"We the People" and Other Stories We Tell Ourselves - Issue #8
Fitz wonders whether intersectionality might be better understood in terms of story, rather than identity. Jason explains why "We the People" might not mean what you think it does.
Welcome to Issue #8 and thank you for reading along with us. This past week was…a lot. That’s why today’s newsletter—a double feature—is only tangentially related to the election and politics in general. Actually, the thread that ties the two essays together is language (big surprise from two English PhDs, I know). Fitz is thinking about the term “intersectionality,” which was coined decades ago, but until recently was mostly considered in the context of academia, and Jason turns his attention to the rhetorical uses of “We the People,” both as a means of uniting and dividing Americans. At the end you’ll find some listening and reading suggestions, as usual. We hope you enjoy!
What’s Your Story?
by Jonathan D. Fitzgerald
I was recently on a panel in celebration of First-Generation Day, which is a day to recognize students who are the first in their families to attend college. I was asked to be on the panel because I am what is now called a first-generation college student. I’ve long known this—ever since that moment in Dr. Stine’s literature course when he asked who among us was the first in our family to attend college and I proudly shot my hand high into the air only to realize that I was the only one—but back then I didn’t know there was a name for it, and there certainly wasn’t any celebration of the fact that I was aware of.
Anyway, being a first-generation college student is part of my identity and, at the panel, I was asked, “What intersecting identities have contributed to your first-gen experience?” Now, one could have a number of reactions to this sentence. Maybe you’ve never encountered this notion of “intersecting identities,” so then you’re like, huh? Or, maybe you’ve come across the theory of intersectionality and then you could be either like, Yay! or Ugh!
For those in the former camp, allow me to bring you up to speed. Intersectionality is a concept attributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw, a lawyer, civil rights advocate, and critical race theory scholar, as a means of countering “the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis,” as Crenshaw writes. In other words, you’re never just one thing. You might be African American, a woman, a Christian, heterosexual…or all of these things at once.
So, the question of what intersecting identities have contributed to my first-gen experience was a way of asking what other parts of my non-segregated interior self matter in relation to my identity as a first-generation college student. I think the notion of intersectionality is fundamentally true and extremely helpful in understanding others, but I’ve been thinking recently that the things that intersect within humans are not identities, but stories. I’m not an amalgamation of identities—or perhaps we could say labels—but rather of stories that I tell myself and others about me.
Let me give an example: I was talking recently with my mom on a beautiful sunny day in Rockport while we watched my kids playing on a playground. This was in that time after the election but before the results were known and I was pontificating (as I’m apt to do) on what I’ve been describing (with some evidence) as the second biggest factor in how one chooses to vote: education level. It’s clear from looking at election maps, particularly those that show circles indicating where people actually are as opposed to counties shaded red or blue (since land doesn’t vote), that in cities, where there are universities, museums, and other cultural institutions, Democrats win. And yet, Trump was almost re-elected as a direct result of those smaller red circles representing the rural counties. Brushing with broad strokes, it is safe to say that cities have higher concentrations of people with degrees and clearly these are places where the majority votes Democrat.
Mom and I talked about why this is: exposure to different people and ideas; in the case of college, four years of concentrated horizon-broadening. We talked about the notion that once you see that there other ways to live, you scrutinize the way you grew up, etc. And then we were distracted because the kids had put together a skit on the slide in which they basically just crashed into each other and laughed a bunch. It wasn’t their best work, if I’m being honest.
As we walked back to the rock we had been sitting on, Mom asked why eduction also seems to destroy belief. We’d arrived at the elephant in the room, of course. This is a conversation we’d been having off and on for years and while one can rattle off reasons, that hardly feels appropriate when we’re not really discussing the subject as abstractly as it may appear. We’re talking about us. We’re talking about the fact that we both feel like we have little in common with the faith community in which I was raised. This is the conversation we have but don’t have whenever one of us runs into someone from those days, either in physical or virtual space, and finds out that they’re Trump supporters. We wonder, how did we change? I wonder, how did we get out?
