Like a birthday that hits a big, round number, we awaken from the presidential election of 2016 to the realization that things have “suddenly” changed. The reality is that we’ve been creeping towards our current predicament bit by bit every day.
The level of polarization in our country seems to have hit an all time high. For almost all viewpoints, and from almost any source of information, people are drawing ideological lines in the sand. No matter one’s perspective, the overwhelming thrust of our interactions is towards divisiveness.
So, let’s break it down. I have some thoughts about what our society has become, followed by ideas on how we might change it. I offer them humbly.
It’s Not Them, It’s Us
We have adopted a very skewed perspective.
Somehow, we are convinced that the problems in our world are “out there” somewhere. They’re with our politicians, our government, our corporations, our universities, our celebrities, our academicians, or any other source that is somehow Not Us. We believe that the majority of our public figures, from any institution, are corrupt, and it’s us masses of people that are the innocent victims.
But the opposite is true.
These people, and the institutions that arise from them, are born of the world that we create together. The dishonesty, disregard, ignorance, lack of integrity, and inability to communicate effectively are merely a mirror of the type of discourse that runs rampant in our society.
How could anything else be true? How would these people and institutions sustain themselves if we weren’t complicit in the act?
The visibility of our public figures amplifies their missteps and (perfectly human) inadequacies, but their behaviors are manifestations of the same illness we all carry, societally.
I Am Not My Political Label
The “us” and “them” labels are sticky because we have decided that the ideological “team” we choose defines who we are as people. It doesn’t.
We have contorted the comfort we receive from connecting with people of like mind into an emotional and ideological suit of armor to protect and isolate us. The media we consume, the friends we have, and the insulated communities we create insure that our environments are safe and controlled.
Like the person cutting people off in traffic within the safety of an automobile, we think the barrier we have between us and them somehow makes our actions less public, or less dangerous.
Worse, we ignore our own intuition about what’s right, or what might work. The attachments we weave with our ideological groups bind us en masse to the entire smorgasbord of beliefs that are required for membership.
Do you identify with one political party, and surround yourself with those of like mind? No problem. But if you start to seriously question any single defining tenet of that group (e.g. education, tax policy, foreign policy), you risk alienating yourself from the comfort of your peers or, more likely, the satisfaction of a belief system that feels consistent.
You can apply this scenario to just about any other political or ideological label. The battle lines drawn in our media and popular culture make no one safe to venture outside the box.
Our Segregation Has Consequences
As we isolate ourselves in these groups, one thing becomes apparent. Our ability to have true, reasoned, and open-minded discourse with another human being has all but vanished.
While we almost certainly had better customs and institutions in place to encourage the free exchange of ideas a couple of hundred years ago, nothing could have prepared our society for the deluge of data we have on each other now.
Before the technological and social media developments of the last two decades, we had very little ability to actually know what our neighbor was thinking on a day-to-day basis. Before Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, blogging, and the 24-hour news cycle, we didn’t need to know how to speak thoughtfully with a human being who had a radically different view from ours. If we didn’t roam in the exact same social group, or see them in our church or corner store, we barely knew of their existence.
Now, at the swipe of a screen we not only know our neighbor’s thoughts, but we also know the group he or she vocally advocates for, made up of disparate souls spread around the globe. We know the core beliefs of their group (or at least their latest media campaign), and how many times they’ve “liked” them.
If we don’t happen to agree, our buttons easily get pushed. Because we’ve had no practice at real discourse about ideas, we don’t think, we react. Tempers flare, and our ideological lines get drawn ever more deeply.
Our technological ability to transmit information has surpassed our mental and emotional ability to communicate. The effects are everywhere.
Feeding the Monster
The Us vs. Them perspective, our ideological identities, and our inability to have true discourse are all sewn into the fabric of our society by one common thread.
Judgment.
We’ve all wielded this weapon mightily at one time or another, because it’s rooted in a pair of the most primordial emotions in our psyche: pain and fear.
Think you’re immune? What does your precious ideology do but allow you to understand and manage that which creates pain and fear?
The labels don’t matter. Concerned about “environmental degradation”? The “invasion of illegal immigrants”? An “oppressive tax code”? Our “deteriorating educational system”?
What are these but beliefs about what is painful now, or what we fear will be soon?
To cope, we latch onto an identity, life strategy, or specific community of people because it serves as protection in some way from those perceived outcomes.
Our ideological groups bring us comfort and safety, but it’s frequently at the expense of labeling those outside our group as “wrong”, “Ignorant”, or worse.
In other words, we judge.
This judgment feels empowering. In reality, all we’re doing is separating ourselves from each other by ignoring the very thing that binds us together: the common experience of pain and fear.
Time to Do The Real Work
I’m a doctor. When I work with patients, I can’t stand giving them a “fix” that doesn’t address the root cause of their problem. If, together, we can address that, I know they’ll have a solution that is likely to last them a lifetime.
Our society is lacking movements that address the fundamental issues of dysfunction in our society: perspective, identity, discourse, and judgment.
