What it’s like living and working in a place with urgent purpose by Adrian

Looking back on my time with the infantry, I think it’s most extraordinary that people were able to suppress their individuality without annihilating those quirks that made them who they were. And for the vast majority of folks, that experience of suppression—of giving oneself over to a “group” mentality or a “group” think—was both practical and useful; it permitted personal growth, much in the same way that trimming grape vines can stimulate the production of richer fruit. Even the idiosyncratic soldiers who were teased for their loud preferences—a sergeant in Italy who drove a loud jeep, a specialist in New York who drove a Mazda Miata, fitness buffs, chefs and musicians and intellectuals like myself—all wore a uniform and marched and saluted and played along with the system on a certain basic level. Going along was the ante for participation in the Army.
 

Things are slightly different outside the military. Americans live in a corporatist and consumerist culture where people work in offices, and are encouraged to differentiate themselves through the act of purchasing items. They identify their quirks through branded clothing, cars, and culinary preferences. For veterans who are accustomed to the limited social and practical asceticism enforced by the military, as well as the leveling effect of being part of a larger unit, it can be difficult to transition back into what’s affectionately referred to as “the real world.” When they do, though, they often carry a new kind of definition for themselves forward with them. What, I wonder, is the specific mechanism by which this transformation is made possible?
 

This question feels particularly important, maybe even urgent. Identifying an answer holds out great promise when it comes to resolving some of the more trying issues of our age: identitarianism, factions, the entropic forces tearing apart an increasingly destabilized center. “America” holds decreasing appeal for many within the country. Aongside “the West” and Europe, is often used synonymously with corruption and exploitation. How, on a human level, can we push back against these forces—how can we unite sufficiently to refrain from tearing each other to pieces, and irrevocably destroying the civilization in which we live?
 

The easiest answers are all deeply unsatisfying, and can be summarized as “tribalism.” Patriots and nationalists depend for their idea of self on a small, fragile, and fungible idea rooted in violence. Chauvinists and sexists and racists are, unsurprisingly, on terribly shaky ground. Religious fundamentalists take on a great and by definition unprovable hypothesis as their basis for existence. All of these ideas draw some measure of strength from what they are not, which means that they contain within them the seeds of their own destruction.
 

That tension, within and without, in group and out group, is likely also a source of strength, as well, or it wouldn’t be worth carrying the implied threat of destruction. How to keep the strength, while reducing (as much as possible) the threat of violence, exclusion, and destruction?
 

Ultimately, I believe this is why the answer should lie with the broadest and most permissive definition of our “tribe” possible, one that excludes (paradoxically) tribalism on any meaningful human level—one in which each human has a stake. Humanism is the word for which we’re searching. All humans, regardless of race, sex, health, or age have a stake in this idea. If we can take care of each other, the way people took care of each other in those units I saw in the Army, we can cooperate enough not to destroy ourselves… and maybe make some material progress in the world, as well.