This morning, going through my social feeds, I happened on this pronouncement:
“If any of my friends are supporting, [Insert the other party’s candidates], please unfriend me. You are entitled to your opinions, but I have no desire to engage with you…..”
While this was the most pronounced articulation, I see too much of the same thing happening. Family members can no longer talk to other family members, neighbors will not engage with neighbors, ……..
This is particularly heightened in the current US political environment, and I suspect in other countries. But we see versions of this in so many other parts of our lives and business. In my LinkedIn feeds, I see too many shutting down, narrowing their perspectives, discounting any others as irrelevant or, “You don’t understand….”
Over the past few years, dozens of books on Polarization have been published. Each citing what is happening, some tracing through how we become more polarized.
There is nothing happening in the world that frightens me more than what I have described.
In fact, virtually every problem we face, finds its roots in this mindset.
Our growth as human beings, in business, and in our society has always been based on our abilities to engage with others, even those who have views that are very different than those we hold.
How do we learn, how do we grow, how do we try new things?
I learn more from those that disagree with me, those that have different experiences, those that have different beliefs. Engaging with these people doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to shift my views or opinions. These discussions may reconfirm some of those things. I may shift my ideas somewhat. They always broaden my thinking.
What is it that causes us to so disrespect differences?
This is not new, it’s existed throughout human history. Whether religious, political, nationality, ethnicity, gender/sexual orientation, economic or anything else, we have such intolerance of those that differ from us. And social/AI channels seem to amplify this intolerance.
Yet, it’s been our ability to transcend these differences, even in small ways, that cause us to learn and grow.
I don’t have any solutions, it would be arrogant and blind to pretend that I do. But I know that I can change my own behavior and ways in which I engage those who have differing views than mine. I can learn from them, I can respect them for who they are. I can and must be better.
And I think it’s a choice each of us faces, every day.
What happens when we stop talking to each other? What happens when we stop listening, respectfully, to each other?
And if you disagree, please don’t stop following me. Please engage and let’s learn from each other.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I have noticed that more and more people cannot even listen when others have a difference of opinion. They act as if you are attacking them, the person, by having a different opinion and many times they will attack people who state differing sides to their opinions. Many do not allow us to safely disagree with them anymore, you know, to agree to disagree. It seems to be more prevalent recently or maybe we have more access to witness it because of social media. It seems to be getting out of control, especially when you see our top political representatives behaving the way they do in televised sessions. What are they are role modeling for our people? It isn’t tolerance, acceptance and respect.
Misinformation, assumptions, preconceived notions and self-interest cloud the process of building relationships, organizations and communities. If each of us puts a little more effort into listening and allowing others to state how they feel rather than shutting them down before they get a chance to speak, we may be able to start rebuilding those relationships again and possible developing new ones on the way.
“What is it that causes us to so disrespect differences?” That is the important question. The simple answer is “fear.” More precisely, it is fear that something will be taken from us. It is the rationale for the intolerance shown by religions and homeowners’ associations and political partisans.
HOA members fear that some nonconformist will do something to their home that will cause everyone else’s property values to decrease or maybe even just do something that makes that house look “different” or “odd” or otherwise out of place, which will take their property values, or their sense of community conformity, or something else away.
Religious folks fear that some blasphemer or apostate might say or do something to make them doubt or even lose their own faith, thereby taking their religious identity and their faith away.
Those in the political sphere probably have the most legitimate fear, due to the unarguable fact that the government has a monopoly on force and can forcibly take things from you through application (or misapplication) of the law. And as our government grows larger and more intrusive, it controls more aspects of our lives, to the point where it is virtually omnipresent. The government that has the ability to give you everything has the power to take everything you have away. And because of that, politics is rapidly morphing into a zero-sum, winner-take-all game.
The solution is simple, and yet impossible: return to federalism and limited government. Learn to let your neighbor be “weird” or “different,” no matter how much you dislike it, so long as they are not directly harming you. Once each side stops trying to take everything away from the other side, we can all start being friends again.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.