stubborn binaries, killing us softly

In honor of election day fast approaching, and the political frenzy it brings, this week’s essay is a repost from about a year ago, when I challenged the death grip binaries had our thinking and acting in the public sphere. Sadly, we still seem to love binaries, so much so that instead of loving our enemies we love to have enemies. As long as we continue to assume we all fit only on one side or the other, we are part of the problem. I hope this reminds us that there is a better way forward.

 People love to say our country is divided, and it certainly seems to me that it is. The more interesting observation for my money, however, is on the nature of that divide. I’m sick of the old ones—and they don’t seem to fit anymore anyway. Democrat/Republican, urban/rural, public/private, rich/poor, Christian/all-the-others, progressive/conservative, yuppie/hippie, dominant/minority, those who “get it”/those who don’t…they’re all examples of binary thinking that strike me as rather simple, and frankly, as evidence of unexamined thinking. 

 And yet, I have whole-heartedly rolled around in such binaries for the last politically-crazed year like my dog in freshly laid mulch: with a relish that is both nauseating and a little baffling. So why? Why do we refuse to bring our life experience, which is most definitely un-binary, to bear on the way we describe the tensions we feel with each other? Why do we pretend that all who kneel do not respect those who served our country, while all who stand do not care about those marginalized by injustice? The answers lie in understanding the foundational ways in which we relate to and contextualize each other. 

 Our tribal instincts are exacerbated by our immersion in segregated communities.  While most of us live, play and worship in racially and economically segregated spaces, almost all of us connect online in politically segregated arenas. Our ability to respectfully approach others with curiosity is severely hampered when we only hear attacks about “them.” The dependence many have on social media to connect with others and validate their own value tends to be—at best—equal parts sincere engagement and performative pandering. We know this, and feel it in our souls even as we compulsively check our feeds for extrinsic encouragement. There is a place in each of us that understands we are complicit in participating in this bullshit exchange-space, and this is the place from which our cries for authenticity arise, even as we exchange our own experience of ambiguity for binaries that exclude others and comfort us. 

 That for many, President Trump’s shoot from the hip style is refreshingly authentic is hilarious for some and devastating for others. Some of us know him as an honest and authentic outsider, unsullied by the “swamp.” Some of us abhor him as a fundamentally selfish and unethical hypocrite, amazed daily that others can’t see through the show. The former group, despairing in the inability to feel heard and respected by society, celebrate the President as embodying the authenticity they crave. The latter group think Trump’s election reflects a great mistake, a blip in our otherwise just and thoughtful democracy. Absurd as it is, the alienation they felt in the last eleven months overwhelms any notion of connection they shared with fellow citizens. Instead, they buy into binaries. I sometimes resonate, feeling the fabric of society had been torn, and that I no longer belong to, or even understand those who live on the other side of the lines we draw between us. 

 For some who allow binaries to define their views of community, they now gravitate toward a new view: that the President exactly reflects the reality of the sentiments held by voters. In short, Trump is America—or should I say, ‘Murica—and we deserve him. This may very well be true, and there is certainly daily evidence to support such a claim. We are hateful and mean, consumed with self, entitled victims.  We are, in fact, bad at taking care of each other. But we are also really good at it, and my contention is that binary thinking prevents us from recognizing both of these facts. Thus, viewing the era of Trump through such extremes is insufficient and, frankly, does not offer an analytical framework nuanced enough to understand this moment. Could it be that we are all selfish jerks and compassionate neighbors? Could it be that we are all presenting lovely masks of ourselves and taking strides toward authenticity? 

 This brings me, with great pleasure, to the person and persona of Josh Tillman, aka J. Tillman, aka Father John Misty. A folk singer/songwriter/rocker, Tillman presents the most interesting tableau of meta-authenticity I have come across in a spell. While creating and performing critically and popularly acclaimed music, Tillman is loathed by many who dismiss him as a self-obsessed crackpot philosopher who waxes poetic about the nature of performance in America today. Yes, maybe. But his awareness of self, his self-mockery, his ease with conflicting ideas even as he articulates them passionately, makes me a fan. He deconstructs society’s impulses even as he deconstructs his own drives, all while acting boldly on those drives!  It is hilariously refreshing to hear him think out loud. For Tillman, the notion of binary thinking is outright absurd, a shoe that does not fit any foot in the kingdom. 

