The great divide

I have a relatively small group of family and friends who I align with politically.  I tend to lean to the left, and believe that part of the function of government is to provide social safety nets.

Most of my family and many of my friends lean to the right, and many of them are so far right there is no A-B space in the Ven diagram of our political beliefs.

This has been true for years, and for years, it didn't matter much.

That was before the great divide.

I don't know exactly when it happened.  I know it is a complicated issue, with lots of variables that led us to where we are.  And I know it is a terrible limiting circumstance.

Once upon a time, I felt comfortable calling friends to get together, comfortable going to family events.  Now, there is anxiety.  Will talk turn to politics?  Will I be able to keep quiet if they do without compromising either my values or my relationships?

My memory might be completely flawed, but is seems like for most of my life I could go to a picnic, or a party, or a funeral, or any kind of get together at all without talking about or hearing about politics.

We used to talk about movies, and sports, and what was happening in our lives.  We would talk about vacations, or school trips.  We talked about games we liked to play, and we even played games.  We would go places and do things together, and that created a whole bunch more to talk about.  Talking about what we were seeing, and remembering what we had enjoyed together in the past.

In the past month I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with family and friends, and it was all good.  Lots of conversation, but all about the things that we have in common, not the things that divide us.  The mix of people was more to the ones I align with, so that helped.  But it was relatively easy to avoid the scary topics with the others.  It gave me hope that we can get past the great divide.

But then I listen to the radio, or read the news, or browse social media, and I realize that the great divide still exists.

And the way news is reported and consumed makes it worse.  If a person spent a week watching only right leaning news and reading right leaning news they would live in a completely different reality from a person that watched only left leaning news and read only left leaning news.  That is crazy, and dangerous.

I watched a program about the Kennedy assassination last night.  Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of President Kennedy's birth, and Memorial Day, so I understand the programming choice and timing.  I was very young when it happened, so didn't realize how much controversy and criticism of the way the reporting and investigation was handled happened at the time.  Even with all that controversy and criticism, the nightly news programs all appeared to be reporting on it in the same way.  Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Dan Rather; all of them telling the same story.

Where did that go?  When and how did ratings get more important than facts and truth?  Why is news reporting not news reporting but rather news and opinions?  And even worse, why is it cherry picked to only paint the picture one side or the other wants to paint?

We humans are all subject to being manipulated.  The best defense against being manipulated is to never trust one source or another too much.  Whenever we agree with what we are hearing, we need to challenge ourselves to question it.  Skepticism is the greatest defense of freedom.

This great divide can and will destroy us if we let it.  Everyone who values freedom needs to consciously decide to find things to unite us.  We need to find common ground to build on.  We need to value our differences, and find ways to listen when we disagree.  We can learn to disagree without being disagreeable.  We can be different without calling each other names.

Life isn't a game with winners and losers.  It is a journey. A journey that I believe is intended to enrich us.  To enlighten us.  I believe we are here to leave things and people better because we touched them.

That opportunity is lost if we can't cross the great divide.  Each moment spent in disharmony is a moment you can never get back.  I don't want to waste the precious moments of my life.  So I will choose to find harmony when and where I can.  I will choose to find topics that unite me with the people in my world.  I will not be quiet in the face of hate or injustice, but I will try to model the world I want to see, rather than try to force people into believing as I do.

We didn't get to this great divide overnight, and we won't bridge this divide overnight.  But until we start trying, it will just get wider.  And for me, that is just not a good answer.