I am writing this reflection in September 2024, well before Election Day, but still in the thick of American political passion. Regardless of the election’s outcome, it’s unlikely that the result will end the sense of overall polarization in our country caused by a myriad of issues, polarization that has been evident even in our own DePaul community over the past year. No matter which candidate people support, it sometimes seems difficult to believe that those who support the opposing candidate might share a similar sense of justice or morality. And yet this very feeling makes it all the more important for us to believe that they do. But why is this?

One reason is because it seems to be true. In an article for Time, journalist Karl Vick reports the results of several studies of American attitudes and how those translate into politics. He writes that in January 2021, a study surveying 2,000 people across the political spectrum asked them to consider fifty-five separate goals that the nation should have, and to rank them according to what was important to them personally and according to how important they believed other people thought they were. The results were surprising. For instance, the goal to “successfully address climate change,” was the third highest priority for the survey participants themselves, but these respondents ranked it thirty-third in their perception of its importance for other people. As Vick writes, “no one thought their fellow Americans saw climate as the high-priority item nearly everyone actually considered it to be.” This study, the American Aspirations Index, “found ‘stunning agreement’ on national goals across every segment of the U.S. population, including, to a significant extent, among those who voted for Donald Trump and those who voted for Joe Biden.” The polarization we have been hearing about on the news is something one scholar calls “learned divisiveness,” which is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy: people believe there’s more division than actually exists, and that, in turn, fuels further division. We would do well to keep this in mind before we vilify those who we believe think differently from us. [1]

Goodness transcends opposing viewpoints; justice is more than politics. We don’t have to look far into our Vincentian heritage to find reinforcement for this lesson. For example, Frédéric Ozanam, the key founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, knew it well. The nineteenth-century France he lived in was also bitterly divided into partisan groups. But he never lost sight of what this conflict was really about. He wrote:

“For, if the question which disturbs the world around us today is neither a question of political modalities, but a social question; if it is the struggle between those who have nothing and those who have too much … our duty to ourselves as Christians is to throw ourselves between these two irreconcilable enemies … to make equality as operative as is possible among men; to make voluntary community replace imposition and brute force; to make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot do.” [2]

If we are to work together to better our society, we must be prepared to approach each other with tolerance, at least. Vincent de Paul would go one step further: he would have us approach one another with love, looking for the goodness—and, indeed, the God—that exists in all of us. As he once said, “I have to love my neighbor as the image of God and the object of His Love.” [3] He pointed out that it’s easy to show respect to people we love and who think like us. But he asked,

“Have we felt less esteem and affection for certain persons? Do we not, from time to time, allow thoughts of this more or less? If that’s the case, we don’t have that charity which dismisses the first feelings of contempt and the seed of aversion; for, if we had that divine virtue, which is a participation of the Sun of Justice, it would dispel the mists of our corruption and make us see what’s good and beautiful in our neighbor in order to honor and cherish him for them.” [4]

So, as our future unfolds, let us follow one more of Vincent’s injunctions and “continue to offer one another to God and to love each other in Our Lord, as He has loved us.” [5]

Reflection Questions:

Has the polarization that seemingly permeates our society affected your view of others? How so? What are some ways you could look for the good in those with opposing viewpoints?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

[1] All quotations in this paragraph are taken from Karl Vick, “The Growing Evidence That Americans Are Less Divided Than You May Think,” Time, July 2, 2024, https://time.com/6990721/us-politics-polarization-myth.

[2] Quoted in Craig B. Mousin, “Frédéric Ozanam―Beneficent Deserter: Mediating the Chasm of Income Inequality through Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” Vincentian Heritage 30:1 (2010): 62. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol30/iss1/4/.

[3] Conference 207, “Charity (Common Rules, Chap. 2, Art. 12),” May 30, 1659, CCD, 12:217. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Letter 1663, “To Nicolas Guillot, in Warsaw,” October 10, 1653, CCD, 5:28. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/30/.