D.J. Tice @StribDJ America has always been an experiment in the limits of diversity. How deeply and in how many ways can a people differ and disagree, and even disapprove of one another’s ways of life, and still remain “a people” — a community with enough shared values to stay united and, as necessary, defend itself? Born in revolution, lacerated by Civil War caused by racial injustice and strife that divide us still, unsettled by repeated waves of immigration aggravating ethnic, religious and class tensions — the nation has weathered many splintering storms yet held shakily together, so far. So maybe today’s worrisome divides will also prove bridgeable, even though some of them seem to test new boundaries. Most coherent human cultures have enjoyed a tolerably firm agreement about basic social norms like what a marriage looks like. (Or certainly about bathroom rules — who should answer nature’s call where.) There may be no one “right” answer to such questions — but most societies have settled on one answer for themselves. Can America find a way to accommodate an ever-widening array of differences, even on such matters as these? Or will those who differ with new customs and definitions […]
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