers would support any of his antics because they worship him, but some others do so because they believe that’s what the Bible tells them to do. To understand them, we can look at their interpretation of Paul’s writing on government. Mike Johnson is a good example. link In his support of Trump’s immigration policies and the ICE surge in Minneapolis, Johnson referred to Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Chapter 13, where Paul writes that “Every person should submit to the supreme authorities.”

Well, it turns out that the “supreme authorities” in our democracy and Paul’s are not the same. Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans around 57 A.D, after the Roman Republic and its civic government had been replaced by the imperial reign of Augustus in 27 B.C. The old civitas, which stood for a community with common interests in justice, mutual obligation and law was hollowed out to become a shell of its former self before Paul was born.

Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen, which gave him access to travel and legal protection that non-citizens did not have. Unlike Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, Paul spoke Greek, the language of the Eastern Providences. While Jesus probably belonged to rebel groups fighting against Roman rule, Paul made no such protests, perhaps because he believed the Kingdom of God was coming soon. In any case, much that we take today as significant characteristics of the civic were unknown to Paul.

They appear to be unknown to Johnson as well. Even though Paul could not have a robust notion of a “civic” government (Rome was ruled by a dictator), Johnson said that, “the civil authorities are given authority under scripture to maintain order.” link What are these “civil” authorities? The Border Control and ICE? Although they are under the Justice Department, that Department follows the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, not our civilian government. Johnson’s “supreme authority” is undoubtedly Trump.

So, when Christian nationalists say that the Gospel tells them what to do, you can understand why they have no respect for our civic institutions or civil rights. It even makes sense that they would choose a national leader acting more like a commander-in-chief than a civic executive.

There are other readings of Scripture. One of my mentors, Paul Lehmann, asked the question: “What is God doing to make and keep human life human?” As a Christian theologian, he believed that the Biblical text and tradition would help us answer that question. The question itself, however, turned us toward the everyday world, not a book. In this world, those most likely to know “what God is doing” are those who suffer injustices. To be sure, Lehmann’s question comes from his reading and interpretation of Scripture, but instead of inviting us to join the “world” of the first century, it invites us to join the world of the twenty first.

No better example of recognizing and spanning the gap between the first and twenty-first centuries than the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. It was organized, maintained, and supported by Black congregations, but its goal was to desegrate the city buses, so all people had equal access to every seat on the bus. Martin Luther King Jr. was asked to lead this boycott, which he did, and together the Black churches fostered not only a religious revival, but also a civil rights movement.

Let’s not forget that our country’s founders did not copy the design of Imperial Rome, but of the Roman Republic. They followed Rome’s model of three branches of government, a balance of powers, and the fear of tyranny. As you would imagine, the civic sphere that complements our Republic has widely expanded over time.

Jeffery Alexander’s book, The Civil Sphere, highlights such expansion. His book focuses on civic institutions, like voting, political parties, public media, and public discourse. We have also witnessed another dimension of the civic as Trump has dismantled governmental agencies and fired civil servants who have dedicated their careers to the common good.

In my book, A Climate of Justice, Chapter 5, I described the civic as a sphere based on a shared humanity, not on religious beliefs. I emphasized it as a place for those with resources (citizens) to empower those without (civilians). This description would include such organizations as Civilian Review Boards, Child Protective Services, and Public Health Insurance.

We recently witnessed this civic consciousness in the streets of Minneapolis when neighbors stood up to protect the vulnerable and to affirm their civic rights, and in so doing, repelled the Christian nationalist attack on the civic. We must do the same when Trump’s army comes to our town.

Have you participated in “Land Acknowledgements” at some of your meetings? In the Bay Area, we acknowledge the Ohlone and other tribes who cared for the land on which we now live. They cared for the land until we emptied and occupied it. Doesn’t the title of “homeland” belong more to these Indigenous tribes than to the descendants of the settlers who occupied their land?

When Ukrainians say that they were fighting for their land, who among us could say the same? “Our land” may belong to our nation, but does our nation belong to the land? Native Americans were fighting for their land, and our ancestors were fighting to take it. And take it they did, extracting energy from the soil, the forests, the fossils, and the waters.

