From Dominion to Dharma to Destiny—and the Search for Trust, Truth and Shared Identity
As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the most responsible thing citizens can do is neither celebrate America uncritically nor condemn it reflexively.
We should talk with one another about America.
Not primarily through television.
Not through political advertisements.
Not through social-media algorithms designed to reward anger.
But face-to-face—in libraries, schools, universities, community centers, houses of worship and public squares.
The public library is an appropriate place to begin because it represents something increasingly precious: a civic space where people do not have to purchase admission, belong to the same political party, practice the same religion or agree about what America means.
A civic issue is not simply whether we like or dislike a particular leader. We may strongly support or strongly oppose a president, governor, candidate or policy. That is part of democratic freedom. But our personal feelings must not replace civic judgment.
The essential question is not whether we like the person we are voting for.
It is whether we understand the importance of the vote, the consequences of the choice and the responsibilities that come with citizenship.
Voting should be informed by awareness, not merely affection, anger, fear, loyalty or resentment.
Civic-mindedness is not the same as bipartisanship. Bipartisanship can sometimes mean political cooperation between parties. Civic-mindedness is broader and deeper. It means caring about the health of the community, respecting the dignity of people with whom we disagree, seeking truth through open-minded discussion and accepting responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
The goal is not to erase differences.
The goal is to discuss differences honestly and transparently so that trust and truth can grow—first within ourselves, then within our families and communities.
At America’s 250th anniversary, we should therefore transform partisan arguments into civic questions.
1776: Political Freedom and Civic Responsibility
The year 1776 produced an extraordinary historical conjunction.
The American Declaration of Independence proclaimed that human beings possess inherent rights and that governments derive their legitimate powers from the consent of the governed.
That same year Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, articulating an influential understanding of markets, specialization, exchange and economic freedom.
Together, these ideas helped accelerate two transformations:
political agency—the proposition that people should participate in determining how they are governed;
and
economic agency—the proposition that individuals pursuing productive activity through markets can create extraordinary prosperity.
These ideas helped transform the world.
But after 250 years, we must ask another question:
What happens when systems originally intended to empower human beings become powerful enough to dominate them?
Governments accumulate power.
Corporations accumulate capital.
Digital platforms accumulate data.
Algorithms accumulate knowledge about our behavior.
Political parties accumulate machinery for influencing opinion.
Artificial intelligence can increasingly accumulate—or simulate—capabilities previously associated exclusively with human intelligence.
This brings us to the DDDI framework:
DOMINION → DHARMA → DESTINY → IDENTITY
The framework is not a partisan program. It is a way to examine civic life.
Dominion asks who has power.
Dharma asks how power should be used.
Destiny asks what future we are creating.
Identity asks who we are becoming together.
DOMINION: WHO HAS POWER?
Dominion is the capacity to control resources, institutions, information, narratives and human behavior.
America was born partly through resistance to concentrated political dominion.
Yet every civilization recreates concentrations of power in new forms.
Today Americans should therefore ask:
Where does power actually reside?
Is it primarily with citizens?
Congress?
The presidency?
State governments?
Courts?
Corporations?
Financial markets?
Media organizations?
Technology platforms?
AI systems?
Or increasingly with interconnected networks of all of them?
This is why disagreements involving President Trump, Governor Pritzker or any other public official should not become merely red-versus-blue arguments.
The deeper civic question is:
How should power be distributed and restrained in a republic?
The American constitutional architecture deliberately divided authority:
**Citizen ↔ Family ↔ Community ↔ City ↔ State ↔ Federal Government **
and horizontally:
Legislature ↔ Executive ↔ Judiciary
Federalism and separation of powers were designed because the founders understood something fundamental about human nature:
power needs counter-power.
But power also needs informed citizens.
A vote is not merely an expression of personal preference. It is an act of public responsibility. When we vote, we help determine who will exercise authority over schools, public safety, taxation, health care, immigration, infrastructure, courts, foreign policy, technology and the conditions of everyday life.
Every citizen—Republican, Democrat, independent or politically unaffiliated—should therefore ask:
How much power should any president, governor, legislature or institution possess when the people in charge are individuals I strongly oppose?
That is a better constitutional test than asking how much authority we are willing to grant a leader we happen to support.
The same principle applies within families.
If we want to reduce the gap between ourselves and others, we must be willing to ask whether we apply one standard to people we like and another to people we dislike.
