To the Editor:

A patient of mine was distressed about a bumper sticker she saw in town on the way to her appointment. The bumper sticker had an “88” on it. I asked what that stood for. She said, “The eighth letter of the alphabet is ‘H.’ 88 stands for ‘HH.’ That stands for ‘Heil Hitler!’”

Now I was disturbed. My uncle was in five beach landings from North Africa to France in the Second World War. He was among the first to land with the job of clearing mines and obstacles for the larger invasion to come next. Uncle Robert paid a heavy price for his service to fight fascism and protect democracy. He died from complications of his battle wounds as did 249,000 other American young men in the European Theater.

We live in a time of enormous challenges. It is all-too-human in such uncertain times to retreat into tribes that look familiar to us. This lets us blame some other tribe for all the problems we see around us. We perform mental gymnastics to distort facts to fit our preconceived ideas of how virtuous we are and how despicable the other tribe is. All facts are bent to fit the narrative of the evil of the “other.” We erode our humanity and the foundations of democracy in the process.

The rest of the bumper sticker said, “Once a rebel, always a rebel.” There is nothing particularly rebellious about following our most animalistic instincts toward tribalism. Reducing complicated problems to over-simplified formulas is not rebellious. Especially when one arrives at only one conclusion: some other group of people is subhuman. To reduce human suffering to a partisan formula so we don’t have to wrestle with loss or confusion or grief or tragedy is the easiest of unethical traps. It is the opposite of rebellious. It is mentally, socially and morally primitive.

It would be rebellious to resist tribalism and instead, allow our hearts and minds to become bigger, more inclusive, more humane. That would truly be rebellious. That would ask us to become more patient, more willing to see the tragedy in the suffering of others and more committed to its relief. That would be rebellious. To bear the uncertainty and anxiety created by complicated problems. That would be rebellious. To not rush to rigid slogans but feel obliged to think. To allow ideas to clash, but never personalities. To embrace a vision of our shared human dignity. That would be rebellious. Only then does democracy becomes viable. It is undermined otherwise.

In the final analysis, the question is: do we allow the challenges of our time to make us smaller in heart and mind, or bigger. We must choose the truly rebellious option. To choose the difficult but always rewarding path of finding ways for us to live in harmony with our differences. To be faithful to the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands who died to fight fascism and save democracy.

John Woodall, MD

Newtown