There are two kinds of peo­ple: Those who divide peo­ple into two kinds, and those who don’t.

Given that the world is not binary, we should seek to be more like the lat­ter than the for­mer. Is that possible?

Dur­ing the 2000 Pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, George W. Bush famously pro­claimed, “I’m a uniter, not a divider.” That very state­ment is itself divi­sive, for it sep­a­rates the world into opposed classes —“uniters” and “dividers” — and implies one of them is bet­ter than the other.

Can­di­date Barack Obama pledged to help Amer­ica move past par­ti­san­ship, into an era of coöper­a­tion. As Pres­i­dent, both he and G. W. Bush presided over times of increas­ing and unflinch­ing par­ti­san­ship. Is there an alternative?

Abra­ham Lin­coln tried to cre­ate a “team of rivals” in an effort to over­come the pres­sures of his day that were lead­ing the nation toward civil war. Barack Obama specif­i­cally invoked Lin­coln in appoint­ing Repub­li­cans to his cab­i­net, and invit­ing Repub­li­can input into major leg­is­la­tion such as health care reform. Nei­ther effort worked as desired. Why not?

I’m not going to place blame here on one party or the other. I am going to explore the source of the divi­sion itself. It’s deeper than mere pol­i­tics; it sits at the root of our cul­ture. (more…)