Belonging Without Ownership

The easiest person to reduce is the one we do not need to know.

During a campaign, I knew my opponent was a Democrat. The fact was relevant. I used it fairly as far as it went and allowed it to go further than it should have. I let the label carry the person because carrying the person would have required more work.

When other people assembled a version of me from Republican, white man, politician, and Freemason, I recognized the same method. It can produce a complete moral portrait without the inconvenience of knowing the subject.

The correction is not to abolish categories or pretend affiliations mean nothing. It is to keep the category open.

Let the person’s words, actions, record, and character confirm it, complicate it, or contradict it. Give allies the same accountability we demand from opponents. Give opponents enough humanity to surprise us.

That discipline is difficult because groups make life possible. They give us identity, courage, memory, service, and somewhere to stand. The answer to corrupt belonging is not a life without loyalties.

It is belonging strong enough to sustain us and limited enough that it cannot own us.

I belong to a family, a faith, a political party, a lodge, a city, and a country. These attachments have given me people to love and duties to perform. They have also given me blind spots. The same loyalty that helps me endure can help me excuse. The same category that guides me can save me from learning who stands inside it.

So the question is not whether we will have an “us.”

The question is what our “us” allows us to see.

Can we recognize an opponent’s decent act without feeling disloyal? Can we judge an ally by a principle that costs our side something? Can we protect a family member without hiding the truth? Can we leave an office or group that demands a price it has no right to name?

Who is ours?

My family. My brothers. My church. My party. My community.

Those answers are particular, and they should be. The person outside those circles is not mine in the same way. He is still a person.

The person inside my circle is not mine to use. He is still accountable.

And I am not the possession of any group whose approval requires me to stop seeing either truth.

An “us” should give us somewhere to stand.

It should not decide who is allowed to be fully human.