The ‘real’ deal

When Arlen Specter announced that he was leaving the Republican Party, it seemed first and foremost like an attempt at self-preservation. He didn’t think he could win the Republican primary in Pennsylvania because his party had moved too far to the right to elect him, so he became a Democrat. Simple. Or maybe not so simple.

Is Specter’s move and Republican reaction to it a manifestation of what can happen to ideological movements, whether they are political, religious or philosophical? I have seen it not only among Republicans but in Christian denominations, political groups left and right, and even social clubs that think of themselves as “exclusive.”

They start down a path of tightening the boundaries and raising the bar of who can be in and who must be cast out. The Southern Baptists went down this road. Individual congregations used to have autonomy over who could be ordained as clergy. Then the Convention, the governing body, decided that if a church chose a woman, it could no longer be a member of the denomination. Despite having prided itself on not having creeds, it established theological litmus tests. The pruning continued. The majority told themselves they didn’t need these other people. Good riddance! They weren’t true Baptists anyway.

Once a group starts down this road, it is hard for them to stop. As soon as those regarded as not-our-kind are gone, they turn on each other and tighten the boundaries again. It doesn’t matter if the group is made up of Baptists or Marxists or Republicans. 

It often begins when the group is doing well. Their opponents are not all that strong. They can cut people without any obvious negative consequences ... at first.  They take pride in their exclusivity and “purity.” They use the word real: real Republicans or real Presbyterians, real Americans or real Virginians, real Marxists or real liberals think the way we do. Anyone who dissents is not truly a member of the group.

The group begins to shrink, but it loudly proclaims it doesn’t care because purity is more important than numbers. The members become intellectually incestuous and paranoid. It is a little like the biological problems that occur when a human or animal gene pool is too small for the group to remain healthy. Sickness sets in.

Human groups always run this danger. If they are fortunate, some wise members of the group nip such tendencies in the bud. Does that mean groups should have no boundaries at all? Of course not. Wisdom requires us to find healthy boundaries. It isn’t easy. The Republican Party is going down this road now, but give the Democrats a few years and some solid success, and they too will be in danger.

Something else is useful to keep in mind. Our enemies are just as vulnerable to this sick pattern as we are. The Taliban are probably already experiencing it. Islamist political movements are extremely vulnerable. It would probably be the better part of wisdom to find a way to contain them and then give them time to eat each other alive. Sometimes our own actions give extremist groups just the convenient enemy they need to recruit more members.

A clergy friend of mine who has a deeper understanding of groups than anyone I have ever known talks about “pushing people into their own craziness.” The Taliban and Islamists can be pushed into their own craziness, but we have to consistently understand how such groups work and keep to the high moral ground.

As for the Republicans, the nation is not well served by a weak Republican Party. I hope they can pull themselves back from their downward spiral into an increasingly ideological, angry party. The nation needs sound, smart conservative input.

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.