 Reading about and listening to Tillman, where ambiguity and nuance organically infuse every thought, offers a clear juxtaposition with destructive and ill-fitting binaries. In processing through this last year, it is evident that we have, as an American culture, adopted what I call a binary cycle, in which our basic notion of self worth arises out of belonging to one side, and this becomes the rubric by which we judge others as well. Our thinking about others, and, importantly, about self, is dictated by binaries. Extremes certainly helped elect our President, but they have also reduced us to thinking almost exclusively in terms of us and them. Tillman is a reminder that these binaries, and the biases to which they give birth, are, in fact, the foundation of our fractured society. This is why American society has fallen with no means to get up.

 (But there I go again.) No we haven’t. Our society is not defined primarily by our binaries.  We demonize “them” all day long, but we are also a compassionate people who often care sacrificially for others. In Nashville, TN, in the midst of the travel ban on majority-Muslim countries and the halting of refugee resettlement, agencies who work with immigrant and refugee populations were flooded with volunteers and donations. Also in Nashville, gun violence has risen dramatically in parts of the city inhabited mostly by minorities. While many people with power seem oblivious to this crisis, some of us are starting to notice curiosity among those who heretofore have refused to link gentrification, education and development policies to the displacement, disruption and despair of many marginalized communities. I see evidence everyday that we all have a capacity to care about “them.” We the people are totally selfish and greedy, and generous and compassionate. We are not a binary, and when we think of ourselves and others through a binary lens we lose sight of ourselves and destroy the very fabric of society that still holds us together.

 So this is my call, in honor of  those who kneel and stand, and in thanks to our dear Father John, to invite more of us to join his conversation. Can we begin to recognize how binary thinking dehumanizes ourselves and others? Can we reject totalizing statements and replace them with curious listening? Can we create new habits of recognizing our commonalities before only seeing divides? Can we endorse candidates whose policies and rhetoric suggest we all belong together, as we vote for people to represent us, rather than down a party line? Paying honest attention is a good antidote for thinking in simple binaries.

not political? get practical: 5 ways to stop being the problem

Last week’s essay made the case that the problem with our current national public devolution is not outrage or political involvement. Rather, our apparent inability to communicate with each other is a result of our obsession with ourselves, our restricted interaction with people whose life experience differs from ours, our clear commitment to prioritize that which furthers our agenda, and our discomfort with ambiguity. I heard from friends who read, nodding, grateful tears running down their faces, and from friends annoyed that I suggested “outrage” or “getting political” could ever be a valid option (and many people in between!). Here’s the thing: We all agree we are really, really bad at talking with each other about the state of America right now; we shake our heads, tisk our lips, and roll our eyes at the state of us, but we fail to recognize that we are both part of the problem and have infinite resources to change our behavior.

I’m a college professor, and I regularly tell my students that we adults have utterly failed them. That we are terrible at talking to each other. That we seem to have no ability to lean in to the lives of people whose experiences differ from ours. That we are actually not the kind of adults anyone should want to be. They laugh, but some of them agree with me. When I remind them that it takes difficult work to recognize our own bias, to admit that the problem in not “out there” but “in here”, that we are deeply lazy, selfish people who love to blame others instead of doing what we can do to make things better, a few of them get a panicked look in their eye, because they know they will turn into us if they don’t find a different way to be in the world.

In an effort to promote a different way to be in the world, this week I’d like to offer suggestions on how to stop screaming at your television/radio/neighbor and instead invest in your own environment, changing the way “normal” is done around you. There are many ways to respond to the Kavanaugh hearings. Decrying public engagement or passion as ridiculous, shallow outrage, is not helpful in my view. Here are a few practical suggestions that might serve the cause of justice and promote communal flourishing as we all learn to be better grown ups who share a country and a neighborhood.

