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| Photo by David Billings on Unsplash |
This post was originally written in early 2024, but I shelved it for several reasons which likely included getting busy with other things.
In light of recent events, most notably President Biden's decision to withdraw his candidacy for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination and the ensuing kerfuffle around Vice President Harris's campaign and Former President Trump's abrupt change in messaging, this seems like an appropriate time to post my previous sentiments.
There are people out there in all media channels, but particularly in social media channels, who are saying bad things. Not just inappropriate, but objectively BAD things. Hurtful things. Things that hurt not just their intended target, but also hurt others who can connect the dots between the comment and their own identity.
People say mean things far too often and try to excuse it as humor, reflexivity, or (my least favorite because it reveals a massive misunderstanding of an important concept) "free speech". I humbly ask you to stand up and say something when you witness these wrongs. Not just to folks whose candidates or opinions you oppose, but perhaps especially to those whose candidates or opinions you support.
I'll make a separate post about the commentary and "memes" that are circulating as we speak in the next couple of days or so. Meanwhile, I encourage you to read the following post and to check out the sourced pieces linked below. They are worthy of our consideration.
Hello, World. A Happy 2024 to you all.
I had a nice exchange with someone on FB Messenger the other day. They reminded me of some...ahem...discussions we had leading up to the 2016 presidential election. I used to be a lot more cavalier with my thoughts and opinions back then, and those thoughts and opinions have changed in some instances (though they also have remained the same and grown even stronger in others). The larger point I wanted to make echoes a point made by constitutional law professor Noah Feldman on a podcast recently when asked what the duty was for the average American in the face of a democracy under stress:
"What the average American has to do is ask what outcome is best for the country that I want my grandchildren to inherit? Not, am I right or am I wrong now, but what will keep the system going? And it's my hope that people will look when they vote, for their local officials, and for their national officials, and when they go to protests, and when they speak at city council meetings and school board meetings, remember that you can't run a country if the people on the other side are bad people.
And so, and I think this is our responsibility. Morality is important. There's right and there's wrong. And you should stand for what's right and what's wrong. But if you think that everyone who disagrees with you is fundamentally a bad person, then why are you in a country with them?
It's not gonna work. We have to be able to say about the people we most disagree with, I disagree with you, you're wrong, your views might even be bad, but you're not a bad person, you're someone who I respect at the level of the fact that you in conscience care. And that I think is the responsibility that we genuinely can all exercise and we can exercise it at every level."
Despite what some of you may think, we have a duty not to lose site of the humanity in those with whom we disagree. That perspective is the exclusive domain of the members of our military actively engaged in (or preparing to be engaged in) combat. And despite our culture's penchant for using military metaphors widely and loosely, we are not at war with one another nor should we be.
So as we gear up for another year of contention, hyperbole, squabble, misinformation, rage, disappointment, and varying degrees of horseshit, I encourage you all to consider engaging with those who hold views that differ from your own. And when you do, do so gracefully. If you're so inclined, pray for your "enemies". They want to leave peaceful lives. They want their children and loved ones to be safe, healthy, and prosperous. They want to be happy or, at the very least, at ease.
One of my oldest and dearest friends has made it virtually impossible to view sporting events together because they misattribute failings and mistakes. It's always the referees showing bias or the coach mishandling the game. It's never the players failing to execute or the opposing team simply performing better.
We would do well to apply the same rigor of analysis to all the information we receive. I believe one of the most important things we can do to promote understanding and respect is to stop treating every "news" event as a turf battle. When we hear some outlandish charge leveled against some public official, rather than responding with some variant of "typical GOP SOB/libtard MF'er", maybe we should think "I wonder what other people are saying about this story". We may still draw the same conclusions, but at least we understand the version of facts those with differing opinions are using.
I've got a lot of opinions about how we got to where we are with regards to the news. If anyone really wants to hear about them, let me know and maybe I'll make a future post for discussion. Meanwhile, consider the following opinion piece from the Kansas City Star's David Mastio. I would personally consider it a major victory if we could jointly as a society and culture at least approach the place where we all could see a common view of reality, even if it's on the horizon.
