Unity — Is it the Best Answer?

Calls for national unity from political leaders are being made in the wake of the contentious 2020 election and subsequent January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Notably, President Biden’s inaugural address included the lines: “To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy — unity. Unity.”

But unity’s meaning itself remains elusive. How can we collectively define a term that takes on different meanings for different people? On January 26, Breaking Ground, a collaborative web commons created by Comment Magazine to “inspire a dynamic ecosystem of thinkers and doers to respond to the needs of this hour with wisdom and courage,” hosted a panel titled, “What Is Unity?” Is it possible? Is it good?”. The event brought together three panelists, Christina Emba, Shadi Haid, and Samuel Kimbriel, each of whom subscribe to different definitions of unity and visions of it for the country, for a lively discussion.

Moderator Anne Snyder, Editor-in-Chief of Comment and Breaking Grounds, commenced the panel with a simple question: how do each of the panelists define unity? What is it, and perhaps more importantly, what isn’t it?

Christina Emba, Op-Ed Columnist at the Washington Post, expressed that she views unity as moving “towards a commonly-held understanding of the good.” “It doesn’t necessitate a flattening or an indivisibility, but simply having the same aim in mind.”

Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute, expressed discomfort with “just how hegemonic the word unity is.” “Most Americans would just assume that unity is a good thing… without really questioning beyond it,” stated Hamid. “I worry that when we talk about unity, we’re basically asking people to put aside their deepest convictions in the name of the greater good.”

Author and philosopher Samuel Kimbriel, however, stated, “it does seem to me that a theory of unity is implicit in every successful society.”

Later in the panel, Hamid continued to express his worry with the term unity. It comes “on whose terms?” he asked. “It’s the powerful, those who are culturally hegemonic, who decide what is this unifying source.” He, however, does not disregard unity in its entirety. “At a very basic level, there have to be some things obviously that Americans agree on. What I differ from a lot of people is I want those to be as minimal as possible.” “I want a low common denominator.”

Hamid stated that his lowest common denominator would be respect for democratic outcomes. Emba’s would be a basic belief in equality and human dignity. Kimbriel answered that “the problem is we as Americans don’t agree on what equality actually means or what justice actually means.”

“We want to push back against spurious definitions of unity that in fact close the boundaries of our country and that leave citizens outside,” cautioned Emba. Hamid also warned against leaving certain Americans outside of calls for unity. He used the example of the 74 million Trump voters possibly feeling omitted from the calls for unity in President Biden’s inaugural address.

Emba insisted that “to have any possibility of unity, you have to be engaging in good faith. And that also means that you have to assume that other people are also engaging in good faith.”

Although not exclusively on religion, the topic was brought up frequently during the panel. “We have more people [Americans] who see politics as a hobby, and unfortunately, with lower levels of religious observance, specifically Christian observance, the largest religion in the country, be careful what you wish for — as Christianity declines, we have an ideological decline. Something has got to take its place. And what’s taking its place, in my view, isn’t necessarily better, where people are basically attributing theological intensity to political debate,” asserted Hamid, an observant Muslim.

At the end of the panel, Snyder reminded viewers that Breaking Grounds “brings 2,000 years of Christian social thought, and specifically sort of Christian wisdom, to the problems of the day.” She also recommended viewers read a piece by Hamid, titled “One Nation, Sinful Under God,” which recently appeared in Comment.

For Christian realists, overarching calls for unity may sound too superficial and omitt that there can never be complete harmony in this world. Hamid sees similar flaws in the term. “We acknowledge this world and politics in this world as a site of uncertainty,” stated Hamid. “There are no final victories in this world, because there’s something very small and modest in this life we live.”

Americans, of course, should strive to end the dangerous polarization in our politics and work to temper rhetoric in the civic square. But as moments in the panel remind us, recent calls for a homogenous unity may not be the end all be all, and rather we may find the solution looks more like aspiring to respect our fellow citizens’ differences and deeply held convictions. As they should in turn do for us.