I was watching a clip from author and Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks the other day and he said that 1 in 6 Americans are not talking to a family member because of politics.
Wow.
When I hear this stat, at first it makes me sad… sad for the fact that so many of us have bought into the theatrics that are presented to us… the drama on the news, the binary thinking of “us” vs “them.” The “pro” and “anti” binaries that offer no space for the complexity of even our own views.
And then I realize — it is necessary for us to be captured by things so that we can liberate ourselves. It is necessary to be with the dark so the light can emerge. Contrast is essential to life and the human experience.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how the most polarizing subjects that so often sit between us and others are placed there on purpose. We see the amplification of subjects like race, gender, vaccines, and so much more being leveraged by political parties as well as the media. I see friends and family members glued to their TVs, watching the news feeding them the latest dose of fear and rage… Generally nourishing their own views and villainizing the views of others — positioning the oppositional perspective as “dangerous” and a threat to ________ (insert: safety, autonomy, survival).
As I explore more deeply the impact of social media and smartphones on our brains and nervous systems, I can’t help but see that we have consented to an experiment using these devices while not being fully informed about the consequences of using them. And of course, like so many interventions, technology will have gotten such deep grips on our lives where we are dependent on it in so many ways, that undoing will feel like an impossibility.
But it is possible.
And you have to start now. Sooooooo… let’s go:
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