A New Narrative

National Public Radio is currently featuring a series called "Divided States" in which reporters from NPR's Morning Edition program interview potential voters before and after each televised political debate.  The idea, I think, has two aims; first, to highlight the effect the debates may or may not be having on voter opinion, and secondly - and more importantly - to shed light on how divided our nation has become in 2016.

Can I attempt to paint a different narrative?

Our lives are driven by narrative in ways we don't even realize.  I suspect in another 50 years, psychologists will have a much better understanding of how the story we create about the events around us affects our moods, our desires, even potentially our ethics in ways we're only beginning to understand.  I'll blog more about this later, most likely (I can't help it, ok???) but...I digress.

Narrative.  What NPR and other members of the media are building, without perhaps realizing how much they're participating in it, is the narrative that Americans have never been more divided than we are right now.  The idea seems logical.  When you read the vitriol on social media you can't help but recoil in horror seeing mutual friends lob bombs at each other and the situation only seems to be getting worse.  It's right there in front of you, virtually every time you long onto the Internet.

People SEEM to be getting ever more entrenched in their positions and it appears there is little hope of getting people to compromise on anything any more, not in 2016.

And so...a story.  From our collective past.

It's January 21, 1861.  Two months earlier, in November of 1860, Abraham Lincoln had been elected president - for reference, he hadn't won a single southern state in the election.  And now two months after the election, word has spread that several southern Senators will be making an announcement on the Senate floor.

With the Senate chamber and galleries around it packed with onlookers, Senator David Yulee of Florida takes the Senate floor to announce his resignation from the Senate.  Stephen Mallory, also of Florida, goes next and does the same.  They are followed moments later by Benjamin Fitzpatrick and Clement Clay, both Senators from Alabama, who also resign.  And finally, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi takes the floor.  Instead of an impassioned argument, Davis simply states why he's resigning; Mississippi had become convinced the Union was depriving it of its basic rights as a sovereign state.  And finally, Davis ends with the following:  "...it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu." 

He is met by silence.

Then, a burst of applause follows, mixed with...weeping, at least among some members of the gallery who realize the chance to maintain the Union peacefully is almost certainly gone.  There will eventually be EITHER a Union, or two separate states - but not before war.  Most likely, not before many deaths.

A nation can't get much more divided than the U.S. was during the Civil War.  It would cost the U.S. three percent of its population of about 31 million.   If a similar event occurred today, the U.S., with a current population around 320 million, would sacrifice some ten million people.  

Ten million.  For comparison, it's estimated that World War II claimed around 419,000 lives; World War I around 117,000.  

And can you imagine the spectacle if five U.S. Senators all took the floor on the same day to announce they were resigning?  Especially if the resignations meant their individual states desired to secede from the United States...an act of treason...it would be mass chaos, and we wouldn't see anything else on the news for weeks.

So, back to today - and here's the thing.  The narrative we're using to describe the world we see is that America is becoming more and more divided, and we think this because we see more and more disagreement, primarily in the media.  Social media, to be sure, but also in the news.  We see politicians - a tiny, statistically insignificant proportion of our population - shouting at each other from across the ideological aisle and we think we're a nation that's never been more divided.  We see ourselves in those politicians.

But allow me to try a different narrative.  The story? The one of a nation divided?  It couldn't be more wrong.

Rather than primarily being a nation of people who can't get along with each other, I would suggest we're a society that's simply trying to figure out how to appropriately use the abundance of technology available to us.  In the past, if you had an opinion or thought on your mind, you talked to your spouse about it.  Or your neighbor.  Or your coworkers.  But in all these cases, you communicated as humans were designed to: face to face. 

Now, however, when we have an opinion, the opportunity is available to state that opinion loudly and proudly through the use of technology.  This isn't bad; instant communication is potentially life-saving.  

However, the technology calls for us to rethink how often and in what manner we should be communicating.  In essence, the technology is DRIVING not only how we communicate, but WHAT we're saying (this is another blog post, so enough said for now).  I realize a thousand people have already parsed out what I'm saying in much greater detail in a thousand different PhD theses, but...the average person never sees that form of communication. 

I would ask you to consider this idea as you connect via social media;  we're not a divided nation, we're a nation in transition, and change is always difficult.  But we'll get there.  We're getting there, slowly, and with the three steps forward/two steps back approach, but still progressing.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a quote from Brene Brown that constantly inspires me:  

"When we deny the story, it defines us.  

When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending."

Rather than passively allowing the media to convince us we're divided, let's embrace the idea that we haven't collectively mastered social media and that's okay.  We just need to give it some time and some thought to get it right. 

Peace and blessings to you all - thank you for reading!



 

Election 2016: A Request for My Conservative Friends

As my family watches coverage leading up to the Vice Presidential debate (scheduled to start in about 30 minutes) I'd like to offer a suggestion to my conservative friends who are considering their choices during this election cycle:  vote for Hillary.