Furthermore, whatever land the descendants of settlers have today, they own, lease, or rent. Land was turned into property, and the paradox of ownership is, that whatever you own belongs to you, you do not belong to it. For Native peoples, the land was a living being, not a thing. As we learn more from Native Americans about their reciprocal connection with land, we may become more like stewards of our properties for future generations. Land Acknowledgements may set the stage for more mutual caring in the future.

I can see where the term “homeland” has a relevant reference for Native Americans, but as Ta-Nehisi Coates argues in a recent essay entitled “The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Alex Pretti and Rene Good,” in Vanity Fair, it is a dangerous myth in the vocabulary of the Trump Administration.

Coates writes: “The Homeland is not “The State” or even “The Country.” The Homeland is not defined by simple geography. It exists beyond laws and norms. It is unconcerned with traditional American concepts like “liberty,” “freedom” or “pluralism.” The Homeland is that piece of earth providentially deeded to The Volk. The Homeland’s borders are drawn in untainted blood, its sanctity exemplified in proper gender conduct and the fulfillment of gender roles. It is The Homeland that ICE venerates in its recruitment posts festooned with victorious white settlers and vanquished indigenous Americans.”

Just as the Nazis used the notion of “Homeland” as propaganda against non-Arians, the Department of Homeland Security uses it as propaganda against non-whites. The fact on the ground, however, is that Minneapolis white neighbors are saying “No” to ICE attempts of ethnic cleansing. To understand how revolutionary this is, we need to review the time of “victorious white settlers and vanquished indigenous Americans.”

Before “settlers” came to the territory that is now Minnesota, it was inhabited by multiple tribes. There are 11 Indian reservations today. The 1860’s experienced what was called the Dakota War, when over 2000 Indians, US soldiers, and settlers were killed. In 1862, 38 Indian prisoners of war were hung, which is the largest execution in US history.

That may seem like a long time ago, but it was around 100 years more recent than the American Revolution. The importance of the Indian Wars is not when they happened, but rather how they determined our military posture. As the scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz demonstrates, the Indian Wars have served as the “template for the United States in the World” (The Indigenous people’s History of the United States). Why else would we have “tomahawk missiles” and “Apache helicopters”? Why else call Vietnam “Indian country” and the operation to kill Osama Bin Ladan “Geronimo”? ICE agents belong to a long tradition of killing civilians as a war strategy.

While the US military has not changed, the descendants of white settlers, as we see in Minneapolis and elsewhere, are changing. They are no longer silent. As far as we know historical settlers did not protest the extermination of Indigenous people, but rather occupied the land emptied by Federal troops. Some right-wing commentators would have Minneapolis residents do the same today. “Let ICE do its job, and don’t get in their way.” Minneapolis residents have said “No!” We are all neighbors.

Neighbor has usually meant those who reside close to us, like next door. Today’s communication media seems to have changed that. Can we be close to others who are far away, not because we belong to the same land, but because we belong to the same humanity. We are contemporaries. This is a time for caring for neighbors.

Now, it appears that Trump has unleashed our military forces onto the streets of Minnesota as a kind of ethnic cleansing, and this time, the. “settlers” are not cheering the cavalry on but are standing up for their neighbors. The US military’s obedience to whatever the “commander-in-chief’ orders has not changed. They are still killing “Indians.” The neighbors in Minneapolis have changed and their demonstrations of care for each other provides a model for us when ICE comes to town.

“It’s like there’s this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds … the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That’s the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable.” (link)

Although John Trudell sees predator energy as the force behind Western domination of Earth and People, the current behavior of ICE surely showcases that it’s alive and well today. As we watch the scenes in Minneapolis of ICE agents ripping drivers out of their cars, throwing people on the ground, and carrying them away like hunted game, one cannot help but wonder how they can do this to other human beings, with such energy.

My guess is that Trudell would not see the ICE behavior as so exceptional. From his perspective as a Native American, I think he would see it as belonging to a 400-hundred-year-old pattern. After all, we should not forget that our natural bird, a bald eagle, is a predator. One could even say that our President seems to have transferred his earlier predator energy toward women onto his domestic and foreign “enemies.”

