Scalpels, Sledgehammers and Stitches
I’ve been writing this post in my head for almost a week now, and to be honest, I’m afraid to publish it.
I’m afraid because no matter how hard I’ve tried over the last 2+ years to promote peace and help people find a sense of quiet understanding in their souls, there’s probably going to be someone I annoy, like the lady in 2018 who took offence to my post on July 4, and completely missed the point I was trying to make in favor of her own sense of outrage and superiority.
But I feel this post needs to be written, especially now.
In my adopted country of America, we’re in the middle of period of great unrest. The horrific death of one man due to the actions of another who was supposed to protect him has sparked off a greater discussion, and in some aspects a larger war, between different schools of thought, and different aspects of belief.
Thankfully, I’ve not seen anyone seriously disagree that his death was preventable, and the condemnation of the individual who was responsible his death has been widespread and immediate.
But that is where the uniformity of opinion ends.
Now we have the dangerous clash of opinions fueled by outrage, hatred and fear. I’m not going to get into the semantics of the differences of the opinions and responses, because focusing on what divides them is, to me, missing the problem. Rather, I’m focused more on the dangerous thing they share in common.
A willingness to divide themselves from the whole.
And please don’t get me wrong, I understand how when you feel passionately about something, it’s tempting to look at someone on the other side of the situation and label them, dismiss them, ridicule them and marginalize them, secure in the belief that you are right, you are the ‘good person’, that you are the virtuous person, the smart person, the one who knows.
I think there is a certain kind of high you get the moment you dehumanize your opposition.
Because then you don’t have to take into consideration anything that they have to say. You get to place them behind a label, secure in your knowledge that they are so very bad and you are so very good.
If history teaches us anything, it’s that all significant conflict starts with the division of something into two of something else.
And I’m seeing a lot of that in people’s responses to the situation we now find ourselves in.
Facebook especially has been a breeding ground for this. I see more hatred, animosity and honestly cruelty in the last week and a half than I’ve ever seen on this platform.
So many posts that start with “if you don’t like this then please go ahead un-friend me”. Or posts that contain something like “if your opinion is different, I don’t want to hear it”.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
I’ve written before that you can tell that someone has lost their place on the pathway to peace when they are no longer trying to balance between opposing forces, and instead are willing to ignore the thoughts, feelings and opinions of “the other side” side in favor of their own.
That’s become an epidemic in this country, and it’s going to tear us apart.
Please understand me clearly. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have strong opinions, because the events that we’ve seen have been sickening, and if they haven’t moved you then that would concern me greatly. The problem becomes when your opinion is the only thing you listen to, and you stop trying to find peace in favor of prosecuting your own personal little war.
Because then it becomes about you, and I’ve seen so much of that recently.
People who are so in love with their newfound evangelism that they are puffed up in their own superiority, certain that they, and only day, are the recipient of wisdom, and the arbiter of all that is good.
Yes they may have good intentions on their side, and yes, their ‘enemies’ may have faults, but as the saying goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, because so many times the pathway to war has carved out through somebody trying to do “good” at the behest of their own ego rather than the balance of what is right
History teaches us that nothing good comes from this.
If you get the time, I would ask you to check out the TED taught by a man named Daryl Davis. He is a black man (his description of himself) who reached out to those in groups who hated him, befriended them, and brought them out of the darkness.
When it would have been so easy for him to hate those who hated him, instead he sought to understand them, to talk with them, to learn from them, and to find peace with them.
He is an incredible man, and his story deserves telling.
I apologize for being absent over the last week or so, but I have been trying to listen rather than speak, trying to learn rather than talk. If anything, I am more determined than ever to try to find a way to make a greater impact, because there is so little peace in the world, and if we don’t step back from the brink, we as a nation are going to carry ourselves into the abyss.
If we can’t talk with and listen to those with whom we disagree, then we are destined for a dark future.
Because instead of sledgehammers of opinion, rhetoric and violence, we need scalpels of kindness, compassion and togetherness.
Only then, only then will we find the stitches that will bind us together, and allow us to heal.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings