Opinion: The Fourth of July reminds us that the way to enjoy freedom is to promote pluralism

On July 4, 1776, just hours after adopting their Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress commissioned Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to complete another important task: design a seal for the new United States of America. While the image they designed was not adopted, the seal that Congress eventually adopted in 1782 included the Latin motto they had proposed for the new country: “E Pluribus Unum,” which means “Out of Many, One.”

At first glance, this phrase from Franklin, Adams and Jefferson seems to be an oxymoron. How can you derive unity out of plurality? Historically, political theorists had believed that in order for a republic to be stable and free, it must be small and homogeneous . However, in creating a large, pluralistic republic, the American founders turned conventional wisdom on its head. As James Madison explained in the Federalist Papers, the United States Constitution proposed to achieve stability and liberty through pluralism.

The Federalists who sought ratification of the Constitution had accepted the fact that parties, or “factions,” are inevitable in politics. The question was not “How do you avoid conflict between different groups in society?” but, instead, “How do you manage conflict between groups in society?” The answer provided by the framers of the Constitution was bold and iconoclastic: Increase, rather than decrease, the number of different groups.

Pluralism is best understood in contrast to “dualism.” In a dualistic regime, where there are only two competing political groups in society, each group is seeking to dominate and destroy their rival. Today’s dualists claim that every American citizen can be categorized as believing in just one of two philosophies — “progressivism” or “conservatism” — and that all individuals and groups can be placed somewhere on a uni-dimensional line between the two poles of “left” and “right.” You might be extremely “progressive,” “center-left,” “center-right” or extremely “conservative,” but there are only two sides on a single line, and everyone can be placed into one of these two rival camps.

If we view politics in this simplistic and distorted way, then it becomes rational to treat political contests as all-out war between two totalizing worldviews. As George Washington explained in his Farewell Address, in a dualistic regime, “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge … is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction … turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” This is the cycle of anarchy and tyranny that grows out of dualism.

However, if there are dozens of competing political groups in a pluralistic society, rather than just two, then the idea of domination and suppression is unrealistic. When each group in society recognizes that, on their own, they will always be a minority and never a majority, then they realize that the best way to proceed is to stand for principles of equal freedom and equal protection of the laws. The good of every other group becomes the good of one’s own. On contested issues, groups will “ seek to moderate and unify ” by building broad party coalitions to achieve common aims on those few issues where citizens enjoy broad consensus. After all, in order to win a majority of the votes in a pluralistic democracy, one of the two major parties must attract dozens of different groups with different priorities into their coalition.

Writing under the pseudonym “Publius,” Madison famously laid out this logic in Federalist 10 : “The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and … the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.”

The solution, for the Federalists, was to have so many factions and groups in society that only a very broad coalition could form a majority — so broad that it would only be able to do a very few things and unable to violate the individual rights of those in other minority groups.

It turns out that Madison was right: One of the keys to the longevity of the American constitutional system is the fact that having a large, extended republic promotes pluralism, which, in turn, promotes the rule of law, liberty and peace. We have not just two but hundreds of religious groups in America. We have not just two but thousands of different industries and economic interests. Americans descend from not just two but dozens of different nations and ethnic groups. In this pluralistic country where everyone is, in one way or another, a minority, it is wise to ensure that every group enjoys equal protection of the laws and individual liberty. Madison’s insight that we should have more, rather than fewer, political groups is a counter-intuitive but brilliant insight that has allowed the United States to flourish for 248 years.

Unfortunately, American political discourse has become infected with “left-right” thinking in recent decades that has moved us away from pluralism and toward dualism. As a result, our politics has increasingly become more and more about domination rather than deference, the rule of will rather than the rule of law, elevating vicious leaders rather than cultivating virtuous citizens and concentrating power in the hands of politicians who promise to fight rather than diffusing power throughout a broad pluralistic society.

In the dualistic “left-right” framework, each side sees their own as the repository of all intelligence and goodness, while their opponents on the other side of this single line are the embodiment of all ignorance and evil. Once we place on the blinders of the “left-right” way of thinking, then politics as combat and a take-no-prisoners approach to governing become the rational way to behave. If the other side really is wrong about everything (because they are wrong about the one big issue that binds together all the particulars), and my side really is correct about everything (because we are right about the one big issue that binds together all the particulars), then peacemaking, respecting the rights of opponents, civic charity , compromise and coalition-building is foolish naiveté only suitable for suckers. Our toxic political culture, and the “left-right” falsehood that underpins it, feed each other in a vicious cycle. As American citizens hate their partisan opponents more and more, they find the dualistic “progressive-conservative” narrative more and more appealing to justify their political tribalism.

We cannot keep our republic intact while continuing on our current path of partisan hatred, fear and violence. We need to reject the false and misleading categories of “left” and “right,” “progressive” and “conservative,” and instead embrace the pluralism of Publius. When we recognize that there are hundreds of different issues in politics, not just one, and thousands of different ways to combine our positions on those hundreds of issues, not just two ways of combining issue positions, then we realize that each individual and group we encounter in the public square will have some positions that we will agree with and others that we will disagree with. This pluralist view of the world would result in two broad, coalitional parties seeking out areas of common ground among a diverse population rather than two narrow, dogmatic parties constantly seeking out points of division trying to show their own tribe how much they hate the other.

Pluralism is not a call to be weak-willed or unprincipled. On the contrary, it is a call to be true to the real and inspired principles of the United States Constitution — the rule of law, individual rights, popular sovereignty, the separation of powers and federalism — rather than being fooled by the imaginary and harmful idea of a uni-dimensional “left-right” spectrum. While there is much we will disagree on in a pluralistic society, there are a few things we can all agree on: “that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that the government’s job is “to secure these rights.” To achieve unity and freedom this Fourth of July, we need to eschew the toxic idea of dualism and re-embrace the Founders’ idea of pluralism: “E Pluribus Unum.”

Verlan Lewis is the Stirling Professor of Constitutional Studies and an associate professor of political science at Utah Valley University. He is co-author of the new book “ The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America .”