Tag: conflict

A time to heal and unify the United States? Maybe…

On By Kay LorraineIn community, conflict, connection, politics, unity
Source: Samfunnsfaglig engelsk (SF VG3) US Politics US Politics – 2008-2018

So, the 2020 U.S. presidential election is over, and whether you agree with the outcome or not, the fact remains that there’s a pretty significant division between Trump voters and Biden voters. There has been for years – a division between Trump supporters… and everyone else, that is.

I’m not getting into my own politics here. There’s plenty of room for that elsewhere. Let it be known that I would rather be kind, than right. And I absolutely positively don’t believe in caging children who have been ripped from the arms of their mothers. I understand how others can justify it. I just can’t.

Anyway, now that Joe Biden is the projected winner of the election, everybody’s talking about how he’s going to unify the country. He’s been crossing the aisle to build alliances with “the other side”, his whole career (as I understand it). And people expect him to continue to do the same.

Which is fine. He can try. And it may work with some folks. But frankly, I think the divisions of this country are too deep and too ingrained in people’s identities, for the supporters of his opponent to reach out to him, or respond to his advances. There’s too much at stake for them, particularly when it comes to who they believe they are, and who their constituents expect them to be.

Likewise, I really believe that the folks on his side have a deep-seated investment in maintaining an autonomous ideology, a frame of reference, that is theirs and theirs alone. It’s been four years, since they had the chance to exercise any sort of influence, so now that they’re ascending, they’re certainly going to do it.

And there’s not necessarily any reason for them to reach out to the other side and build bridges. Not when they have their newly won position at stake.

This might sound dire. It might sound depressing. But think about it.

People need to have their own identity. They need to have their tribe. And the lines between the old tribes have become so blurred, over the past 40 years, that it’s hard to tell exactly who belongs where, anymore. The old ways of growing up in one place and living out your years there… or getting a job at one company and eventually retiring from there… being the member of the same church, or the same softball league, or the same social circle your entire life… well, that doesn’t happen for all of us in this country, anymore. Heck, some of us don’t even stay in the same families, our entire lives. Others of us “rotate in and out”, as our family’s levels of tolerance and acceptance fluctuate over time.

And as we lose our connection with those once-built-in definers of Who We Are and What Matters To Us, we have to come up with our own. We need meaning. And we can’t find it in the institutions around us, anymore. We need a sense of belonging. And that’s not a given, anymore, either. So, we look to our invented tribes, our political parties, our cultural enclaves. And we dig in. Because even though we may not agree with everything that’s said and done by our leaders or other members, they’re our leaders and members, and that’s what counts.

So, while people are thrilling at the thought that we might be able to build bridges between the “battling” sides (more hand-wringing about that imagery will come later), I’m not holding my breath. A lot of us might like the idea of people putting down their swords – or better yet, turning them into plowshares – but a whole lot of people also like the idea of keeping separate, being at odds, and keeping their identities intact.

For some folks it’s the most that they have.

Where do we start?

On By Kay LorraineIn community, connection, distance, neuron, separation, unityLeave a comment

namibia dirt road leading to desert
Like so many other people, this morning, I woke up to news that someone had won a hotly contested political contest, while someone else had lost. Actually — full disclosure — I couldn’t get to sleep last night, until I checked the news and found out what the election results were.

Some people are ecstatic about the results, while others are convinced it’s a sign of the Beginning Of The End. Some are chortling about their victory and pointing out how the losers are scrambling to regroup. Others are voicing various degrees of despair on Facebook.

So it goes. It’s never actually been any different than that for me, in the course of my 50-some years on this earth. I’ve been hearing dire warnings about our inevitable plunge into chaos, thanks to certain sorts of political outcomes. The warnings come from both sides, and they’re so similar, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.

It’s not the ideology and the platforms that seem different to me, rather the dire tone each side adopts to compel their constituency (both current and hoped-for additions), to join their side. Join the fight. Join the battle. Everything is on the line.

Again.

To say I’m battle-weary would be an understatement. It’s not that I don’t agree that we’re in a dire situation. I believe we are. I mean, look around — war and disease and pestilence are so common, they’re “old news”. The United States seems in a state of perpetual cultural warfare, with all sides utterly unmoved by the criticisms and complaints of everyone else. People seem to have dug in, and exit polls show how sharp the voting divides are, across race and gender. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of our socio-cultural deep freeze that seems to have completely immobilized us — like a tourist from Peoria frozen with fear as a charging hippopotamus bears down on them. (And yes, hippos are the most human-dangerous land animal in Africa.)

Good grief.

While it is encouraging to see some election results which lean in my preferred direction, the whole process sort of depresses me. Even if “my side” does win, as a whole community we still lose something. Every time we splinter into factions and go at each other over ideology or agenda, we pay a price. Some days, it feels like the only one fretting over the cost, is me.

But I know I’m not the only one. There are plenty of people out there who are distressed by the ever-deepening chasms between various segments of our society. Rich vs. poor. Haves vs. have-nots. Whites vs. … er… everybody else. Cities vs. rural areas. Men vs. women. Powerful vs. vulnerable. At every single turn, it seems like we’re splintered along identity lines. And where identity isn’t clearly marked, people seek to create new categories that set them apart.

All this separation. Sigh.

And yet… Is the real problem separation? I’m not so sure. Indeed, I think the real issue is that we don’t really know how to work effectively with separation. We tend to see it as a barrier, and little else. Of course, separation divides us. That’s the point. That’s why we turn to it — specifically because it divides us, it separates us out. And there are a bunch of advantages to that, which I discuss in Beloved Distance. A sense of belonging. A sense of safety. Knowing whom to trust. Knowing whom to avoid. Separation is one of our most valuable tools, and yet it seems to be wreaking havoc with our world.

Seems.

And yet, I have to ask — Isn’t there more to the story than just division? Isn’t there more to our experience than schism? Might our separation actually offer us something we need, both in terms of division and connection? Are we missing something?

I think, yes.

I think we’re missing a lot.

And because of that, we’re losing out on clues about how we can move forward.

By having this one-sided view of things, and not understanding — really understanding — what’s at work in our world, as well as deep within us, we’re passing up an amazing opportunity to step forward and head down a path that may not be all that clear and well-marked, but is still a path forward.

We don’t even have to know exactly what’s to come, or exactly how we’re going to get there. We just need to know that the path exists, and that we have the in-born capacity to really make the most of that path.

You can see current events as a scourge or a gift. I choose to see it as both. And I’m determined to find out how we can make the most of the whole range of these experiences we’re having. I have some ideas about how we can do that.

Watch this space. More to come.