Cogrity

Moving from our old uni-vectoral definiton to a new and more complex understanding of unity will not be easy, but it is essential if we want to progress beyond our current polarization and division. Rather than viewing unity as everyone coming to one side in agreement, a better understanding of unity is the complex and nuanced unity found between opposing muscles in the body. This is what is known as "synchronous antagonism."

In synchronous antagonism, different and often opposing forces work together to create a net force in the same direction. For example, when we walk, our quadriceps muscles contract to extend our legs, while our hamstrings muscles contract to flex our legs. These two forces work together to propel us forward. In the same way, instead of focusing on changing people and their preferred directional pull, we can focus on how opposing sides can coordinate to create shared actions.

  • A creative tension underlies everything in this world made of darkness and light, left and right, and life and death… Going towards the roar means facing the increasing tension of dilemmas—involving both nature and culture—as the underlying polarities of life become more revealed.

    Michael Meade, “Why the World Doesn’t End”

  • A meaningful dilemma will keep returning at deeper and deeper levels until a creative solution is sought and consequently becomes discovered. It is as if the basic split in the world must be touched before the hidden third and unifying thing can be uncovered.

    Michael Meade, “Why the World Doesn’t End”

  • We can hunker down in our echo chambers, listen only to those who agree with us, cheer as the pundit class and the twitterati tear each other apart—not realizing that by isolating ourselves from and dehumanizing those we disagree with, we are slowly corroding our own hearts.

    Ben Irwin

  • Understand that extending intellectual hospitality does not require affirmation of the ideas or values of your conversation partners, nor does it obligate you to check your own values or worldview. Listening, asking questions, and seeking to understand the ideas of another affirms the value of that person without endorsing the idea.

    Cherie Harder

  • Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.

    Henri Nouwen

  • Understand, democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders quarreled and compromised, and expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity - the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.

    Obama

  • To achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

    Jan Stuther

  • Mindfulness is above all the capacity, simply to recognize the presence of an object without taking sides, without judging, and without craving or despising that object.

    Thich Nhat Hanh

  • We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.

    Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

  • As individuals, and as a society, we have everything to gain, and everything to lose, in how well or how poorly we manage our need for human connection….the importance of […finding] common ground has never been greater.

    John Cacciopo