A House Divided

From the beginning of time, community, in its various forms, has been the hub around which our lives revolve. That may mean the Church, the Grange, school, work, and our neighborhood. It may also be emotional, like our favorite football or baseball team, creating a community of like-minded fans.  Social Media has also created new communities, allowing us to stay in contact with friends or family we don’t see often, or perhaps haven’t seen in years. As a society, we tend to be busy, and a quick text or post is the best we can do to reach out to someone. 

Unlike in-person meetings, something that has diminished tremendously in light of the pandemic we face, social media sometimes creates personal echo chambers, where everything we receive, or read, aligns completely with our thought process, and with the things we like. Things, people, opinions, and thoughts we don’t like, have been virtually eliminated. If we so desire, we can also ‘block’ people and organizations from our pages, to further eradicate things that might upset us, or cause us stress. In all, we can be left with our own little ‘perfect’ planet where we agree with everyone and everything there, and not be angry that we were contradicted or proved wrong. It can be a lonely place.

Humans are social beings, which is why we seek groups in which we can happily live. The interaction, even if we disagree, is the point of this, and we learn from each other in this way. Are there disagreements? Absolutely! Recently, however, as our worlds have contracted due to the pandemic, as well as the necessity of not gathering as we used to do, the reliance on phones, computers, and social media has made our world less hospitable, and our culture has been edging toward a more antagonistic way of communicating. We choose a side of a particular argument, and then defend it mightily, as we want, need, to win. Friendship, camaraderie, justice, fair treatment, wholeness, and goodness are thrown to the wayside as we navigate our way to winning the argument. On social media, perhaps because of its anonymity, people say sometimes quite vile things to others, in their attempt to crush them and their way of thinking, which further divides them. And of course, most people walk away from these situations thinking they have ‘won,’ or leave feeling attacked and sad.

What do we take away from these situations? Are they helpful? While we are all capable of bringing light into such situations, that is difficult to remember sometimes. Especially now, when there is such fear running through much of this discourse, causing us to ‘protect’ ourselves and our families from these threats—real or perceived—that we go immediately into defense mode. It seems, though, that this begs the questions, ‘Why am I responding to this?’ and ‘Is my response necessary?’

While there are many ways to answer the first question, it is the second that is far more important. If I decide to respond to a train of thought, will my response help others see the salient points, or will it create a firestorm of disagreement? Realizing, of course, that ‘salient points’ can be a matter of opinion in this case, and may create new issues, is your response necessary at all? Or will letting the ‘argument’ simply lie, neither contested nor defended, the better way to address this? Sometimes, letting something go is better for all involved.

Letting go of an argument, a situation, a person, is sometimes the high road, and allows us to embrace another community value: taking the action that is most beneficial for everyone. This does, of course, necessitate letting go once more; this time of our ego. We don’t have to win everything, be number one, or be the leader of our pack. We want, and need others in our lives, and taking action to ensure that we are looking out for one another, plants the seeds of compassion in all concerned. While it feels good to win, it feels better to create good in the world, and to reap the benefits with our fellow humans.