Is social disconnectivity at the heart of the political disconnect? I remember watching dwindling numbers of old men gathering at some lodge or hall or club or some such place where they would debate and argue and harrumph at each other daily. The women would gather at someone’s home to cook or knit or whatever the excuse was that led inevitably to gossip. The funny thing is, the gossip always ended with more than just knowing each others’ business, it led to a social network more powerful than Facebook. The tales of woe and illness and struggle would spread through the community and lead to obligatory “stoppings by” with a casserole or box of doughnuts or some such nonsense. And the men could never reach an agreement, but sometimes they seemed to come close – at least a begrudging respect for an alternate view that not one of them would ever admit to in public. These rituals seem so quaintly old-American, conjuring up the images of chessboards in the park, and the rusted old bistro set in front of the deli, or amusingly mysterious rituals with funny hats and pins. But these rituals kept people connected and engaged in a way that we seem to no longer be. With all the technology that keeps everyone we know at our fingertips, do we really engage with the people on the other end?
It seems to me that as these sewing circles and men’s clubs fade into the past, the social isolation creates a self-determination in our thinking that is playing out dangerously in our politics. We have opinions. Humans are opinionated creatures, and whether we are deeply studied on a subject or heard about it on a news trailer, we form opinions. But nowadays, those opinions go largely untested. The media has bifurcated along whatever label you choose: left/right, Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal, socialist/capitalist. The name doesn’t really matter, but what does matter is that the process of debate has slipped away and the sources of our information are feeding the opinions we have already formed, which led us to choose those sources to begin with. Some will occasionally turn on the “opposition” and you may hear a liberal neighbor ranting and raving at Fox News, or a conservative may roll her eyes in disgust over MSNBC, but do we engage in the debate? By and large; no. We sit in our offices or living rooms and rage impotently at how “wrongheaded” those people are, and wonder why they can’t see it. Then we turn back to the comfort of our preferred source which reassures us that we are right and They are wrong, feeding all of the fears and doubts and smugnesses that we have chosen to embrace.
What’s wrong with that? Look at Washington and see. This form of government was designed and built to capitalize on the beneficial processes of debate. By forcing people to engage in discussion, the Founders expected that the best (and yes – like it or not – the most moderate) ideas would rise to the surface, because the logic and benefits would be distilled and displayed by learned men engaging in the intellectual challenge of forming, verbalizing, and legitimizing their opinions. By creating a system that demanded that a proponent fully frame and defend an idea, the Founders expected that we would continue to give form to vague beliefs and accept that only the light of opposition can truly reveal the cracks and flaws of our most cherished, but unconsidered, thoughts. We have lost this, and our society is suffering badly for it. We no longer discuss ideas or goals or consider how to get somewhere; no one offers a thought into the pit for others to chew on and break through the rind to the rich nut of a half-realized truth for fear of the opposition’s media seizing upon it as a folly. When did we as a society become so deeply, desperately, intractably invested in the absolute rightness of everything we say and do? Why can we tell our children to respect their elders and open their minds to new experiences, but can’t seem to accept even the most well-thought-out challenges to our thoughts? Why did we lose that most productive and human of abilities: the ability to evolve in our own lifetimes?
The Abrahamic traditions believe that God created man as exceptional among His creations. What made man so remarkable? Free will? Intelligence? Speech? Yes. And for many years we have been slowly and sadly moving toward a belief that to question, to learn, to explore the ill-defined edges of our beliefs was a failing. Learning and education, so hard-won for our predecessors, has become a mark of elitist (and therefore impractical and malevolent) thinking. But why? Are we made less by changing our minds? Are we made less holy or exceptional for daring our minds to move beyond our mental knee-jerk reactions and consider the other opinions available, or the unseen downsides to our positions? I say not – I believe that this rejection is saddening to God, a conscious and knowing rejection of his most special and meaningful gift to man: our brains. If we were truly created in God’s image, and if not, if we are truly the (current) pinnacle of evolution, what is to be gained by willfully rejecting God’s gifts or willfully de-evolving before our very own eyes?
Apparently, what is to be gained is a painfully fragile and dangerous need to believe in the black-and-white patterns we first thought we saw. Like young children who need to believe in Santa Clause and the power of the closet light, we shroud our minds in the Emperor’s New Clothes of conviction, of self-satisfaction, terrified that if anyone were to notice that our jewels were merely glass, that the whole illusion would shatter, and we would be left naked and exposed; somehow less.
For the sake of your children, for the sake of the flawed but elegant American government, and for the sake of our communities, there must be a way to recapture the debate. We have to find our unified voice that clamors for information to process. We absolutely need to shed the “us vs. them” trenches we have dug in our minds and come together to argue again! Embrace it folks, arguing has gotten us out of far more harm in our history than absolute rightness ever could. Health care, joblessness, economic fears, unstable industry, international pressures: all of these things can benefit immeasurably more from the blending and curing of opposing forces than from the abject defeat of one or the other. I mean really, when was the last time you preferred to choose between the pasta and the marinara rather than combining them into something much more special and whole than either would be alone? That’s all I’m saying.
No comments:
Post a Comment