Communities build ideas; ideas build communities.
Prohuman Foundation ambassador Seth Chalmer, writing in his own Hamlet’s Chimera, asks whether America is defined primarily by a creed or also by a particular people and shared history. He says the answer is ‘both’ — that America’s community and its ideas strengthen one another, much like the interpretive communities that give enduring power to the Western canon and Torah — and that the American creed itself includes an openness allowing outsiders to become insiders.
Is America an idea — a creed? Or is it a particular community of particular, non-interchangeable people?
The answer, obviously, is both. We are a particular community, and someone born into it has claims on it and responsibilities to it that foreigners definitionally do not have. But one of those responsibilities is loyalty to the American creed — and yes, of course there is one. It lives in the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, the Pledge of Allegiance, “e pluribus unum,” and many more in a great patriotic canon of texts.1
That creed includes a remarkable openness to outsiders, of many different backgrounds, arriving and becoming full insiders. This openness is not some recent invention of an academic critical studies department; it goes back not just to Ronald Reagan but to Roger Williams. And that creedal openness strengthens, rather than weakening, our particularity as a community.
For his podcast, Desuckify Work, TJ Bennett interviewed his fellow Prohuman Foundation advisor, Shaka Mitchell, about his Come Together Music Project. The project shows how music has the unique power facilitate the emotional depth needed for genuine connection, even at work.
MITCHELL: There’s a safety in using music to express something, because it gives you a little bit of distance—like, just the right amount of distance….
One of the guys… asked him from the stage, ‘What’s the song you picked?’ and he picked a song by a band called Everclear called Father of Mine. And said, ‘Well, why’d you pick that?’
And he said it’s the song that took him back to when his father died. Well, you do not go out to an event space on a Thursday night and expect to tell a bunch of strangers information like that.…
But I think that the music really facilitates the conversation…. I followed up with him after and I said, ‘Hey, I really hope I didn’t put you on the spot. I didn’t mean to do that.’ And he said, ‘No.’
He said, ‘This to me is proof of concept. This works.’
In a brief post in his Substack, author Glenn Cort asks a provocative question: whether humans can overcome powerful forces that drive fear, tribalism, outrage, and division. As the founder of Getting Along Academy, Cort argues that while we possess both cooperative virtues and destructive tendencies, our future depends on deliberately strengthening the former over the latter.
The future of a stable, peaceful society depends on whether we can strengthen our capacity for reflection, learning, and virtue faster than the forces that trigger our worst tendencies. The question is not which one exists—it’s which one we strengthen.
For the Free Black Thought Podcast, host Connie Morgan interviews sociologist Kevin Gosine about the core purpose of sociology in studying society and inequality. Gosine critiques sociology’s heavy reliance on subjective qualitative methods and activist-driven approaches, argues that cultural factors play a major role in inequality alongside discrimination, and warns that expanding notions of harm are restricting open discussion on university campuses.
GOSINE: I think the job, the mission of a university department shouldn’t be activism, ideally. It should be the pursuit of knowledge, uncovering truth; as grandiose as that might sound. And what policymakers and activists and whomever do with that truth is up to them.
June is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. Author, clinical psychologist, and Prohuman Foundation advisor Dr. Michael Tobin will join us on the 25th to discuss Riding the Edge: A Love Song to Deborah, his powerful story about his wife’s journey with Alzheimer’s disease.
We’ll explore love, memory, loss, and what it means to live fully, even as memory fades. Dr. Tobin’s writing is both clinically insightful and deeply human. Join us.
Together, we have made immense progress building a foundation for social harmony. But, we still need your help. A generous donor is matching every contribution to the Prohuman Foundation, dollar for dollar, up to $250,000. Join the movement and double your impact today.
Opinions expressed in selected articles do not necessarily reflect those of the Prohuman Foundation. We value diverse perspectives that enrich our understanding of topics close to our mission: to promote the foundational truth that we are all unique individuals, united by our shared humanity.
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