Discord and Tolerance in the U.S.

U.S. society, especially the politicians and the media, approach the theme of immigration as if this was the first and only time it has come up — never mind that it has given the country its much-regarded multi-ethnic identity and produced so many benefits for its political system, universities, sciences, arts and economy. The sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of those who came from overseas — from Obama to Einstein — have been an enormous gift from humanity to the U.S. It has been especially so since World War II and has continued to be so with the economic and politically motivated migrations that have populated the country.

But these generations live eternally confronted by, and indebted to, the vicissitudes of politics. With each election, people rend their garments about this theme or some other. The matter of undocumented Mexican immigrants is one of the most important sub-themes, although in the end the most radical and terrifying plans defended or desired by ultra-right procurers like Fox News never come to pass. There are beatings, but no massacres or mass deportations, and there never will be. Life goes on, and in the end, no matter how heated the political cauldron, a solution emerges, and then on to the next issue.

Another issue — indirectly related and quite prevalent today, especially since 9/11 — is religious tolerance and the theme of multi-ethnicity. This has come to the forefront recently with the case of the construction of an Islamic center next to ground zero of the 2001 terrorist attacks, which many New Yorkers and other Americans consider an affront. A poll by Siena College Research Institute gives a good idea of the division this project has caused: 56 percent of New York City residents, 61 percent of New York State residents and 68 percent of U.S. residents are opposed to the planned Cordoba House mosque. Obama himself, who rarely misses an opportunity to enliven the national debate, came out in favor of religious tolerance and only managed to sharpen the polemic and stir up the groups who have been alleging for years that the president is not Christian but Muslim. It remains to be seen if this executive intervention will have some effect on the discord which, in any case, is seen more as a confrontation among and between elites, not as a debate which is typical of a democratic system.

This is the ever-present ideological conflict between conservatives and liberals. But in the final analysis, the most important thing is that American society is not trapped between these extreme positions and has learned, to a surprising extent, to “reconcile them in their daily lives,” to quote Mark Lilla. The reason for this would seem to be that this is a society formed in the light of radical individualism, which has been an inspiration, source of meaning and way of life since the early 18th century. In fact, as Lilla points out, though one can observe a strong populist content in the political discourse, we can be sure that it makes an emotional appeal for “individual opinion, individual autonomy, and individual choice, all in the service of neutralizing, not using, political power,” which is to say, it is an antidote to manipulation. Thus, it could be that we are witnessing a new kind of “dialogue” between social tolerance and intolerance, and the empirical evidence shows that Americans are now, to an immeasurable extent, more tolerant than in the 18th, 19th or 20th centuries.

The question now is if the political discourse can rise to the level of — and conserve — its messianic content, and at the same time attend to this historic moment without risk of derailing the politics of consensus and sentencing to death the social passion for politics. This is a relevant question in a society which today is not really living through a harsh and irreconcilable confrontation, but a confrontation of harsh ideas which are reconcilable.

Jose Luis Valdes-Ugalde is a political analyst and researcher for the National Autonomous University of Mexico.