Human beings have a powerful need for meaning that is every bit as important a source of motivation as the need for economic survival and security.

In each of these examples, a politician or a public leader evokes our longing for meaning as a tactic. It's a means to a political end. Therefore, it's not difficult to see that when such longings are later ignored or rejected, they can morph into cynicism, distrust, and anger. Witness the reluctance today, especially after the debt-limit debacle, of many of Obama's supporters to passionately work for Democrats aligned with his vision. Right or wrong, many feel used. On the other hand, King's vision, his call to our higher selves, was grounded in an on-going movement with an institutional base, namely, the black church and student organizations that intentionally wove this sense of meaning into its everyday life. When our need for meaning is evoked through oratory alone, cynicism can grow. When it is evoked and systematically reinforced in an on-going institution, it can change the world.

If oratory provides the icing, the actual cake is the constant subterranean desire in all of us for meaning, a desire immanent in our everyday lives, but especially manifest at times of struggle and transformation. For labor unions, such needs come to the foreground at the beginning of every strike. The excitement and feeling of collective purpose, of being bigger than oneself, dominate the strikers. And that sense of purpose can be infectious. For example, such a sense of purpose was engaged far from the picket lines in 2006 when members of SEIU Locals 1 and BJ voted to support their striking brothers and sisters in Houston. Workers in Chicago and New York were willing to risk their own contracts to support people they'd never met because they were involved in common struggle.

Several years ago, a large labor union hired a renowned design and innovation firm to help them understand how their members experienced their union. After embedding themselves with members for months, the consultants drew one powerful conclusion: members felt connected to the union, to the higher purpose that the union represented, during times of conflict. Between strikes and contract campaigns, this connection weakened and member engagement radically decreased. In other words, the union activated its members' passion, their sense of solidarity and purpose, at moments when members could readily see how their individual interests had to be subordinated to their collective one.

There are many reasons that union leaders love a good fight, most of them stemming from a desire to combat the weakness and vulnerability of their members. Unions intuitively understand that such fights galvanize their members, albeit temporarily, not only by empowering them, but by stirring up their identification as an "us" versus a "them,"-- the employer. In so doing, they thereby enter a much bigger and grander battlefield. I recently had occasion to hear a leader of a San Francisco hotel workers union say, at a strike meeting, "They treat you like dirt, but the fact is that they need you. You-not they--are the backbone of San Francisco's hotel industry. And the hotels are the backbone of San Francisco's hospitality industry. Without you, San Francisco would be Fresno!"

Heroic narratives of the unappreciated or discounted underdog saturates our culture, especially the world of sports. What team doesn't want to be the overlooked disrespected underdog? How often do we hear versions of "We're playing today for pride, for respect, for our fans, etc." In other words, we're insisting that we have significance, despite the oddsmakers, the journalists....that people will have to notice and remember us. This is about meaning.

The challenge for unions and other progressive organizations is how to elicit and give voice to their members' need for meaning when there's not a strike. Because the fact of the matter is that a powerful need for meaning persists outside the context of struggles. It emerges and animates many areas of our everyday lives. For example, such a need lies at the very heart of spirituality. If the need for meaning is a need for significance, a need gratified through identifying with something bigger than the self, then Jesus, Mohammed--God him or herself--represent the ultimate transcendent force to which we're connected when we worship. As philosopher Paul Tillich put it, "Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite."

In addition, the social communities that often form around religious institutions provide further outlets for the meaning needs of their members. Most religious congregations provide multiple vehicles for the satisfactions that come from helping others, for "contributing to the community." Providing respite care, tending to the sick, organizing social events, etc. are all avenues for meaningful work that religious life offers its members. It both encourages and benefits from sponsoring and supporting the natural altruism of human beings. In a recent study, Robert Putnam argues that "statistics suggest that even an atheist who happened to become involved in the social life of a congregation (perhaps a spouse) is much more likely to volunteer in a soup kitchen than the most fervent believer who prays alone." Volunteerism, charity, committees offering succor and support, are all vehicles offered by many churches, synagogues, and mosques for the satisfaction of needs for meaning.

That religions provide a context for satisfying meaning needs is apparent in the sacrifices made in the service of their satisfaction, including sacrifices involving darker purposes. One has only to think of the Crusades, the Reformation, the near-universal persecution of Jews, the World Trade Center attacks, the hysteria over a mosque in New York, or the move to criminalize Muslim veils in France-all examples of the extent to which the need for spiritual meaning, when recruited to the service of other base motives, can be a frighteningly powerful force.