The Space in Between Part 2

Sometime last year I wrote a blog post about what falls between the individual and the state, and why it's important. I knew I had a follow-up post in mind at the time, but I let it fall through the cracks. Or maybe I knew something would eventually come to me, because I believed this was a substantial inquiry. And sure enough, I got inspired by this theme again when I came across Yuval Levin's The Fractured Republic. It's a such great book, and should be recommended to anyone who wants to change the world (while being open to changing themselves).

While I stand by epistemic humility when it comes to policy, I also think there are better spaces to work within to make substantial change. Levin makes the case for a place where “our expectations of policy are lowered while our expectations of each other rise.”

So let's assume the nature of man is in essence fractally like the nature of God. As such, we are “trinitarian in structure, such that one will find no "individual" beneath or behind it. Rather, our nature is to be relational; we are intersubjective right down to the ground (both vertically and horizontally), such that the I-We is an irreducible complementarity (as is the I-God vertically)” (Bob). Let's assume this (or humor me).

If that's the case, then would it make sense not to be locked into isolated individualism (as the libertarians would have you) or consolidated statism (as the socialists are more apt to admire)? We are relational beings, and maybe most of our problems are better solved in the realm of “middling communitarianism.”

We can not live alone, or live by efficiency alone. It is our sentiments that make us tick and holds our culture(s) together. These come from our families, local communities, charities, congregations, fraternal groups, and countless other institutions. 

A point that Levin makes that intrigues me the most is, although we have become fragmented more than ever, it may be the growth of our subcultures where the best is yet to come from. “In the absence of a consolidated, single national culture, it is much easier to imagine local, bottom-up moral subcultures creating the circumstances necessary for social renorming and moral revival.”

“The point is that a greater diversity of problem-solvers would give us a greater chance of meeting people's needs; it would let us use our diversity as a tool while combatting isolation and estrangement” (Levin, again).

So while our political institutions have “become theaters of aimless combat”, it may be the space in between where we can pull together isolated individuals and effect real cultural and political change from ground up.

This can come from both the left and the right, but it my view it would also need a spiritual revival grounding it. Otherwise, it would be another narrow horizontal ride without a capacious vertical vista.

And frankly, we're just getting a tad too old for those sort of road trips.