I can’t deny, education is a big part of it, and not just for me, not just formal education. Mom has been reading and learning too over all these years, and these conversations that we have where we’re not afraid to challenge what we once accepted as true carry on across decades. But maybe we can both trace it back to one thing we learned over time from reading writers like Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren: the Bible can be true and not factual. That we don’t have to “take the Bible literally” as people sometimes say (though it’s not quite the right phrasing) to still believe it contains truth. But, as Mom pointed out, this has a destabilizing effect that has the tendency to knock one off his axis.
So, why does education seem to destroy belief? Here’s what I said:
I think that when you encounter other stories that are true, it becomes difficult to believe that truth is the exclusive domain of one faith tradition, of one book, of one story. This realization impacts my very sense of self—my identity to get back to the point at hand. I’ve come to see that the story of Christianity has been and forever will be extremely important to me—life-defining, even. But there are other stories that are central to my being and that also define me: the story of my ethnicity, the story of being a first generation college student, the stories written by writers of the Beat Generation that I read at a formative time, the stories Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger, and, of course, Star Wars. These stories contain truth and I live by them. They shaped and continue to shape me. Even the story of how stories came to shape me is one of my essential stories.
When I think about my identity—and of course people ask things today like, “how do you identify”—I respond that it’s not how I identify, but what stories I tell myself and others about me. If I say I’m of Irish and Italian heritage, I’m talking about the story of my grandparents coming together at a time when a union like theirs would have been seen as taboo. When I say I’m a white male, I’m telling a story of profound privilege that came to me at the expense of many other people. When I say I identify as a first-generation college student, I’m talking about the story of how my parents and grandparents sacrificed so I could get a college education. And, when I say I’m a Christian, I’m saying that there’s a story of a man named Jesus and the church that he founded that resonates with me on many levels, as a cultural inheritance as well as a life-shaping narrative.
Beyond all of this, I think it’s far more generative to talk about human beings as intersections of stories as opposed to identities because our culture has decided that identity is sacred and unquestionable. Once I declare my identity, you can’t argue with me. But stories aren’t like that. Stories are made for sharing and for discussing. Stories are fundamental to who we are, but they’re not sacred or static. They’re fungible; they evolve and change as we do.
I get why we’ve made identity into an untouchable, essential category, but I tend toward openness and discussion. So, rather than ask me, “how do you identify?,” ask instead, “What’s your story?”
Coda: As is the nature of this space, these are ideas I’m still working out. I’d be very happy to engage with people on this concept of intersecting identities versus stories. What am I missing here? Is there something more fundamental about “identities” that is not captured when I reimagine the term as stories? And, as always, the views expressed above are solely those of the author.
Deconstructing “We the People”
by Jason Clemence
The day before the election, George Thomas published a pointed opinion piece analyzing a frequently-uttered statement in partisan discourse: that “America is a republic, not a democracy.”
While Thomas concedes that the statement is technically not untrue, he also takes what language nerds like me would call a descriptivist position on the usage choice: “We [have] come to use the term democracy as a stand-in for representative democracy as distinct from direct democracy.” In other words, he acquits those who use the D-word, on account of the fairly obvious point that language evolves and that democracy is more a philosophy and set of procedures than an absolutist state of being. Or, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris recently said, quoting John Lewis: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.”
Put another way, the difference between “being a democracy” and “observing democratic principles and procedures” is largely a matter of grammatical fussiness, of turning a noun into an adjective.
But the real takeaway from Thomas’ piece is that this rejoinder of “We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic!” isn’t really intended to correct a misconception anyhow.
Rather, it is a sort of snippy shorthand for addressing people who might complain about the deeply problematic Electoral College, or the fact that small-state residents have grossly disproportionate power over perhaps the most formidable governing body in the nation, to say to us something like You have no right to complain about a system of minoritarian governance in which unpopular politicians wield enormous power! If you think that everyone ought to have an actual, literally equal say in the shaping of the country, you’re either unpatriotic or uneducated!
