Togetherness From Otherness

A long time ago in the same place as now, Otherness was a means for survival. Well, at least for some. By banding together, we could fight true foes that would do us harm or else be the harm to enslave or steal from others to our own benefit. Often, both came simultaneously. Today, however, there is a shift for Togetherness, but certainly not without a battle. The world grows and expands in a way of world economies and leveraging the talents and resources of all throughout the globe to make complex products. This is hard for most to comprehend and even in our fight to accept a global humanity, we still can't help but divide ourselves in other ways.

The most obvious of divisions among people is a Left-leaning mentality versus a Right-leaning mentality. In America, in my own perception of it, this boils down to embracing individuality and the world as a whole as values to be placed over in-group success, self-preservation, and cultural moral normalities (or vice versa). I presume this dichotomy exists everywhere in the world with people sprinkled all throughout the spectrum of left and right. The mindsets are likely denoted with different verbage, but they are essentially opposed ways of thinking. We must give up self to focus more on others or give up others to help ourselves. Which value is more important is where the disagreement is had. 

What is interesting, however, is the polarization that occurs in perceiving and declaring our own perspective as righteous and proper while entirely demonizing the other side. The left doesn't simply want women to have rights over their bodies, they want to murder children. The right doesn't simply want to prevent the deaths of countless innocent children, they want to control and oppress women. This line of thinking--this Us vs Them dichotomy--is what enabled us to both start and to win wars and boost our own cultural ranking in the world. It's also what caused the greatest catastrophes of genocide known to man. As we shift to a global populace, we need to re-frame our perspectives.

It is not at all the case that we must give up our stances. One can continue to believe that gun control will not stop gun violence without perceiving the other side as a barbaric demon of countless horrors for disagreeing. We simply need to comprehend that different people have different priorities and that is okay. Those who want guns value personal protection, personal freedoms, and have concerns about government control. Those who want to ban them value the safety of others over their own personal protection and see the government as much less of a threat. We need both sides. We don't want a government taking over to the point of catastrophe, but we also don't want a dissolution of government to the point of catastrophe. Both perspectives are valid values to be considered. We need the balance. What we don't need, however, is hate for the Other. It's the hate that kills us. It's the decrying of stupidity of the Other that separates us. Instead, we need to recognize the true motives and desires of the other even if we continue to disagree with their conclusions or find their fears unwarranted. There are a million experiences and cultural influences that shape a person's perspective, and we cannot change those with a few words. We have to accept that they will see it differently than us.

As a simple example, if I believe apples are better than oranges while someone else believes the opposite, we can both be absolutely right depending on our desires, priorities, and perspectives. I might value the simplicity of eating an apple over an orange and enjoy the variety of colors, while someone else might value the juice or even the reward of hard work from peeling it. That doesn't make me a lazy juice-hater or them a color-bigoted inefficient fool springing wells of stupidity. Maybe the juice of an apple is enough for me and I think the other person is a fool for prioritizing juice over efficiency. Likely, just the opposite is true for the other person and I am the fool who would put efficiency over hard-earned flavor. To convince the other that apples are better, I'd have to convince them that hard-work is not to be prized over efficiency, which means I might have to tell them their faith is wrong, which means I might have to tell them their whole childhood was a lie, and so on down the line. While mundane and useless to argue about fruit, the same can be said for highly controversial topics like abortion, race, gender equality, gun control, and sexuality. They are not fools nor evil for thinking different. It is merely our nature to demonize the other and this is what we need to get past. I guarantee we will not all agree--we just need to get along.

Both the left and right ways of thinking are based on systems of value. Most often, they simply do not understand how to communicate their desires most efficiently and both sides tend to pick ideas and data that aren't particularly sound or persuasive. People share memes of ridiculous conclusions on both sides of the fence because they lack the social graces to express what they truly desire. The left, for example, wants racial and gender equality. You know what though? The right doesn't want the opposite. They don't want to enslave minorities. They don't want to oppress women. They simply have a different perspective on how to reach this equality and they might have other values in mind that take precedence--such as the wasted lives of unborn children. 

What we need to focus on, instead of ridiculing those who disagree, is what common goals we share and to better state our intent. Instead of chanting our perceived solutions or the evils of others, we need to express precisely and clearly what problems we see and ask for collaboration on how to correct it in ways that are acceptable to both sides. When the left sees that the average minority has a much harder time succeeding at life than the average white majority, they jump to claims of racism--especially systemic racism--and solutions such as affirmative action. The right will be rightly taken aback by such accusations of racism when such a word, to them, means such dastardly things as one who might lynch a person or drag them behind a car based upon their skin color. Since most right-wingers don't feel that way and would never dare do such things, they begin to defend themselves against such hostile colorizing of their character. The demonization has begun. So they argue. They fight. And in so doing, reap a greater harvest of slurs and accusations.

A better way to go about discussing racial inequality would be to show the disparity without any labels or accusations and question those who are unfamiliar with it as to why this would be the case even if you full-well know the answer. Ask their advice, ask their opinion, and ask how they might solve it. In so doing, they've been made a collaborator rather than an enemy. If they question the data, don't expect it's an attack or proof of culpability, but patiently and reasonably take into consideration the question and see if there's a way to work around the perceived issue. Many people don't believe they are racist in the slightest--mostly due to perceptions of the meaning of the word. So maybe avoid the word. Don't ask how to solve racism, ask how we might solve the plight of minorities struggling to make ends meet. Perhaps they'll be less interested, however, given that there are many who struggle to make ends meet. Perhaps they value hard work, see handouts as weakness, and don't regard skin color as something to be separate into groups and would rather help all struggling people and not simply one particular minority or minorities to the exclusion of majorities. It's not "racism" from their perspective if it's not at all about race, even if it is "racism" from another definition. It's different values and perspectives. In the end, most conflicts are merely word-choice and differences in background, experiences, and understanding. We need to learn to get past that, accept that we have different priorities, and see how we might gain some common ground. Without it, we'll never solve these tough issues and we'll constantly polarize our country into Us vs Them which will ultimately leave us in the dust of a global world. 

If we want peace throughout the world or if we want our country to have significance, then let's lead the charge of bridging our left-right gap. Let's show how Togetherness leads to greater solutions over Otherness. Make the shift. We are no longer barbarians. Let's embrace the unique perspectives of each other even if we disagree. Let's stop labeling and name-calling and graduate our country from grade school to advanced scholarship. We can do much better than petty poo-flinging. What has worked in the past is now in the past. Times have changed and we need more than ever to get along to propel society forward. No more us. No more them. How to achieve that might also be up for debate, but so long as we do not demonize opposing opinions--no matter how stupid--it is a step in the right direction.