My parents are passionate yellow-dog-Democrats in a very red state, and we talked politics a lot as a family around the dinner table. In fact, anything you'd feel uncomfortable bringing up in front of your in-laws was guaranteed to be passed around with the peas at our table. Seriously. Anything. You'd be shocked and delighted. It's one of the things I most look forward to replaying (when the nanobots give me access to all my buried memories/when I die and get the great and magical this-is-your-life remote and lifetime statistical report that I'm counting on).
I was raised to be suspicious of nationalism, aware of our country's weaknesses, curious about and open to the ways that other people all over the word answer the same human questions. I majored in anthropology, for crying out loud - practically the birthplace of cultural relativism. I rolled my eyes at 'freedom festivals' and the sacrilegious overtones of patriotism. (I still do, but not as angrily.) But I do love my country's beauty, its ideals, its willingness to experiment. I even have a soft spot for our enthusiastic, pigheaded bravado - we're like a Golden Retriever wagging its tail like mad, unaware that we're knocking things off the shelves and shedding all over the furniture.
I was very vocal and excitable at college, where I was surrounded by young Republicans who hadn't ever encountered an exotically liberal bird such as myself. I relished blowing their minds. "You're not Mormon? You're a DEMOCRAT?!?!?!?!?!" (And then their heads exploded and they fell to their knees to pray for my eternal soul.)
But the best part was when they would listen to my perspective, cock their heads like a puzzled spaniel, and then actually consider what I was saying and start to see why I felt that way. Was it something about our age, our new environment, the atmosphere of change and learning, that allowed us to really hear and connect with each other on such emotionally charged topics? Or has the world truly changed in 15 years? Or am I suffering from 'getting older', with its potential side effects of rose-colored nostalgia and a sneaking disdain for the future?
I fell into a bit of political apathy in my 20s - no real interest or investment in the whole deal. Lately though (let's be honest, after listening to the 'Hamilton' soundtrack a couple dozen times), I have felt a renewed interest in our democracy . . . just in time to encounter this year's three-ring circus.
It's hard to get excited to engage in the process when you feel like you won't be heard by anyone who disagrees with you. It's an echo chamber, where emotions run high but they're not really addressed. I know everyone rags on social media, but it does tend to magnify our outrage while glossing over our mutual interests and care for each other. We spend so much time trying to talk over each other, without doing the harder work of understanding and empathizing. We all get scared, and we don't do our best thinking and helping from a place of fear.
Of course, it seems to me that some people will happily take advantage of fear to use it for their own gains. I had a Cocker Spaniel named Licorice when I was a kid. He was black and sweet and sometimes nervous and his breath would strip paint off the walls. He also had a little fatty tumor on his side that was fun to squish. He was a year old when we got him, and he was terrified of garbage bags. Anytime you were carrying anything big in your arms, he would get away quick.
It'd be irresponsible of me not to say that I think of Donald Trump as someone who would wield a garbage bag to keep a dog in the corner. He's not concerned about whether you're scared. It suits his purposes to keep you that way. He's not going to reassure you that you're safe, he's not going to encourage you to grow and change, he doesn't really care about your experience of the world at all. He'll put a fence around you to give you some illusion of security from the big bag in his hand, but that will only serve to keep you small and scared of anything beyond your little kennel. That's not someone we should put in charge.
But I also don't want to use my own opinion and fears of potential tyranny as weapons in the political arena. I want to find out how to help. I want to serve, to connect with others who serve, to build a nation of Golden Retrievers gleefully yelping at the scared Cocker Spaniels to encourage them out of the corner, bowing on our front legs in an invitation to play and help and enjoy one another. (I almost included sniffing butts in that metaphor, but thought wiser of it.)
So how do you engage in a political battlefield without taking up arms? How do you share your convictions without getting tuned out? And what breed of dog would you be and why?
It's hard to get excited to engage in the process when you feel like you won't be heard by anyone who disagrees with you. It's an echo chamber, where emotions run high but they're not really addressed. I know everyone rags on social media, but it does tend to magnify our outrage while glossing over our mutual interests and care for each other. We spend so much time trying to talk over each other, without doing the harder work of understanding and empathizing. We all get scared, and we don't do our best thinking and helping from a place of fear.
Of course, it seems to me that some people will happily take advantage of fear to use it for their own gains. I had a Cocker Spaniel named Licorice when I was a kid. He was black and sweet and sometimes nervous and his breath would strip paint off the walls. He also had a little fatty tumor on his side that was fun to squish. He was a year old when we got him, and he was terrified of garbage bags. Anytime you were carrying anything big in your arms, he would get away quick.
It'd be irresponsible of me not to say that I think of Donald Trump as someone who would wield a garbage bag to keep a dog in the corner. He's not concerned about whether you're scared. It suits his purposes to keep you that way. He's not going to reassure you that you're safe, he's not going to encourage you to grow and change, he doesn't really care about your experience of the world at all. He'll put a fence around you to give you some illusion of security from the big bag in his hand, but that will only serve to keep you small and scared of anything beyond your little kennel. That's not someone we should put in charge.
But I also don't want to use my own opinion and fears of potential tyranny as weapons in the political arena. I want to find out how to help. I want to serve, to connect with others who serve, to build a nation of Golden Retrievers gleefully yelping at the scared Cocker Spaniels to encourage them out of the corner, bowing on our front legs in an invitation to play and help and enjoy one another. (I almost included sniffing butts in that metaphor, but thought wiser of it.)
So how do you engage in a political battlefield without taking up arms? How do you share your convictions without getting tuned out? And what breed of dog would you be and why?
We all know what kind of dog I would be...now where's my raccoon?
ReplyDeleteI want to be a Coton de Tulear
ReplyDelete