A Darn Good New Year’s Resolution

Jan. 1, 2025

It was not a man of the cloth who originally called up our “better angels.”  No, the appeal comes from America’s greatest orator.

Abraham Lincoln closed his first inaugural address thusly: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Leave it to Lincoln to coin a phrase.  The rest of that closing passage has fallen away but the last few words not only survive, but guide – and inspire – to this day.

And so it is with the little side project by Our Common Purpose to identify a catchphrase that in the best of worlds would stop political extremists dead in their tracks.  Ideally this pithy one-liner will serve both as a snappy comeback when someone says something outrageous and as a label for official actions that go overboard.

Every instinct is to go negative, to fight fire with fire.  That was the tone of the examples put out by Our Common Purpose as a side question in its latest public opinion survey (you’ll be reading about the main thrust of that survey in the months ahead).  And so it was with many of the avalanche of counter-suggestions that came in from respondents.

Among my favorites was “stop the madness,” which efficiently makes a double point in three words.  If you didn’t read it before, check out the summary of the other submissions at Seeking a Snappy Retort to Extremism.

But herein enters the inspiration of good ‘ol Abe Lincoln.  As bad as we think division is today, it doesn’t hold a candle to what he faced.  And yet he somehow found it within himself to call upon our better angels.

In that spirit, there were better angels who submitted positive rejoinders to Our Common Purpose.  Of those, the one that stood out is the familiar phrase “We are better than this.”

One could lean to several possible variations.  I wondered in the last post about “We need to be better than this.”  Bill, a follower of this blog, came along with “We can be better than this” or perhaps “We might be better than this.”

After due consideration of the alternatives, I’ve gone back to the base form.  Adding in any of the so-called modal verbs (can, might, could, should, would) introduces an element of doubt.  They connote possibility.  “We are better than this” is assertive.  It displays conviction.

Admittedly a conviction that many have come to doubt. Are we truly better than this? Depending on the situation, the message could be directed at failures to:

• • Respect each other. This includes civility, actual listening, and ultimately working together.
  • Respect our founding ideals and democratic norms. This includes working within the system to effect change.
  • Prioritize country over factionalism.
  • Balance our respective interests. This includes looking out for the underdog, but there are other interests to account for as well.
  • Act reasonably. This includes practicality, awareness of consequences and societal standards.

As we enter the new year, “we are better than this” is a vow to remember and to use whenever appropriate.  While the offenses might at this moment in time seem weighted in one direction, we need to remember that every action has a reaction.  We wouldn’t be in this fix if both sides didn’t have some serious work to do.

For all concerned, “we are better than this” makes for a pretty darn good New Year’s resolution.

— Richard Gilman