Sometimes thoughts flow like fresh-water springs, bubbling up and spill-spreading out easy-like. Sometimes they get stuck inside and back up, all swampy and gloopy and come to the surface as oozy blobs. Lovely word-pictures, huh? What I'm trying to say is I've felt more oozy than flowy lately, my mind more of a swamp than a spring. The writing helps to process, to drain the murky pool that is my head, and I've recently come down with a mild case of still-fingers-syndrome. Just a warning: today's words may be more of a therapeutic struggle for clarity than anything else - come along if you dare. René Descartes said, "Cogito ergo sum." or in English, "I think, therefore I am." Stanley Hauerwaus said, "Writing is the only way I know how to think." Stanley, René and I have some work to do...
A lot of what I have read lately is about disagreement. Exhausting stuff - annoying topic, maybe that's why it's all marshy up in my head. I try to stay away from disagreeable people as much as possible but it's getting harder and harder. Is it just me, or are there more of them than there used to be? Unhappy people who thrive on stirring the pot with one spoon or another. Funny thing about that is, to most folks a disagreeable person is any person who does not share their particular bent. In other words, anyone who disagrees with me is not only wrong but is a rotten human being to boot. It has become common practice to vilify those who have opposing views. Case in point - a comment on a thoughtful post I read about some recent events asked if the names of every person who voted "the other way" on a hot button issue could be published. To what purpose I can only imagine but I felt the context indicated that there should be some recrimination launched in the direction of those who dared to express opposing convictions. It just seems that we no longer practice civil discourse but rather fling accusations at one another, all standing indignantly on our high moral molehill. Or as Mama would say, up on our high-horse.
The most compelling article I have read in recent days - maybe years - comes from Arthur C. Brooks - published in The New York Times. It's called Our Culture of Contempt. In this opinion piece, Mr. Brooks introduces the concept “motive attribution asymmetry” — the assumption that your ideology is based in love, while your opponent’s is based in hate. He's writing about the political arena but his assessment could very well apply across the board. For wherever two or more opinions are gathered there will be tension among them. That's not in the Bible, by the way... Not to beat a dead horse - a dead high-horse even... but it's just a bit ungenuine to advocate on behalf of one down-trodden person by trodding upon another person. It has to follow that if we continue down this path we are all going to be equally down-cast - and is that the point? I'm miserable, you're miserable, wouldn't you like to be miserable, too? Nobody wins when we all get dragged through the mud.
So... I'm proposing that we all do our best to buck this trend. Instead of bringing everyone down to a lowest common denominator - equal-opportunity-hopelessness, what if we just started treating one another better? What if we embraced the old - rising-tide-lifts-all-boats attitude? What if we started loving one another even if/when we disagree? What if, gasp, we started loving our enemies? That is in the Bible. Word for word. Just wondering... and thinking out loud. What if? Selah.
PS - Here's the link to that article I was talking about. AND! I just now Googled Mr. Arthur Brooks. Guess what? He has a new book. And guess what it's called? Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt. What a great idea! Hello, Amazon... I'd like to place an order! Selah again!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html
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