When a nation, generally speaking, feels hopeful about its future, this often translates into a politics of solidarity at home and a spirit of goodwill abroad. Factions present within the body politic lose their salience to the extent the individuals who comprise them exhibit greater confidence in the general interest than in any particular cause. Widespread flourishing moderates the influence of partisan zeal as surely as its absence unravels a politics of the common good. Societal despair then feeds partisan opportunism, which further compromises a nation’s ability to address its problems responsibly. The hyper-politicization of intersecting and clashing identity characteristics within democracies then indicates and exacerbates fearfulness across a nation. Such disunion bodes ill for democracies, which increasingly must in our century face a resurgence of illiberal challengers dissatisfied with the outcomes of liberalization.
As GurSikhs presently do not constitute a majority in any country and have often suffered from state persecution, our interest in the wellbeing of liberal democracies—not the least including the United States—is not solely theoretical. What is more, since the highest ideals of the American republic evince meaningful compatibility with core GurSikh principles, as I have argued previously in the pages of The Vital Anjan, our particular condition gives rise to a special solicitude for America’s general welfare. Given the geopolitical and domestic ramifications, it is worth revisiting the fixation of elite political discourse in western democracies on the categories of racial, class, gender, and ethno-nationalist identity, thereafter considering what illumination a GurSikh perspective might offer.
The conceptual categories whereby a given state of affairs is represented in political discourse literally determine the terms of the debate. By influencing the self-understanding of the participants, the composition of coalitions, and the public’s views of the issues at play—all the more so in the politicization of identity—these terms profoundly shape the space of possible outcomes. As instances of political speech, such terms must not be mistaken for neutral accounts of the phenomena they purport to identify. They are themselves evolving products of fierce ideological contestation, and as such, their widespread use and dissemination within educational institutions is best understood not as an endorsement of theoretical soundness so much as evidence of the politicization of education. Of course, even this may be disputed by some who maintain the explanatory and societal primacy of identity particularism.
It should also go without saying that GurSikh tradition, and more generally, everyone committed to seeing justice prevail rejects the oppression of individuals due to their membership in any such groups or for any reason whatsoever. Over more than five centuries, GurSikhs have staunchly opposed religious, caste, pecuniary, and misogynistic persecution as a matter of principle and sacred duty. The classical liberal and GurSikh traditions similarly aim to safeguard a sphere of individual liberty, where neither the state nor other persons may forcibly impose their will upon any human. Where membership in a group precludes the enjoyment of individual freedom from such arbitrary intrusions, there is undeniably justification for group mobilization in defense of equal liberty, fully deserving the support of all persons of goodwill.
Yet when such mobilizations harden into permanent camps of a tribal cast, they less represent the legitimate claim of individuals—whose ad hoc political association will dissolve the instant they achieve equal justice—so much as cannibalistic cabals—eager to routinely extract resources for their members—to the detriment of the public weal. Madison famously argues (Federalist 51) that on account of the great multiplicity of “interests, parties, and sects” in our extended, federal republic, “…a coalition of a majority could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good…” However, given the extreme ideological polarization of considerable portions of the citizenry across the nation—partially facilitated by our omnipresent, wearable information technology—into embattled camps, the pressures of corporate and union lobbying, as well as significant popular opposition to anti-majoritarian provisions within our constitutional system, the bands of America’s civic cohesion are wearing thin.
Naturally, factional defections provoke counter-mobilizations, incentivizing the professionalization of partisanship and further fracturing of civic trust. Personal characteristics devoid of intrinsic moral significance are essentialized, bureaucratized, and valorized. Beyond the nation’s political life, its elite cultural, educational, and commercial bodies are likewise cowed into the quicksand of self-caricature, performative celebrations of ever-mutating dogmas announced by little red dots on glowing screens, and purges—all chillingly unworthy of liberal institutions. This diagnosis is too familiar to require elaboration. It is legible in the eyes of all Americans, who at some level recognize our collective failure to treat one another with the charity owed to neighbors, fellow citizens, and all created beings.
More fundamental than Hobbes’s “continual fear of danger and violent death” (Leviathan, XIII.9) is our capacity to experience supreme blessedness in this life. Our understanding of the ground of our political rights and obligations as Americans is better informed by the anthropology of 1776, which proclaims, “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence). On account of the First Amendment to the Constitution’s free exercise and anti-establishment clauses, every citizen is at liberty to pursue “Happiness” in as exalted or worldly a manner as he or she may please. Nonetheless, it is my conviction that “Happiness” and “liberty” worthy of their names are not to be found save in a certain kind of life.
GurSikh tradition sustains knowledge regarding a state of perfection that is about equally realizable and elusive at all times, across all religions, and for all persons. Gurū Nanak did not claim exclusive knowledge of this state of supreme blessedness, but in establishing and sustaining a spiritual path over the centuries, he and his successors displayed singular fidelity in exalting souls of every condition to this most choiceworthy experience of the wondrous One. The antithesis of egotism, genuine Happiness exists beyond the veil of fear, hostility, lust, covetousness, infatuation, and hubris. Each moment, we must all strive to walk in righteous harmony with the divine will, acting selflessly as grace moves us for ‘sarbat dā bhallā,’ the flourishing of the whole, or in the language of the Preamble to the United States Constitution, to “…promote the general Welfare…”
Our equality consists in our inner calling to know and worship our creator, in our outer responsibility to “…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense…” (Preamble). Let no one seek advantage in words or ploys unworthy of eternity; instead discern human virtue and viciousness beyond the affiliations of party. Utopian as it may sound at first, let all partisans compete to surpass one another in acceding to all that is just in the aspirations of their rivals, similarly relinquishing without a second thought whatever in their own positions might not be perfectly just. It is not unrealistic to believe in the goodness of my fellow humans, giving them equally good reason to believe in mine, but to seek happiness while believing in nothing save impious impunity.
Let anyone who would pursue the Happiness that elevates this experiment in democracy contemplate the bāṇī and bāṇā endowed by Gurū Gobind Singh, “…furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation…” (Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, § 128). Challenging as this call to moral excellence—to a great awakening—will undoubtedly prove, nothing short of overcoming the egotism of human nature to partake of divine perfection, will in the language of the Preamble, be adequate to “…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
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Nihal Singh