 1)   Don’t undermine women in your life. Don’t use phrases like “middle school girl drama” to describe grudge-holding or silly bickering. Remove gendered insults from your vocabulary. Treat women as if their value and importance to society go far beyond their physical endowments. Teach them to speak up for themselves and then listen and respond when they do so. Don’t talk trash about your mom or mother-in-law, your boss or your waitress.

2)   Instead of raging about the inequality displayed in the Senate, take inventory of your own power. In your home, community or place of work, how are people respected and how is gender navigated? How do you show respect, and who do you silence? Who gets the benefit of the doubt and who is treated with skepticism? Clean up your side of the street, in the places you live and play and work. If you are privy to sexist or denigrating comments, whether sexual in nature or gender-based hyperbole, speak up! Let people know that you are neither safe for male locker room talk nor for females bashing males.

3)   Don’t confuse young men with conflicted and gendered teaching. In the South especially, young men are taught to protect women, to open their doors and to carry their things. Often, the same men who teach these lessons tell off-color jokes, clearly appraising women’s bodies with their eyes. They extend their “protection” of women to a patronizing withholding of information from women: ‘I don’t trust your ability to function in stress or to contribute to solutions’ gets phrased as, ‘I didn’t want you to worry.’ Don’t tell young men to treat women one way and then undermine that with your own behavior.

4)   Openly engage in the world around you. Refute the bullshit that paying attention or commenting on the political arena is somehow hysterical or an act of outrage. If men can grow up so insulated, with such privilege, that they regularly got blackout drunk and violatingly handsy with women in their paths, yet still demand the respect of others, we should be outraged! If a man spent a career respecting others, admitting mistakes, making amends, and applying the law to society in just ways, but was falsely accused of multiple counts of sexual assault, we should be outraged! If a woman’s understanding of her own body, safety and sexuality was badly impacted by an early assault from an entitled peer, we should be outraged! If our elected officials acted to further a conspiracy of damaging lies, or looked the other way when someone committed multiple counts of perjury, or acted to protect powerful unrepentant sexual assailants, we should be outraged! The presence of outrage does not presuppose an unhealthy person. Engage in the world around you, and consider what will make you speak up, or in whose defense you will stand. If there is no scenario that might make you speak, or gently disagree with a friend, or defend a person your circle has dismissed, then ask yourself what holds your love and loyalty.

5)   Know your history. Face the sexism and abuse and misogyny that has carried our country along. Explore the dark activities we have called normal. Educate yourself on the differences in patriotism and nationalism, between leadership and greed. Look into the divides between who we teach our kids to be and who we are when no one looks or no one cares. Many of our recent public moments could help us face a culture that excuses or even encourages behavior that destroys or handicaps lives. Don’t allow one person to be the anomaly; look for patterns and find your own places of compromise. Face the reality of our past, confront our present, and change the future.

 Our choosing of sides is problematic. Our love of finger pointing, blame, victimization and outrage are absurd. Our jump to accusation and defense are not helpful. But they aren’t the main problem. The answer is not to back away. Apathy is not a spiritual gift. Standing aloof will not bend us toward justice. Perhaps the answer is to get more involved, more engaged. What can you do, tomorrow, to be a part of the solution, rather than blindly being a part of the problem you complain about?

on the virtue of outrage

As Judge Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary hearings unfolded on a national stage, tensions climbed, accusations flew, defenses rose, and our discourse tanked. Given the chance to address our conflicted teachings on gendered behavior and how they wound all of us, we failed. I don’t mean to say we failed because Kavanaugh was confirmed, or because a woman was praised as “compelling” and “credible” but ultimately dismissed as neither, or even because of the nearly strict party lines which determined the outcome, although I admit my bias in thinking these things are true and terrible. I am most interested in the failure of our collective consciousness as we reflect on recent weeks. What was revealed, and what we must learn, according to many loud voices, is that we are too partisan and too angry. I have wept, sat stunned and paced angrily for many reasons in the last few weeks, but the thing I lament is much bigger than people addicted to picking sides.