Transparency begins with intellectual honesty.
DHARMA: WHAT IS POWER FOR?
Dominion tells us who can act.
Dharma asks what they ought to do.
Here an Indian civilizational concept can contribute something valuable to America’s conversation without replacing the American constitutional tradition.
Dharma is difficult to translate with one English word. It encompasses duty, responsibility, ethical order and conduct appropriate to one’s role within a larger whole.
Power without responsibility becomes domination.
Freedom without responsibility can become license.
Markets without responsibility can produce exploitation.
Technology without responsibility can become manipulation.
Government without responsibility can become coercion.
Citizenship without responsibility can deteriorate into spectatorship.
And family life without responsibility can become a contest in which each person demands to be understood while refusing to understand anyone else.
The question for America’s next 250 years therefore cannot simply be:
What are my rights?
It must also include:
What are my responsibilities?
This is where Mahatma Gandhi becomes relevant to America’s civic reflection.
Gandhi’s political philosophy connected Swaraj—self-rule—with self-mastery.
A society cannot remain genuinely self-governing if citizens surrender control of their judgment to propaganda, tribal identity, fear, resentment or technological manipulation.
Swaraj therefore begins inside the human being.
It begins with the ability to pause before reacting.
It requires the courage to examine information that challenges our assumptions.
It asks us to distinguish facts from interpretations, evidence from rumor and disagreement from disrespect.
That proposition has extraordinary relevance in the age of social media and artificial intelligence.
Civic-mindedness requires more than asking whether a statement supports our side. It requires asking:
Is it true?
What evidence supports it?
What evidence might challenge it?
Who benefits if I believe it?
What responsibility do I have before I repeat it?
These questions matter in public life and in family life.
A family cannot build trust when every disagreement becomes a moral accusation.
A community cannot build trust when every political difference becomes proof of bad character.
A democracy cannot build trust when citizens refuse to examine the claims of people they oppose.
Open-minded discussion does not mean abandoning convictions.
It means holding convictions with enough humility to listen, investigate and revise them when truth requires it.
DESTINY: IS THE FUTURE SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS TO US?
America once spoke confidently about Manifest Destiny.
But the 21st century requires something different:
Conscious Destiny
Humanity now possesses technologies capable of altering not merely economies but potentially intelligence, biology, communication, warfare and the relationship between physical and digital reality.
Artificial intelligence.
Synthetic biology.
Neurotechnology.
Quantum technologies.
Robotics.
These are not simply industries.
They are emerging instruments of civilizational power.
Therefore Destiny cannot merely mean predicting the future.
Destiny must mean consciously asking:
What future do we intend to create?
Will AI concentrate knowledge or democratize it?
Will automation liberate human creativity or eliminate economic agency?
Will biotechnology primarily heal humanity or deepen inequality?
Will digital platforms strengthen democracy or industrialize persuasion?
Will capitalism continue maximizing attention capture, or can markets increasingly create human capability?
Will technology serve human beings—or will human beings increasingly adapt themselves to serve technological systems?
These questions belong not only in Silicon Valley, Washington or corporate boardrooms.
They belong in Oak Brook Library.
They belong in every American library.
They also belong at the family table.
Children and adults are learning how to think, communicate and form relationships in an environment shaped by screens, algorithms and artificial intelligence. Families must therefore discuss not only what technology can do, but what it should do.
How much privacy should we surrender for convenience?
How should we respond when technology gives us information that confirms our fears?
How can we protect attention, reflection and human conversation?
How can we prevent technology from widening the gap between one person and another?
The future is not created only by presidents, corporations or inventors.
It is also created by daily choices made by citizens, parents, educators, workers, consumers and voters.
IDENTITY: WHO IS “WE”?
This may be America’s most difficult question.
The Declaration speaks through an extraordinary collective pronoun:
“We”
But who belongs within that “we”?
American history reveals a continuing expansion—and contestation—over that question.
Indigenous peoples.
Enslaved Africans and their descendants.
Women.
Successive generations of immigrants.
Religious minorities.
Asian Americans.
Latino Americans.
People whose ancestors arrived centuries ago and people who became citizens yesterday.
The American experiment has repeatedly forced the country to reconcile universal principles with imperfect historical practice.
America at 250 therefore needs something more sophisticated than choosing between celebrating the country and condemning it.
