A Larger ‘We’; Identity, Spirituality and Social Change in Pluralistic Societies

Abstract

Abstract Over the last decade, in the United States in particular, there has been an increasingly acute awareness of historic and ongoing social, racial, gender, and other disparities, and the frequent deployment of categories (for example BIPOC, LGBTQQIA2SP+, Latinx) and concepts (for example ‘cultural appropriation’, ‘white privilege’, ‘intersectionality’) that centre thinking and conversations around various axes of difference. For some critics, the hyper-focus on questions of difference is dismissed as ‘wokeness’, and its seeming ascendency across elite spaces—academic, cultural, and corporate—is viewed with alarm, particularly insofar as its advocates are seen to champion a type of illiberalism. Others have raised concerns that hyper-identitarianism may diminish possibilities for worker and class solidarity, or that it represents only an attenuated form of social justice. This article adds to this conversation by asking whether the energetic foregrounding of difference typical of ‘wokeness’ does not also pose a spiritual conundrum. To explore this question, it outlines what is here called the ‘connective worldview’, which draws from deep ecology, spiritual practices, and mystical insights common to many religious traditions to understand humans and their identities as interdependent, ephemeral and, ultimately, subject to transcendence. The article contrasts this with the ‘particularistic worldview’, which tends to set both individual and group identities in sharp relief, emphasizing the need to honour and manage difference. It argues that an ‘integrated’ perspective—one that strikes a balance between both worldviews—will be key for activists looking to foment social change while forging a larger ‘we’ in diverse, pluralistic societies.