Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit

The Politics Of The Brokenhearted

In times of national difficulty, it is both tempting and desirable to step back, reflect upon the situation, and see what might be done to make things better. The process might carry its own danger in the rush to either easy or impracticable answers. I took the opportunity to read Parker J. Palmer's new book "Healing the Heart of Democracy: the Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit" for the insight it might have on our national situation as witnessed by the recent budget and debt-ceiling deliberations and their aftermath. Palmer wrote his book before these events occured, but they make his examination all the more timely. Palmer (b.1939) received his PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970. This book was my first exposure to his work, but he is a noted writer on educational and social issues with a focus on spirituality.

I liked a good deal of this book especially its personal tone. Palmer tries to combine events and feelings in his life, and the way in which he reflects upon them, with our national experience as Americans. He uses throughout the figure of the "habits of the heart", the title of a book by Robert Beulah which derives from de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America". Palmer discusses his own experiences of loss, disappointment and "brokenheartedness" in his life. When these experiences occur, the spirit, or the heart can be shattered. The better course is to put the pieces together, use disappointment creatively, integrate conflicting feelings and move ahead from weakness to strength. So it is, for Palmer, in a democracy.

Palmer offers some inspiring stories to illustrate what he means. He describes meeting with members of a small African American church in rural Georgia in 1974 who showed the strength and discipline to carry on in hard times. He describes meeting a New York City cabdriver who, while navigating the city streets, explained that the attraction of his job was that it allowed him to hear and consider the varied opinions of the many different types of people who rode in his cab. He praises openness to difficulty and a willingness to accept tensions -- in the form of divergent opinions -- and work through them. Palmer also makes excellent use of historical figures. Abraham Lincoln emerges as the hero of the book for his ability to overcome his own demon of depression and for his attempt to reconcile tensions in a crisis as shown by both his First and Second Inaugural Addresses. Alexis de Tocqueville, for his diagnosis of the strengths and weakness of American democracy also receives valuable discussion. Palmer explains his own conclusions in a few words: "We must be able to say in unison: It is in the common good to hold our political differences and the conflicts they create in a way that does not unravel the civic community on which democracy depends."

There is an excellent focus in the book on commonality and civic life, as witnessed in the use of public streets, bookstores, pubs, libraries and other places where people of different backgrounds and persuasions can meet and get to understand one another. I am writing this review, as I generally do, in a public library, largely because I share Palmer's commitment to the use of public space. Palmer also emphasizes the value of people explaining to one another the reasons why the believe what they do on important, controversial matters, based upon their own experiences without attempting to demonize someone who thinks differently. I tried to follow this good advice after reading the book, as I exchanged lengthy emails with a close friend who holds an opinion different from mine on same sex marriage. Perhaps it helped to air the reasons for one's belief and to understand those of another person.

I liked aspects of this book less well. Palmer does not always handle well his own project of openness to ideas with which he disagrees. He frequently translates his project into support for his own distinct agenda and tends to belittle those who think differently. In a passage early in the book Palmer shows awareness that he does this as he comes close to demonizing his political opponents, perhaps by reducing them to straw men ("Get me going on politicians who distort my faith tradition to win votes or on racial bigots and homophobes who want to translate their personal shadows into public policy, and this nice Quaker boy from the Midwest does a passable imitation of the Incredible Hulk") before half-heartedly catching himself and falling back. There is a good deal of cliche and half-formed ideas in this book intertwined with much that is insightful. I found, for example, Palmer all--too--quick in his uncompromising discussion and rejection of "consumerism". Although Palmer has much good to say about the need to both develop and hold one's opinions and to have a degree of modesty and humility in thinking about the opinions of others, his use of the overused term "chutzpah" distorts and distracts from his point. His discussion of American public education, I thought, made a variety of points, some good, some questionable. In places, I thought Palmer was expecting too much from ordinary citizens. Democracy, and the American political process, was made to accomodate a degree of human weakness. And some of the thinking in the book I thought wooly and undeveloped.

This is a worthwhile book to read and to think through. It has many insights but it is not a panacea, in my view, for understanding the current condition of American democracy. Like much other writing, the book deserves to be read but read critically and with skepticism.

Robin Friedman