Civilizational maturity requires holding both truths simultaneously:
America articulated extraordinary universal ideals.
America repeatedly failed to apply those ideals universally.
And yet generations of Americans used those very ideals to demand that America become more consistent with its own promise.
That tension may be one of the most remarkable features of the American experiment.
Identity is also personal.
Each of us carries multiple identities: family member, neighbor, worker, citizen, believer or nonbeliever, immigrant or descendant, parent or child, student or teacher.
When one political identity becomes more important than every other relationship, the gap between individuals grows.
A person may begin to see a family member not as a parent, sibling, spouse or child, but only as a Democrat, Republican, MAGA supporter, progressive, conservative or opponent.
That reduction is dangerous.
No political label contains the whole human being.
To reduce the other person to a label is to make understanding more difficult and conflict more likely.
The civic task is not to deny differences.
It is to see the whole person while discussing the real difference.
FROM EITHER/OR TO BOTH/AND-ALSO
Much of contemporary politics operates through binary thinking:
Left or Right.
Capitalism or socialism.
Federal or state authority.
Nationalism or globalism.
Security or liberty.
Markets or government.
Tradition or progress.
MAGA or anti-MAGA.
But complex civilizations cannot be governed adequately through permanent binary warfare.
DDDI proposes moving toward:
BOTH/AND-ALSO thinking
America needs individual freedom and social responsibility.
Markets and appropriate rules.
National sovereignty and international cooperation.
Federal capacity and state autonomy.
Technological innovation and human dignity.
Competition and collaboration.
Rights and responsibilities.
Tradition and experimentation.
Strong convictions and open-minded listening.
Personal independence and family responsibility.
Political disagreement and civic respect.
The question is not how to eliminate these tensions.
The challenge of governance is learning how to dynamically balance them.
Both-and-also thinking does not require pretending that every position is equally valid. Some claims are better supported by evidence. Some policies produce better results. Some actions violate constitutional principles or human dignity.
Open-mindedness is not moral confusion.
It is a method for seeking truth.
Transparency is not weakness.
It is a condition of trust.
VOTING: THE CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY TO CHOOSE CONSCIOUSLY
Voting is one of the clearest ways an individual participates in the life of the community.
It is also one of the easiest responsibilities to treat casually.
Citizens may vote for someone they strongly like.
Citizens may vote against someone they strongly oppose.
Both are legitimate parts of democratic choice.
But neither affection nor opposition should be the whole basis of a vote.
Before voting, citizens should ask:
What does this candidate actually propose?
What evidence supports the candidate’s claims?
What are the likely consequences of the policies?
Who will benefit?
Who may bear the costs?
Does the candidate respect constitutional limits?
Does the candidate acknowledge uncertainty and responsibility?
Does the candidate seek truth or merely mobilize anger?
Would I accept the same conduct from a leader I oppose?
What kind of civic culture will my vote encourage?
A fully aware vote does not require perfect knowledge.
No citizen can know everything.
It requires sincere effort, honest reflection and willingness to accept responsibility for the choice.
Voting is not a declaration that our side is pure.
It is a decision made under conditions of uncertainty, guided by values, evidence and judgment.
After the election, civic responsibility continues.
If our preferred candidate wins, we should not stop asking questions.
If our preferred candidate loses, we should not stop participating.
Democracy is not only the right to choose leaders.
It is also the responsibility to hold leaders accountable—especially leaders we support.
POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT AND FAMILY TRUST
The most important civic institution may be the family.
Political division often enters public life through family relationships, and public hostility often returns home through family conversations.
A parent may fear that a child’s political beliefs threaten the family’s values.
A child may believe that a parent’s political beliefs reveal moral failure.
Spouses, siblings and relatives may stop speaking because a political disagreement has become a judgment about the entire person.
The result is a widening gap between individual and other.
That gap cannot be reduced by demanding silence or pretending that differences do not exist.
It can be reduced through honest dialogue.
A family conversation about politics should begin with a shared commitment:
We will seek understanding before victory.
That commitment can include several practices:
- Name the issue clearly.
Do not argue about “everything.” Discuss one policy, event or principle at a time. - Separate facts from interpretations.
Agree on what is known before debating what it means. - Ask before assuming.
“What concerns you most about this issue?” is better than “How could you believe that?” - State the strongest version of the other person’s position.
If the other person does not recognize their view in your summary, you have not yet understood it. - Distinguish motives from consequences.