Continuing his discussion, Thomas points out that a key outcome of several Constitutional Amendments has been to bring enfranchisement to a wider group of people – the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments all served to aid America as it “struggled to become the democratic republic first set in motion two centuries ago,” to work toward an expansion of the simultaneously populist and majestic grandeur of the Constitution’s opening phrase: “We the People.”
If ever there were a time to say “We the People” with conviction in 2020, it was during the victory speeches of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this past Saturday night. Both the president-elect and vice president-elect intoned that hallowed phrase early in their remarks, and it felt not just entirely appropriate, but hard-earned: an apt description of the way in which everyday people, not talking heads and pundits and operatives and politicians, rose up and voted in record numbers. Those people set records for the most votes cast for an American candidate ever and (in terms of sheer numbers) the biggest popular vote victory ever. Those people gave the Democrats a better showing in the Electoral College than I’d expected. Those people delivered a decisive repudiation of Trumpism, if not of the Republican party itself.
It was a momentous moment, rooted in a cautious vindication of a uniquely American political system that had appeared to be on the verge of crumbling, and probably will again. And so the gesture of invoking those three first words of the Constitution, each word so mundane on its own but so iconic when brought together, seemed appropriate and moving.
But like the term “democracy” and so many other historical referents, the phrase “We the People” has recently been subjected to alarming rhetorical abuse, both on social media and among the political and pundit classes, as a sort of bland intensifier for any old ideological position held by the person using it.
And, like the disingenuous 7th-grade-civics-lesson condescension of the “republic, not democracy” reminder, “We the People,” used in everyday political conversation, takes on some uncomfortable undertones:
1. It Tethers Every Argument to the Founders
It doesn’t matter what you are arguing for. You could be advocating for universal healthcare or building a wall on the Mexican border or defunding the police or (no, seriously though) calling for a “do-over” of the presidential election in Pennsylvania as though it were a schoolyard game of kickball. By prefacing your position with “We the People” you ostentatiously imply that your position is aligned with the values of the Founders. Claiming to be the true adherent to Constitutionality is a worn-out argumentative strategy of both the left and right, but this particular tactic is especially sneaky: It allows the arguer to imply a connection between their position and the Constitution without the inconvenience of actually having to reconcile that position with any particular Article, Amendment, or Clause. It is unsurprising that casual use of “We the People” increased sharply with the Tea Party , an allegedly grassroots political movement that persistently co-opted popular imagery and rhetoric of the American Revolution in its campaign to discredit President Obama.
2. It Implies Overwhelming Consensus
Even if we leave aside the way in which the phrase functions as a hyperlink to the purportedly brilliant and idealistic political culture of the late 18th century, it’s impossible not to read it as a declaration of majority opinion. If I write We the people demand X, I am implying that that demand has widespread support, regardless of how outside the mainstream it might in fact be. So strong is our cultural deference to the political developments and towering historical figures of the 1770s, 80s, and 90s, that those who identify with or are simply seduced by the phrase itself might be more easily inclined to agree with the assertion that follows, even if it is otherwise inimical to their values.
3. It Excludes
When I teach principles of argument, I tell my students about a sign I used to see when I lived on a quiet residential street in Vermont. Several parents in the neighborhood were concerned about how fast cars tended to drive through — the street connected a bustling commercial area with the interstate, so a lot of motorists used it as a shortcut — and tried to drum up support for a petition to lower the speed limit. Professionally-printed yard signs went up, reading Lower the Speed Limit on Grove Street: Because We Love Our Children! The transparent rhetorical trap, of course, is to suggest that if you oppose the argument in favor of reduced speed limits, you reveal that you don’t love, or at least care about the welfare of, the neighborhood kids.