On a different note, you can now get a “Predator Energy” power drink that claims to “enable hustlers to thrive and fuel their daily grind, to achieve whatever success means to them.” And to “Rule your Kingdom.” link You can also buy Predator toys at the NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Association) store. What if John Trudell is right that white European-America is fueled by predator energy?

Well, don’t forget the organizers and demonstrators in Minneapolis who show up to protect ICE targets from kidnapping. Their actions remind me of the thesis of the anthropologists Donna Hart and Robert Sussman who provided evidence that early humans were not hunters but the hunted, who spent much of their energy protecting themselves from predators. They write:

“Were our ancestors gentle savages or bloodthirsty brutes? They were social animals, they were primates, they were complex beings in their own right who were not necessarily headed in a foreordained direction. They were trying to adapt to their environment and reproduce successfully. Most primitive societies and individuals exhibit cooperation as a social tool not aggression. Success is not synonymous with brutality, it comes through finesse and friendship.” (quote in Civilizing the Economy, p. 47)

So, humans as a species are not predators, but ICE behavior did not come out of nowhere. One could see it historically as white threads woven into our social fabric. When I was much younger, I might have experienced the “predator energy” if you had given me a gun and a target (ok, it depends on the target). What about you? Are Western humans prone to aggressive intrusions? Is “predator energy” behind the fossil fuel industry? The college search for athletic talent? The church’s search for souls to save? The Gestapo? The Trump administration?

Trudell highlights another source of energy. An energy that the Tribes took care of by balancing their human strengths and weaknesses and being connected to the Earth. This energy is the power of life. We are all contemporaries, living now on this planet. Can we reweave our social fabric by strengthening those threads that sustain life and tying into knots those that oppose life.

John a. Powell, the Director of the Belonging and Othering Institute at UC Berkeley, believes that it’s time for bridging. In his new book, The Power of Bridging, Powell points to the increase in fragmentation and isolation as reasons for the urgency. Although there are multiple causes for fragmentation, Powell highlights the phenomenon of rapid change.

The collective anxiety that we are experiencing due to the pace of change in the world today can be met with fear and more anxiety or it can be met by creating opportunities to turn toward one another and build a larger we that can face the future together. I believe bridging is one such opportunity (25-26).

So, should we fight or bridge? I suppose people will do both. My question is which one, in the next year, will be more effective in promoting a climate of justice?

Central to understanding a climate of justice is the observation that the United States began in a climate of injustice and that has never been fully repaired or ratified. Seeing the problem as fragmentation caused by rapid change does not seem to fully capture the legacy of white supremacy caused by European slavery and genocide.

Let me say that as a respected and influential Black leader, Power certainly knows more about injustices in America than I do. Still, as a white writer, who continues to learn about European-American whiteness, I see the need to protest against Trump’s MAGA bullying and to protect the vulnerable. In a sense, the climate of injustice has become more visible than ever in my lifetime.

The sub-title of Powell’s book, “how to build a world where we all belong,” suggests to me that that there is “a world” that will encompass all of our different and diverse contemporary “worlds.” He also suggests that when we identify someone as an opponent, “we may miss the chance to get to being” (191). Well, when we get to “being,” would we agree that trans people have a right to medical care or that all immigrants deserve due process? If not, then why would I try to build bridges with those who deny the dignity of others?

A few years ago, I was sharing some ideas with a Black woman about our “common humanity.” She politely interrupted me and said, “We have a shared humanity, not a common humanity.” This may seem strange, especially at the beginning of our 250^th year anniversary, when many will say that we are all “Americans.” Who will not be caught up in the “spirit of America”? Is there an American humanity? Or is there a shared humanity, still carried forward by the legacy of injustices

The cultural theorist, Sylvia Wynters, has proposed that we think of different “genres of being human,” because, she argues, we are “biological beings who can only experience ourselves as humans through the mediation of culture-specific masks” (link). If the bridging is beyond our culture-specific masks, and therefore beyond our humanity, then how can it promote a climate of justice in a climate of injustice?