I'm painfully aware that the choice we're making as a nation seems like we're deciding which method of self-destruction we're most in favor of.  (Things aren't that dire, but you know what I mean.)  I'm also aware of how disliked Hillary Clinton currently is...and let me suggest that, if you've traditionally voted Republican, this is exactly why you should vote for her.

Let me explain.

Your current choices, as a conservative, seem to be 1 of 2 things:

1) vote for Trump, who has generally done all of the terrible things the media has said he has done (he's a misogynist, he's a bigot, he preys on people's fear about immigrants, etc.) or
2) vote for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate who holds many of the same ideals you do - lower taxes are preferable, less government regulation is generally better, less foreign intervention is better than intervening when we generally make things worse, etc.

Republicans who support the option to vote for Trump seem to be collectively hanging their hats on one issue:  Supreme Court nominations.  Never mind that his fiscal plan would add trillions to the national debt, or that there's no way of knowing what he would do with the nuclear bomb once it's available to him, forget  the terrible things he's repeatedly said about women, immigrants, minorities...and somehow, swallow your pride and vote for him because the number of Supreme Court nominations that may (underline that, MAY) become available to the next president make it seem like this may be the one chance that Republicans have of overturning Roe. vs. Wade.

The problem with that logic is flawed, mostly because, in my opinion, it's a crap shoot whether the next president will actually get to substantially change the makeup of the Supreme Court enough to change the likelihood that the Court would even consider taking up the issue of Roe vs. Wade again...and it's based on the assumption that the 2 oldest members of the Court (Ginsburg, age 83, and Breyer, age 78) have a better than average chance of being replaced in the next 4 years - which is far from guaranteed.  While it's possible, it doesn't seem like the thing you'd want to bet the farm on.  Especially not with everything else at stake.

Which brings us to Gary Johnson.  Considering he's the Libertarian candidate, and considering he's done so well in the polls, it's tempting to consider him as viable third party candidate.  The problem is the polls don't add up to him having a reasonable chance of winning, but that isn't why I wouldn't vote for him; rather, I couldn't vote for the Libertarian candidate because of 1 thing listed in their Statement of Principles, 3.5 which states the following:  "Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts and other free-market solutions."

The short-hand version of Principle 3.5 means this:  if an organization (read: corporation) wants to decide not to associate with a particular ethnicity, race, sex, member of religion, etc. the corporation is free to do that...with the idea that people, because of the choices available in a capitalist society,  may choose to boycott against that corporation, participate in demonstrations outside the corporation's property, etc.  The power of communication, through demonstrations and other forms, would be the people's way of making known how offensive the corporation's actions are and, hopefully, it would be in the corporation's best interests (read: economic interests) to change its ways.

It would mean that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if the Libertarian party had its way, would be overturned.  Restaurants in the South would again be able to put up signs designating certains areas as "Whites Only".  Perhaps most damaging, employers would decide to ONLY hire whites, or protestants, or natural-born American citizens.

Doing this would - in my opinion - do irreparable damage to race relations in this country.  If you've watched the news for the past year, you've undoubtedly seen news story after news story featuring names like Trayvon Martin, and places like Ferguson, Missouri.  If the Civil Right Act of 1964 were overturned, the number of cases like this seen in the media would increase exponentially.

It would be a nightmare.

Hear me out, though.  The problem I have with the Libertarian party isn't that they would be able to do this...the issue I have is that Libertarians don't see this as an issue government should be involved in.  In the Libertarian view, an individual doesn't have a guaranteed right to obtain the services of a particular business.  Which is true;  no one can be forced to open a business.  But the point is this:  an individual SHOULD have access to the same OPPORTUNITIES, regardless of race, nationality, sex, etc. as anyone else...and this is where Libertarianism becomes impractical.

Remember, before we had the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we gave capitalism 200 years to try to get this right.  It didn't work.  In places like Alabama, and Mississippi, and Louisiana, people of color didn't have access to the same services as whites.  And by services, I don't only mean restaurants; think access to health care, private schools, and other local businesses.  Consider this:  you're non-white, and you have a job interview, and you need to buy a suit...where would you go?  What if all the local stores in town refuse to service blacks?  So...you don't get to buy the suit, and you don't get the job, which means you're denied the basic right of the Pursuit of Happiness.  This is what we would potentially be going back to.

So, back to my original request.  Please, for the love of all that is holy, at least CONSIDER voting for Hillary.  My reasoning is simple.  Her approval ratings are abysmal.  They're among the worst of any candidate running for office at any time in history, if the media is to be believed.

And if you want to send a message to your party, this is your chance.  It would only take a small percentage of people to make a YUGE difference in the election, and the message you'd be sending is this:  Republican Party, pull your heads out of your asses and give us a viable candidate, someone that can string 2 sentences together without managing to offend half the people listening.