Healing The Heart Of Democracy Sparknotes

Writer, Parker Palmer, in his prelude chapter “The Politics of the Brokenhearted,” in his book Healing the Heart of Democracy, describes the connection of light and dark in the human heart and the political heart. He starts off by sharing his own struggle with “darkness” and how he came back into the “light.” He then transitioned to how Abraham Lincoln did the same in his life and used them together to bring America out of heartbreak. Unfortunately America still experiences heartache and Palmer explains what today’s culture sees, as well. Palmer shares his ideas on what the “dark” is and what it means by “seeing the light” and how it is seen in the United States.
Palmer describes in many ways what he believes is the “dark.” He describes it
Palmer believes that America’s dark side is when “we the people” do not get along and hear each other’s opinions. Corrosive cynicism refers to the distrust towards claimed ethical and social values and the rejection to be socially involved. He also believes it is when we criticize each other’s traditions and beliefs in our multicultural country. All of these things are corruptive and lead to arguments and violence. Often times when people think of violence they think of war. When soldiers come back from war they can often be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder(PTSD), originally called soldier’s heart. Soldier’s heart added a human quality to the condition, but since then we have changed the name to something that takes the humanity out of it. Palmer writes, “The violence that results in soldier’s heart shatters a person’s sense of self and community, and war is not the only setting in which violence is done: violence is done whenever we violate another’s integrity”(7). Integrity can be defined as having strong, honest morals or the state of being unified. The violence the soldiers