By the Rev. Scott M. Kershner University Chaplain
Have you ever considered how your personal experience shapes how you think about democracy?
My life experience has allowed me to take American democracy for granted.
I’ve only begun to see how deeply my own privilege has trapped me in an illusion that democracy would simply go on forever like a drone or a driverless car.
I grew up middle class in a small town in the upper Midwest, a white kid whose parents were together and employed. My people—religiously, ethnically, racially—had never been the targets of discrimination or violence. Never having experienced the sting of injustice personally, it was easy to take our political and economic system for granted.
It was the 1980s. For a kid like myself, it was a world of peace and prosperity. I knew about the horrible American legacy of slavery and discrimination and I admired the heroes of the civil rights movement, but I viewed those as past achievements rather than ongoing struggles.
When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, some said it was the “end of history.” Democratic capitalism had won and would inevitably spread throughout the world.
Democracy was, to me, a bit like a car or indoor plumbing. I knew plenty of people had lived without them, but in the modern world, wasn’t it just destiny that we’d all have them eventually?
I see now how the bubble of privilege I’ve lived within has blinded me.
Democracy has been, and continues to be, an unfulfilled promise for many of my fellow citizens. Every threat to access to the ballot box, every time corporate power wields more political power than living, breathing human beings, every time we choose investing in prisons over schools, every time lies are defended as “alternative facts,” every time a religious, ethnic or racial “other” is blamed for our problems, the fabric of our democracy is weakened.
The greatest threats to our democracy are within. No one else is to blame.
Democracy is a noble aspiration and a fragile enterprise. It is only as strong as the generosity and openness and creativity of democratic people.
Along with many others, I am waking up to the urgent work before us.
Maybe you are too.
I don’t yet know completely what this will mean. I do know this: I will fight against voter suppression efforts. I will fight for public education. I will stand with the poor and the great many our economy is leaving behind. I will fight for the transition to a green economy. I will fight for a society of diversity and openness that sees difference as a God-given blessing and source of societal dynamism and strength.
This is what I believe it means to believe in and defend democracy.
I hope you will join me.
Chaplain’s Corner reflects the views of an individual member of the religious field. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the entire university. The content of the Forum page is the responsibility of the editor in chief and the Forum editor
