Tending to faultlines...

The domino-effect of condemnation

Starting with the High Holy Days, which begin October 2^nd this year, the season of gathering and celebrating holidays, both religious and secular, officially begins. Our ritual celebrations at years’ end used to be so anticipated back in the old days. Now, I’m sensing the anticipatory fervor has been tempered.

“Let’s keep politics out of the discussion!” is often the worrisome decree issued with dinner and party invitations. Lately, that doesn’t seem to be enough, because just knowing some of the guests you’re sitting down to turkey and gravy with are  “on the other team,”  can foment a dark cloud of tension.

I’m sure this all has an unfortunate and familiar ring. Fault lines in friendships these days are about as precarious as Lenny Bruce vowing not to take the mic and curse onstage. This also goes for once-chummy family relations.

We better get some kind of handle on it, or at least start thinking about our part in the decline of the collective emotional climate, or we’ll be going scorched earth on Nov. 6^th.  We’re so hotly divided over political differences that I’m already dreading the morning after; because no matter what the outcome, half the country will be apoplectic with grief and outrage. We’re in a grudge match the likes of which I’ve never seen in my 60 years – and I was weaned on the roiling news footage of the Watergate-Vietnam vitriol of the early 70’s.

I hope I’m not the only one wishing for some kind of turnaround. Ideology aside, we need to take a step back from all those toxic assumptions about each other’s character that I see and hear being drawn so unequivocally. In fact, let’s take a GIANT step back, as the rulebook from my favorite childhood outdoor game, ‘Mother May I?’ would advise.

Our two-team political culture has devolved into a steaming mess. Good-natured debates are a thing of the past. Instead, we seethe, insult, and most damagingly - assume.

Being apolitical (not to be confused with out-to-lunch) puts me in a unique position. As a human version of Switzerland, I hear it from both sides, and the mercury-rise is real. Since I know suggestions are futile, I listen. And in that listening, I’ve concluded we aren’t starting to hate each other – some of us do hate one another. They probably wouldn’t care to admit such a thing, but the vulgar adjectives and smug declaratives tossed around so easily betray their innards.

I know people who are otherwise kind and loving launch, after the slightest provocation from a headline, into raging bull diatribes against members of the opposite team. Recently, while in the midst of a monthly spirituality class I’ve attended for years, a member began ranting about the “stupidity” of members of the opposing team, and how he can’t stand to be in their presence anymore. Even in a space designated for contemplation and healing, hateful division seeps in like a poisonous gas.

Have you noticed the temperature change at social gatherings? Unless they happen to be comprised of members of the same team, it’s likely to be a carefully choreographed dance on eggshells. And for those who like to go at it, discourse can escalate to the verbal equivalent of an MMA cage match.  What are we doing to each other?

Yes, I can turn off the news easily enough, but it’s not that simple anymore. The intolerance has bled into just about every aspect of life. Nothing good comes from engaging in finger-pointing and condemnation. And when it’s conducted in a general, sweeping manner, inaccuracies are bound to abound.

Morality isn’t exclusive to one team or another, as I realized in a real-life example of two people I know, both of whom are passionately avowed to their team and its principles. In terms of character, the two are as yin-and-yang as it gets: one is self-centered and lazy, while the other is hard-working and giving.  The poster kid for self-centeredness once unabashedly declared in a public forum they couldn’t be bothered taking in an ill relative (in spite of having an empty in-law apartment above the garage). I won’t go into detail, but the unfortunate relative suffered greatly as a result.  By contrast, the giver - without debate or coercion - took in an acquaintance in health crisis and showered the acquaintance with TLC for months. Both infirmed individuals ended up dying: one alone and desolate, and the other surrounded by companionship and goodwill.

I can already hear some of you clapping your hands in delight with your insta-guess as to whose team the one with infallible moral fiber is on. And I’m 100% certain half of you would be in disbelief if you knew which team the living embodiment of Mother Teresa is affiliated with.  

The lesson from this sad allegory is, it’s time to stop using one’s team membership as a metric for assessing character – your own or someone else’s. Knock it off. It’s getting on my nerves and destroying our collective morale. And that’s certainly not what the founding mothers and fathers of this country had in mind when they thought it worthy to fight and die for the freedoms that we’re barely grateful for today.

And please don’t assume my apolitical nature means I’m apathetic, I care about this country and its citizens greatly and I will most definitely be casting my vote on Nov. 5^th. But my passions have always been rooted in the realms of psychology, the human condition, and how we treat one another. From my standpoint, fixing how we’re currently relating to one another is more urgent than politicking. And we’ve got roughly two months to start doing better before the big day arrives.

 Disagree all you want politically, but for God’s sake, stop the character assailing. Behavior and actions are the ultimate litmus test of someone’s true nature, not the color of the sign that sits on their lawn. If someone on the ‘other team’ possesses solid-gold human qualities along the lines of compassion, generosity, and goodwill, your hate and name-calling don’t have a leg on which to stand. It’s time to drop the bone. The times may be a-changing, but the holidays will always have their arrival.