These are the root causes of our national illness. It’s time to treat them.
First, Change Our Perspective
Remember, it’s not Them, it’s Us.
Check yourself against the beliefs below. Do you think The Other Side:
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- Doesn’t know how to communicate effectively?
- Can’t be reasoned with?
- Is motivated by maliciousness, or worse, the desire to do evil?
- Is simply ignorant of The Facts or The Truth?
Guess what? That’s exactly what they’re saying about you.
We’re not just talking about a few people here and there that disagree with you. We’re talking about millions.
Depending on your ideology, easily 30, 40, or upwards of 70% of the country does NOT believe like you do.
So what’s your ultimate solution, if your side “wins”? Lock the other side up until they come to their senses? Kick them out? Split our society into two or more isolated countries?
None of these solutions are feasible, realistic, or (I would argue) even remotely desirable. We must learn to speak and work with each other in a completely new way. It’s really the only way.
We must hold both ourselves and the groups to which we belong accountable for language and actions that are inclusive, and that advance our respective causes without demonizing another group of people.
This means changing your own, personal choices about the media you consume, and what you support explicitly or implicitly.
Don’t like or share that post on Facebook that puts down an entire ideological spectrum. Turn off the reality show that feeds on judgment. Shut down the news program with talking heads selected precisely because they’re caricatures of a political type.
There are good, constructive recommendations out there about how to make better choices about the media we consume. Use them.
Next, Lose Our Identity
The constructs that have stapled themselves to our identities must be removed because they no longer serve us. They were helpful at one time. No longer.
Political parties, and labels like “conservative”, “liberal”, Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian, were once useful in their ability to connect us to like-minded people at a time when making those connections was hard. Simply identifying with a particular party allowed you implicit entrance to a community of people that would support and comfort you around the things you felt were wrong with the world.
This is no longer our biggest problem. Not even remotely.
Finding like minded people today is easy. Finding information that supports your worldview is easy. So easy, we wrap ourselves in a comfortable blanket of self-supporting ideology on a daily basis.
Our charge now is bigger. We have to have the courage to cast off our labels, renounce their use, and realize that the progress that I can make by connecting with my neighbor on shared common ground outweighs the disagreements we might have in other areas.
There’s no reason you and I can’t make substantial progress on, say, civil rights and immigration, even though we strongly disagree about tax policy.
Feel proud of the work you’re already doing in association with some group? Great. Keep doing it.
Work for the cause you believe in, but lose the label. It’s not helping.
Every Day, Change The Discourse
To change a root cause of our societal ills will require daily practice and effort. This is true even if you think, somehow, that you’re not part of the problem.
Let’s suppose you’re right about that.
Let’s suppose your communication skills are excellent. Let’s suppose you’re open to speaking and working constructively with people who have radically different views from your own. Let’s suppose you don’t have a judgmental bone in your body.
You are no less absolved of responsibility than a star player on a sports team would get to sit out a game and hope the team still wins. No, if you are one of these people, you have a higher responsibility to guide and lead us to a better place.
So how do we work on it?
Each of us, regardless of ability, needs a readily identifiable marker that identifies us as open to constructive, face-to-face, in-person interaction. The form of this beacon remains to be seen, but could easily be technological (“there’s an app for that”), or simply wearable (a wristband or pin).
By displaying that beacon, we should declare these things:
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- I’m willing to talk.
- I’m willing to put down my cell phone, or any other barrier to communication, and connect with you and our mutual community.
- I’m willing to listen, attentively.
- I’m willing for us to begin our discourse with that which connects any human beings: talking about what we love, no matter the topic, and finding common ground first, above all else.
- I’m willing to do my best to patiently and kindly explore any topic on which we might have a difference of opinion.
- I’m willing to separate the ideas expressed by the person in front of me from the intrinsic value I believe they have as a person. I know their skill and finesse in communicating them may be just as limited as mine.
- I am willing to calmly and peacefully walk away from any exchange that is no longer constructive. I am willing to assume that our inability to connect had more to do with my lack of skill in conveying my perspective, and not with any ill will on the part of my partner.
- My goal is to increase understanding, connection, and my skills as a peaceful communicator. I have no other agenda.
Too simple? Maybe.
It’s also hard, constructive, and an approach that can begin to rebuild our societal foundation.
It’s not the only one like it that we need. But like the addict finally ready to begin treatment, we have to start somewhere, and it better be straightforward if we’re to have any chance at success.
Treat the Illness
By addressing these things we start to work on the sickness of judgment that is coursing through our societal veins.
We’re pervaded by it. Music, television, radio, the internet, and most forms of pop culture make it cool to distinguish yourself by putting down your neighbor. We reward those who do it most effectively with celebrity status and a reality TV show. We share and retweet the clips that shut down the opposition, and the discussion.
We need a new approach.
As we work on holding less tightly to our own identities — seeing that there is strength, wisdom, and protection in our shared experience — and we develop our ability to have reflective, considered discourse with another human, we apply the only true antidote to judgment.
Compassion.