So, is this the time for bridging? It depends on the reason for the bridges. Many of us witnessed one option when we watched Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech, in which he promises to lead “audaciously.” Although he is a charismatic speaker, he inspired his audiences with his proposals and policies. I see him as a fighter, who builds bridges for the sake of justice. Not a bad role model for the rest of us.

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I faced this dilemma years ago when I was helping to organize protests against the Vietnam war. It seemed like we were only talking to ourselves. When I heard of a conference center in Germany that existed to bring people with opposing views together, I took out a loan for a plane ticket, two months at a Goethe Institute to learn German, and went to see for myself.

The Lay Academies were seen as a “third place” where people with different interests and beliefs were given space to listen and to speak to each other. When I returned to the United States, I brought with me an appreciation for facilitating different voices that has been part of my approach to teaching and writing ever since.

In my classes in social and business ethics, I developed a dialogical process for students to explore different positions on serious issues. This learning process began with opposing proposals for action, followed with an exploration of each sides’ observations, values and assumptions, an ethical evaluation, and then, if possible, the development of a shared proposal, as illustrated by this figure:

I first self-published this process, and then Prentice- Hill published it as The Ethical Process, Third Edition 2003. I used this workbook for years to help students learn why we have disagreements and how to address them. In 2014, I published a shorter version, Learning Through Disagreement. (If you would like an exam copy of this workbook, let me know in the comments below.)

When I write, it has not been so easy to make sure that I am not talking to myself. From writing Working Ethics in 1990 to Climate of Justice in 2022, my “audience” has been mentors, others in the field of social and business ethics and, of course, my students. Now that I am writing posts on Substack, I see my audience not only as the groups I talk to, but also the groups I listen to.

I acknowledge the pressure for progressives to speak to the concerns of white male conservatives as a means of overcoming our national divisions, but is this the audience who deserves our attenuation? Isn’t it true that when white males get together, others are usually excluded? What about the question: “What do we—white male progressives—need to hear and who has the capacity to tell us?”

I assume that most of my readers agree with what I write, so maybe I do talk to myself. Still, when I say something that I have not said before, it’s usually because I am listening to voices that are different from mine.

It’s not that easy to see the whole picture of the legacy that brought us to where we are today. The picture above of our European-American legacy does not include other legacies, such as African American or Asian American legacies. Still, if it’s worthwhile to “know thy self,” then this picture might be helpful for some of us.

Central to this picture is the civic. It’s as old as the first town hall meetings. In my book A Climate of Justice, I developed my notion of the civic as “the place where citizens (those with resources) empower civilians (those without resources) so they can all work together to design a livable future.” Jeffrey Alexander in his book, The Civil Sphere, has helped me see the civic sphere as those institutions and practices that are essential for democracy such as public opinion, voting, political parties, the rule of law, and social movements. Trump’s assault on government services, elections, journalism, the rule of law, and due process has revealed the necessity of the civic for democracy.

The moves of Trump and his supporters toward authoritarianism—their canceling of DEI programs, making loyalty payments, or firing of civil workers—questions how much progress we have really made since World War II. How can a white supremacist, misogynist, racist, violent man become President of the United States, not once but twice? I think we know where to find the answer: our European American legacy.

In the comments below, please share how you would change my portrayal of our European American legacy. I am sure there are other descriptions just as helpful as mine.

European expansion began with a mindset that they had a “God-given” right to dominate other peoples and other lands. While Africans were enduring the “middle passage,” Adam Smith was writing about the wealth of nations, John Locke was writing about liberty, and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The climate of injustice that was created then has never been rectified. Nor has it always kept us in the dark.

We have seen times when the civic has been a space for advances in social justice. Some parts of our legacy, to use Reinhold Niebuhr’s phrase, harbor both “children of light and children of darkness.”

The civic sphere may not be very bright today, but it has never been that bright. To give it more light, we would need to repair those aspects of our legacy that have violated our shared humanity, to accept invitations to become global partners, and to protect and expand the civic sphere.