A few months ago I read a startling statistic: over the entire lifetime of America — for the past 247 years — our country has been involved in a series of wars. In fact, there has really only been 17 years of peace. 17 years without being engaged in a war in our entire history.
And today, it feels like that. It feels like we are in the middle of a social war. We need some peace, my friends. We need to stop fighting. We need to figure out how to get along with each other on this planet. I realize that I can’t deliver a message today that is going to cause all of the nations of the world to suddenly stop and listen, set aside all conflicts and ride off into the sunset together. What I would like to see happen, though, is that we find a way to stop fighting on the local level. On Facebook. In our neighborhoods. In our streets. In our groups of friends. In our volunteer organizations. In our churches.
Telling everyone to stop fighting is not going to cause it to happen any more than a parent telling children to stop fighting. But offering a solution to the bickering might help. Changing a mindset might bring about peace. So that’s what I’m going to do.
The point to which we have become so polarized is absolutely staggering. Every single issue or news item is filtered through politics now, and we just keep bantering back and forth. Family relationships are strained, friendships are severed, and romances break up when we can’t just accept each other’s differences. We have reached a critical point in our divide. I see this as a spiritual problem. We don’t see each other clearly any more. We divide people into two groups: those who agree with me and those who don’t. US vs. THEM.
The very first time I encountered the phrase Us versus Them, I was probably 6 or 7 years old. I was standing over my mother’s shoulder as she was seated at our dining room table, and my parents were getting ready to play cards with my aunt and uncle. My mother was usually the score keeper, and I watched her draw a line down the middle of the page, and write at the top of the column on the left, the word US. Then she wrote the word THEM on the top of the column on the right side of the page. I asked her why she wrote that. I asked why she didn’t just write everyone’s name at the top of the page. She replied: “It’s just easier this way.”
Where did this US VS THEM thinking start? The most likely answer would be competition — when one person or group is facing off in some kind of competition. My team versus your team, my third grade class against your third grade class for the spelling bee. My neighborhood versus your neighborhood, my city versus your city, my state versus your state, my country versus your country, my candidate versus your candidate.
Things get a little more sinister when we perceive that our group is in direct competition with another group— over a limited resource. When that happens we are likely to experience hostility toward members of that group. Then the division becomes clear: People are either like us — the good guys — or they become a them — one of the bad guys.
Walter Kaufmann has written:
“Righteousness, intelligence, integrity, humanity and victory are the prerogatives of US, while wickedness, stupidity, hypocrisy, and ultimate defeat belong to THEM.” — Walter Kaufmann
This quotation is a critical observation of the barbaric way we humans treat one another. When we place people into the mental category of “the OTHER,” we end up right at the heart of bullying.
All human beings have the capacity to compartmentalize certain people as “others” and set them in a category apart from ourselves, thus creating psychological distance between them and us. When someone is not like us, they are an “other” and when they are an “other,” they are something apart and alien from us, and therefore aren’t extended the same empathy or compassion that we normally extend to our peers.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman has written: “Once the others are set at a psychological distance, they can become a target for hostility.” — Psychologist Daniel Goleman
Once we have completely dehumanized and identified someone as an OTHER, and not one of US, our minds begin to build its “evidence” against the other with each unflattering media depiction.
Because of a phenomenon called conformational bias, we pay more attention to negative information about this person or group which confirms our negative stereotypes while ignoring or tuning out information and experiences that might reveal more positive attributes.
We assign them hostile intent, sinister thoughts, evil motives, and all sorts of other drummed up charges that exist only within our own imagination.
The gulf that divides US from THEM builds with the silencing of empathy. And across that gulf we are free to project onto THEM whatever we like. — Goleman
That is why people become bullies. They have no more empathy for the OTHERS.
That is why there is genocide around the world. Without empathy, any degree of cruelty is acceptable.
How do we move beyond us versus them? How do we bridge the gap, and close the great divide between us?
I would like to offer two solutions to this problem:
The first one is easy to say, and hard to do. We need to see each other as a child of God. Every person is a human being who was created by God and deserves my respect, my compassion and my grace. Some people are very difficult to love, I get that, especially when they don’t agree with me. But I have been asked to love even my enemies, and I must try to find a way to overlook our disagreements and to find what is good about each person. Just because someone doesn’t view the world my way doesn’t make that person wrong. We can co-exist with our differing opinions.
One of the ways to grant each other the status of child of God is to truly allow each person to have his or her opinion and worldview. When we are scrolling through Facebook, we don’t have to weigh in on every single post. We don’t have to comment — whether we agree or disagree. Choosing not to engage in a conversational thread about a highly charged topic is a gift that we can extend. Here’s a secret I learned a long time ago — no one’s opinion is going to be changed when there is a Facebook debate. We don’t have to post our own personal opinion and try to tell someone else that his or her thinking is incorrect. It’s ok not to engage. We don’t have to understand it. We just need to see that person as an individual with a different opinion. It’s not our job to correct or advise or tell other people how to think and act. It’s our job to love them. We can agree to disagree. Period.
The second solution to our bickering is this:
Instead of focusing on what we disagree about, let’s try to find what we have in common.
This is something the theatre community has figured out. We are a widely diverse group racially, culturally, politically and spiritually. Yet we all have a strong commonality that keeps us working together and treating each other fairly and compassionately: we all love making the product of theatre. We don’t focus on the ways we are different, instead we focus on the ways we are the same. The things we have in common strengthen us as we work on a project together. And as we work together we find more reasons to care about and support each other.
I believe that our Entry Point faith community has managed to do the same thing. We give each other a pretty wide berth at Entry Point. We respect each other’s differing opinions and we don’t feel like it’s our job to correct. Let’s try to extend this behavior to other people.
In Romans we find this simple verse: “Do all you can to be at peace with everyone.” — Romans 12:18 (The Inclusive Bible)
My friends, let’s try to do that. It is my prayer that we will view each other as children of God, deserving of respect, compassion and grace, as well as to try to focus on what we have in common, instead of our differences.Amen.
Desmond Tutu has written: “Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.” — Desmond Tutu
It’s a tall order, I realize, but let’s try to be a little better at allowing for differences between us. Let’s try to work on seeing each other as children of God.
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