From “The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action” by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
Other cultures work from an assumption that relationships and community are foundational for understanding reality and human development. The African concept of Ubuntu, for instance, often shared by the late Bishop Desmond Tutu, has the core assumption that “a person is a person through other people.” Relationships are the matrix for understanding our humanity. And Native American cultures also begin at a similar place. Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, a philosophy professor and member of the Wind Clan of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, explains in a 2022 New York Times article that “many Indigenous communities consider the idea of ‘person’ as what it means to be born a member of a people.”
With relationships at the center, the starting point is community.