It isn’t easy to come up with a slogan amid instant memes. This came to mind as I thought about an encouragement-to-vote sign for the front yard. A first thought was:
Coming Apart?
Coming Together?
VOTE
A second thought was:
First, consider a common good
Then, add a personal good
VOTE
Third and fourth thoughts came and went.
Every meta-type approach folded under the weight of differing analyses and understandings of the direction the nation is heading versus where one would want it to be going. Likewise, with an ability to distinguish any value beyond the immediate and personal.
Going the other direction of advocating for a particular candidate heightens the divisions among us and measures everything by its shortest term effect.
No wonder there are so many who simply won’t vote. It hurts the brain and soul to consider the state-of-affairs we are in and doubles that to consider what it will cost to admit our systems have betrayed their stated intention. There is no social contract for mutual care or a definition of a common good.
I doubt that I’ll come up with a sign before November 3. This will worthy of a confession that I did not do even the first layer of work to elect those I thought would slowly stitch us back together or facilitate a transition from exclusion to inclusion.
Much preliminary work needs doing to reteach thinking and recognition of false equivalencies and other logical fallacies. Right now, allusion has become illusion—help heal all “usions”.