We Are More Than Polarized Labels

This started as a Facebook post but just got too long. Here is what I am not putting there because very few people would bother to scroll this long in that forum anyway. Still, it was written with my FB friends as the intended audience, and I didn't bother adjusting it.

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Fair warning, long post. Bottom line, I love you guys, even when (and because) we disagree.

These thoughts have been buzzing around in my head since I put some of them together with other comments on a friend's thread about Covid-19 earlier today, and I'm teasing them out here because they seem worth sharing, though I cannot condense them simply.

Here's the piece from my other post, adjusted slightly:

Talking about things like [politics/Covid-19] on social media is tricky because most people have made up their minds about how they feel and why, and listening to some rando isn't going to change that decision. Those choices are layered by our preferences for and trust in information sources and our desire to fit the norms of our social circles. It is easier to reject a conflicting viewpoint than deal with the cognitive dissonance of rejecting your own. That's especially problematic when we are polarized on such a complex and far reaching issue as Covid response [or politics, or whatever it is].

Here's what I'd like to add to that:

All this to say, if I am friends with you here, it's because I value you and a meaningful connection we share. I love dearly many people whose views are different from my own on things like religion and politics (and I am sure other subjects). I hope by hanging onto and remembering shared affection though our differences, my life will continue to be richer for having people I love and disagree with in it. Thank you for being reminders that we are more than polarized labels. We are people who love a lot of the same things. 

As for discussing hard things, I love to do that. I have also come to the conclusion that this is most effective one on one. Reach out any time of you'd like to do that.

At best, I think the conversations we have about our differences can help us. If nothing else, we learn to hone and better articulate our own viewpoints. But hopefully, they also allow us to respectfully engage with one another on difficult subjects with the understanding that it is OK to have different ideas, and that we can still love and appreciate one another for the reasons we did at the start.

And most importantly, when we can listen to the way someone we care about sees the other side of an issue, it forces us to reconsider our assumptions about people who hold those views and maybe the issues themselves. It broadens our perspective. It strengthens our appreciation and love for others and enhanses our sense of connection and community. 

So even if we don't have those hard, controversial conversations (which is fine -- they can be exhausting), I want you to know I like you, not just because of the ways we are the same. I value the ways we are different.  I hope we can extend to each other good will and agree that the things that bind us are greater than the things that divide us. Where we can't agree, I feel certain it is because we are seeing things from different angles. This graphic comes to mind:

(How dull and unproductive would life be if we  all thought the same way? I believe democracy works well when we share different perspectives because it gets us closer to greater truths.)

Happy Halloween, and happy last week of this 2020 Presidential Election. God bless America and each of us. 

(*steps down from soapbox)