Unity Doesn't Mean "Unity"

There's been a lot of talk about unity lately.

After a brutal presidential campaign full of rancor and discord, President Biden in his inaugural address called for unity. He spoke it an as an answer to our woes:

A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear. And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat. To overcome these challenges – to restore the soul and to secure the future of America – requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity.

After the House of Representatives voted to impeach former President trump for his part in inciting the insurrection at the United States Capitol, some GOP leaders opposed the impeachment saying it would deny the need for unity.

The truth is, I'm inclined to believe one party over the other when I look at their track records on unity and caring for the common good.

But I wonder what both parties mean when they say, "Unity."

There are 7 Billion people on the planet, 330 people in the United States. We live on one planet in one galaxy amid trillions of galaxies. People are diverse. The universe is complex and diverse.

If "unity" means agreement or likeness, it's impossible. And if unity means subsuming minority views or values to the will or ways of majorities, then it is wrong.

If, on the other hand, unity means recognizing that we are all--gay, straight, bi, Black, white, brown, old, young, left, right, poor, rich--a part of one giant whole of life, then I say, Yes.

Unity does not mean sameness. Physicists in search of a unified theory of the universe are instead seeing complexity and diversity. We live in a cosmos full of both light and dark--both are beautiful and needed. Life as part of the whole means that we recognize, protect, honor, and celebrate the singularities that make up the whole.

This view of unity has practical and vital applications. For instance, white Americans must recognize, protect, honor, and celebrate the experiences, realities and gifts of Black Americans. White supremacy (which at its worst means destroying Black lives and at its "best" means wanting Black Americans to become like white Americans) is antithetical to unity, is antithetical even to full life in the universe.

Unity is not sameness or simplicity. It is certainly not supremacy of any one person, nation, people group, or culture. Unity is a celebration that all of life part of one cosmic reality.