After Judge Kavanaugh cleared the committee, Jeff Flake, from Arizona, took to the Senate floor to suggest the real danger in what just occurred was the elevation of a false binary: You either honor women and vote no on Kavanaugh, or hate women and vote yes. Flake is right that binaries take the nuance, the uncertainty, the confusion about what happened, out of the picture. I too, find binaries absurd, weak attempts to make easy choices of complicated matters; however, the danger here was not a false binary, but the exposure and endorsement of a culture that gives power to people who don’t value the experience of others.

Pastors and pundits alike echoed Flake by saying the real tragedy here was partisan people, addicted to outrage. They make a good point: we are angry and divided, and our problems are certainly exacerbated when we leap to outrage from our huddled corners. However, rather than outrage, I grieve the failure of empathetic listening, of engagement, of the willingness to get involved.

 I am bothered by the grandstanding, the side picking, the blaming anger. Our political habits are troubling, but the realities around which our political circus swirls is devastating:

• Girls are assaulted at alarming rates, and they often hide this destructive secret in the center of their being, where it continually wounds them.

• Boys are often raised to respect and even protect women, while simultaneously enjoying porn, celebrating sexual conquests, and noticing the mixed messages adults send them about (dis)respecting themselves and others.

• We actively endorse the notion that behavioral standards fluctuate depending on one’s location (Vegas), wealth bracket (wealthy kids likely avoid jail), or age (if you are just a kid then a mistake shouldn’t ruin your life, even if your mistake haunts someone else’s).

• We are more likely to believe devious conspiracy theories than the idea that entitled kids do entitled things, and have little reason to regret or confess them.

With or without Kavanaugh subtext, these revealed realities suggest devastating consequences for our shared future. To say that the primary problem exposed in these hearings is one of angry side picking is to miss the point entirely. First, such a view suggests that every testimony, every word uttered in the public sphere, has a clear agenda. It obscures the idea that truth telling comes from honest reflection, and that meaning making is a communal activity (to paraphrase David Dark). This view presupposes that since we cannot be certain about everything, it is better to stay aloof, uninvolved. Could we care enough about the communities we share to actually listen with respect, even when our stories are messy?

 Second, this point of view is founded on the idea that any meaningful engagement in the public sphere is too much engagement in the public sphere. It suggests that any interest or passion is too much and too far, that reasonable, grounded people abstain from getting involved. If this is actually true then we should not claim to be a democracy, right? How often do you hear a person accosted for thinking about how one’s choices or ideals might affect the people around them: “Stop getting political, I’m just talking about my personal faith/school choice/business habits/tax strategy.” Truth be told, I am not sure what “getting political” means, but if it means investing my time, thoughts and energy in public meaning making, in the creating of norms, in the exploration of potential leaders and their points of view, then “getting political” is the foundation of democratic participation. Could we care about the norms, laws and people who govern us enough to engage ourselves in our governance?

Third, the idea that all who were interested in the Senate procedures, anyone who diligently watched, forming opinions and expressing outrage, was a symptom of ‘the problem with society,’ is based on the notion that our country, courts and legislators are never wrong, and always worthy of our trust. To hold them accountable is a sign of hysteria. This perspective has been used to silence protest and to undercut those who would resist oppression. It suggests that the status quo is always just, so any person who robustly criticizes the system has gone overboard and is simply addicted to outrage, passionate about their passion. The reality is that we have often gotten it wrong in our country. The long arc bends toward justice because people are willing to change the trajectory of the arc. Inertia wins unless a new force is introduced in the pathway. If such a new force is always dismissed as too intense, or too involved, then inertia will win, and injustice will stand. Could we care enough to be outraged?

I understand the impulse to choose apathy instead of engaged dialogue. This is a complicated and high-stakes moment. There is much to learn, much to mourn, much to ponder about the last few weeks. If influential folks decide that our central problem is that people are “too political” or “too outraged,” then I’m afraid I need to announce that I am about to become a bigger problem than I have heretofore been. I care too much about the way our public sphere, courts, leaders, houses of worship and laws treat young women and men to pretend like apathy or divestment is a noble act of reason. It is cowardly to not care, and I invite you to be brave with me, to listen to different perspectives with empathy, and to engage in the process of making meaning out of our messy democracy.

Next week, practical ideas on how to respond to this moment.