The other day I experienced an unexpected rush of empathy for a young friend who’s trying to find ways to assert her individuality, something we all have to do eventually. Like her Woodstocker parents during the 60s, she wants to be radically daring and different. But like many of us during our younger days, she sometimes mistakes defiance and disrespect for assertiveness and individuality. This landed her in trouble at school. What’s a rebel-without-a-cause to do?
What I want to tell her is this: the best way to rebel against the prevailing mood of the moment is to treat people well. Remember that we’re all individuals, not faceless pieces of our various groups and affiliations. Given the drama of the previous decade, where demonizing those who disagree with us – loudly and publicly - became standard practice, the simple refusal to see others as stereotypes might be the most subversive thing any of us can do.
The key to breaking out of the box is one-to-one contact. The neighbors in my block-watch area, which consists of about 15 households, are such a motley mixture of backgrounds and opinions that if we were all running for office and held a political debate amongst ourselves, World War III might ensue. But as neighbors we get along well.
One of my neighbors is a “birther” who always carries a concealed weapon. I’d hate to meet him in a dark alley, especially since his eyesight isn’t so good anymore. He and I would probably disagree on every point. Yet he’s a great neighbor. When I meet him on the street, he always asks about various members of my family. He puts out bowls of food for the neighborhood’s stray cats. And since he has insomnia he sits out on his porch at 2 a.m., something that I as the block watch facilitator can appreciate.
He and his wife regularly go out to dinner with the neighbors across the alley from us, a husband and wife who are lifelong Dems with a liberal populist bent. I don’t know what they talk about over their pizza, but despite their differences of opinion they’ve remained good friends.
I think the secret is that they’ve gotten to know each other as human beings. When we get acquainted with someone on the personal level, the relationship ceases to be “Us v. Them.” Villianizing an entire group of people is much easier to do when we aren’t challenged to put a human face on any of its members.
During the last ten years or so, villianizing “Them,” whoever our particular them might be, has become so standard that most of us don’t even notice it anymore. Purple prose and inflammatory talk radio have become part of the emotional wallpaper. The comment threads on the editorial page of almost any newspaper website are so peppered with “idiot” and “moron” that it’s often difficult to find the actual ideas hidden within these posts.
A nation full of adults indulging in a collective tantrum puts teenage rebels out of work. That’s why I might suggest to my young friend that if she wants to be truly rad, she could refuse to join the grownups. She could make it a point to not yell, either out loud or onscreen. She could realize that verbal bullying says more about the bully than the intended target. She could acknowledge that epithets and name-calling are poor substitutes for good ideas. She could see that being chronically angry isn’t a virtue. That merely having a strong opinion doesn’t justify violence, whether it’s physical, verbal or emotional.
Above all, she could insist on seeing everyone she encounters as a real person, and treating that person with respect whether or not she agrees with them. For those of us who haven’t made this a lifetime habit, it’s incredibly difficult to do on a consistent basis. It’s much harder than writing blog posts, organizing a rally or even voting with our wallets.
But one-to-one is the level at which meaningful change starts. Working on that level, my friend will be able to challenge the status quo, but in a way that serves a worthwhile purpose. She’ll be a rebel with a cause.
It will make a world of difference for her and a difference in the world.
©Geri Hoekzema, Yellow House ProductionsWanted: A Cause
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