“We the People” performs a similar move. It doesn’t outright suggest the existence of two ideologically competitive groups, but it insinuates that authentic Americans, those who believe in the Constitution and the unique rectitude of the American system, are on board with whatever sociopolitical position is being put forward. And while the intention is no doubt to highlight the voice of ordinary Americans in the face of real or perceived back-room political shenanigans, the rhetorical outcome is, perhaps inadvertently, sinister.
Because, like that sign on Grove Street, “We the People” is a rhetorical and ideological ace up the sleeve. It suggests that to disagree with the premise that follows is to divest from normative American values, that the speaker’s position is not just patriotic but self-evidently so. We might like to think, when we throw around this phrase, that the only opposition, the only ones who are NOT “the people,” are the fat cats and faceless power brokers in Washington. But deep down, we know that’s not the case. Defining our position as “the people’s” will, as so genuinely American that it connects us to the Founders and the ideals they represent, inevitably means excluding plenty of other people from that connection.
In other words, while “We the People” denotes a celebration of widespread adherence to all-American principles, its usage in the polarized modern political landscape ironically and inevitably connotes an aggressive rejection of other citizens, and does so at exactly the same moment that it declares solidarity. Any assertive claim of a political We implies the existence of a suspicious other, a They.
To make matters worse, the mechanics of the phrase suggest not only a vast consensus in which dissent is by definition un-American. It also, through its emphasis on the word people, seems to suggest, as Susan B. Anthony argued in her ruthless dismantling of anti-suffrage laws, that those who are excluded must be — at least in the eyes of the person who utters the phrase, and even if they don’t have the “hardihood” to say it out loud — not people.
Perhaps my perspective here is hypocritical, as I nod in affirmation of Biden’s and Harris’ use of “We the People” while criticizing its more cavalier everyday use. This was, after all, easily the most contentious and hostile election in modern history, and some 70 million people voted for Trump. According to my own argument, aren’t those 70 million excluded from the victors’ use of that phrase?
Yes and no.
Surely, most of Trump’s supporters do not feel like they were being addressed in the remark that this is “a victory for We the People.”
But Biden continued:
We have won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket in the history of this nation — 74 million. I am humbled by the trust and confidence you have placed in me. I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States. And who will work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people.
Harris, meanwhile, reflected upon the idea that “We the People have the power to build a better future.”
These are, I believe, deeply legitimate uses of a too-often-slippery phrase. Realistically, we all know that American reconciliation is a long way off, possibly a lost cause. But the gesture felt genuine, like an an earnest invitation to the biggest civic, political, and cultural tent anyone has set up in quite some time.
Biden and Harris did not deploy “We the People” in order to persuade the electorate of some specific policy or cultural viewpoint, but to celebrate the unique powers of democracy itself. To look in awe at the record-shattering number of votes that were cast. To point toward a project, however imposing and improbable, of renewal. To ruminate upon longstanding sociopolitical ideals and processes that, against all odds, appear to have survived the past four years after all.
The opinions expressed above are solely those of the author
What We’re Listening To:
Fitz: One could absolutely get the impression that I have completely forsaken music with lyrics, which, if it were true, would be a special kind of irony. I haven’t, but I have been loving the mental space that instrumental music affords me and, to that end, this week’s pick is the new instrumental, slide-guitar record by an old favorite, Ben Harper. It’s called Winter is For Lovers and I’m certain to be listening to it all winter long.
Jason: I’ve really been enjoying revisiting Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins’ Rabbit Fur Coat, which was my favorite album of 2006. It totally holds up.
What We’re Reading:
Fitz: I discovered the site DiscountMags.com, and it’s trouble. There was a good deal on Harper’s so I subscribed and I’ve been loving it.
Jason: So many opinion pieces on The Atlantic and The Nation and even National Review. Way too much social media. And a bit of Stephen King’s short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, which has a spooky cover illustration that verges on camp and a really fun assortment of old-school horror tales. One of them is about a car abandoned at a rest stop. But did I mention that the car eats people?!
Oh, and while I run I “read” the audiobook of Bob Woodward’s Rage.