A person may have good intentions and still support a policy with harmful effects. - Use the same standard for allies and opponents.
Transparency requires consistency. - Admit uncertainty.
Saying “I do not know” can strengthen trust. - Protect the relationship.
Winning an argument may not be worth damaging a family bond. - Set boundaries against abuse.
Respectful dialogue does not require tolerating threats, humiliation or dehumanization. - Return to shared values.
Safety, dignity, opportunity, freedom, responsibility and love of family may be shared even when policy preferences differ.
The purpose of family dialogue is not to force agreement.
It is to reduce the distance between people who must continue living together.
That is also the purpose of civic dialogue.
MAGA: THE CIVIC QUESTION IS BIGGER THAN ANY CANDIDATE
Whatever one’s political opinion of Donald Trump, MAGA has exposed grievances that cannot simply be wished away.
Many Americans became distrustful of globalization, political institutions, media, universities, corporations and professional elites.
Others believe MAGA itself threatens constitutional norms, pluralism and institutional restraints.
Both perceptions are part of contemporary American political reality.
The civic response should not be to declare millions of fellow citizens morally illegitimate.
Nor should legitimate concerns about constitutional institutions be dismissed merely as partisan hostility.
Instead, public forums should ask:
Why did institutional trust collapse?
Who benefited from globalization and who experienced its disruptions?
Why do citizens increasingly inhabit different informational realities?
What should presidential power look like after Trump—regardless of who occupies the White House?
What parts of MAGA represent temporary political mobilization, and what parts represent durable changes in American thinking about sovereignty, immigration, trade and government?
What concerns expressed by MAGA voters deserve serious attention even when one rejects particular MAGA policies or rhetoric?
What concerns expressed by MAGA opponents deserve serious attention even when one rejects their political conclusions?
And perhaps most importantly:
Can Americans disagree profoundly without treating one another as enemies?
That question transcends MAGA.
It concerns the survival of republican citizenship.
A person may strongly support or strongly oppose Donald Trump, JB Pritzker or any other public figure. But civic responsibility requires more than defending or attacking a personality.
It requires examining power, policy, evidence, constitutional limits and consequences.
The question is not:
Do I like this leader?
The question is:
What am I authorizing through my vote, and what responsibilities will I accept afterward?
THE LIBRARY AS THE NEW CIVIC AGORA
The ancient Greeks had the agora.
Indian civilization developed traditions of samvad—dialogue and inquiry.
American democracy developed town halls, voluntary associations and civic institutions.
The public library can become a 21st-century synthesis of these traditions.
Imagine America’s thousands of public libraries during the 250th anniversary year convening citizens around a common set of questions—not to manufacture agreement, but to recover the capacity for disagreement without dehumanization.
A DDDI civic dialogue could begin with eight questions:
- DOMINION: Who possesses too much power in America today—and what institutions should constrain that power?
- DHARMA: What responsibilities accompany citizenship, wealth, political office and technological power?
- DESTINY: What kind of America do we consciously want to create by 2050 and 2076?
- IDENTITY: Who belongs within the American “We”?
- TRUTH: How can democracy function when citizens cannot agree upon basic facts?
- TRUST: Which institutions deserve public trust, which need reform, and how can trust be earned rather than demanded?
- TECHNOLOGY: Should algorithms and AI primarily capture human attention or expand human agency?
- SWARAJ: Can a people govern themselves politically if individuals increasingly lose sovereignty over their own attention, information and judgment?
A ninth question should be added:
- VOTING: How can each citizen vote with full awareness of the importance of the vote, while remaining accountable to truth, community and conscience?
A tenth question should also be added:
- FAMILY: How can open-minded discussion reduce the gap between individuals and others within the family without requiring the surrender of honest differences?
These questions do not demand bipartisanship.
They demand civic-mindedness.
They do not require citizens to abandon strong beliefs.
They require citizens to examine those beliefs honestly.
They do not promise agreement.
They create the possibility of trust.
FROM 1776 TO 2026 TO 2076
The first 250 years transformed a revolutionary proposition into the world’s longest-running constitutional republic while also revealing profound contradictions between America’s ideals and practices.
The next 50 years may pose an even more fundamental challenge.
For the first time, humans are creating technologies capable of participating in cognition itself.
The central struggle may therefore move beyond:
Who governs territory?
