We are a society that celebrates our differences.
Man-woman. Gay-straight. Progressive-conservative. Black-white.
And those are just the more obvious ones.
And that's OK. We are different. And sometimes those differences are worth celebrating. Heaven knows the world would not be a very attractive place to live if everyone was like me. There wouldn't be any electricity, because while I understand the principle of how electricity works, it would never occur to me to invent it. We wouldn't have telephones for the same reason (much less cell phones or hand-held computers).
But at the same time, there are enough people who have something in common with me that we can enjoy books, ideas, sports, faith, cowboy boots, movies, long drives (both in a car and on the golf course), music, well-turned and thought-out phrases ... you get the idea.
I have always believed that all of humanity shares the same characteristics. It's just that we share them in such wildly disparate degrees that at times if feels like we have nothing in common.
But we do.
I thought of this while I was thinking about the current state of division in this country.
"Different" has always sold well, which is why we're constantly bombarded with new styles of clothes, cars, computers, homes, TVs, music, medical care.
And in the last few decades, what we refer to as 'the media' (which is perhaps better identified as "the news business") has found that building up our differences is a successful business model. One side is going to agree with whatever position the news business takes, while the other side objects. But both sides read (or hear, or watch) for the same reason people slow down to see a wreck on the highway. Outrage sells - or creates clicks. But it's not just outrage. In the face of outrage, hearing a voice that supports my view also sells.
Thus the success, for example, of the widely divergent Fox News and MSNBC. We can't help but be drawn to a certain amount of outrage, so the viewers of one will sometimes turn over to hear the views of the other - in small doses - just to reinforce their opinion that they are right and the other side is wrong.
We often talk about having raised kids who earn participation trophies and don't really understand winning and losing, yet we get into things like politics and you see the outrage that occurs when one side loses. In the past, there didn't seem to be that much difference between Republicans and Democrats, but not any more. While there may still not be that much difference between the men and women who are elected to office representing those parties, these days it almost seems fatal to suggest maybe they have something in common, that maybe they are not that far apart in their views.
Moderation does not stir the masses or bring in donations or create movements.
So Candidate X is a lying cheating racist who is trying to keep minorities down, while Candidate Y is a lying cheating bigot who is trying to turn the country into a Soviet gulag where only the rulers have anything and the majority is left with nothing.
I have said this before and it's not original to me, but we are a people with incredibly easy access to more information than any people in the history of the world; yet at the same time we are the most lied to people in the history of the world because not all of that information is correct. However, if what we read agrees with my views, and reinforces my belief, then I keep coming back for more.
It's not that the "facts" are all that different. It's how we interpret those "facts" and make the connections between then. We get a piece of a quote from a leader and suddenly decide that one sentence defines the true character of that person. Then we get snippets of other sentences, maybe even what was meant to be a joke or a private, off-hand remark, and add it to that first sentence we heard, and because we don't like that leader anyway it all adds up to that person being a lying, cheating, bigot, whatever-phobe.
Meanwhile, there is often just as much evidence about that person to the contrary, but because it doesn't fit with what we want to believe, we don't pay attention to it.
But then we hear people on both sides say, "He could be a hero if he'd just reach out to the other side and compromise!" That always seems to come from the supporters of the party that is not in power, however; the people who conveniently forget that it takes two to compromise and as soon as one of their leaders actually seems on the verge of "giving" something to the other side, he is branded a traitor and is threatened with being voted out of office.
The question is often asked, "Why are we so divided?"
Maybe because we're so caught up celebrating our differences.
And forgetting how to appreciate the differences in others.
I think we used to spend more time on trying to find what we had in common. This country - the United States of America - is unique in that it was not formed by people who based citizenship on speaking the same language or worshiping in the same church or having the same ethnic background or being bound by geographic boundaries - the things that turned people into "people groups" since the beginning of time.
In the United States, people left behind the folks that they looked like and sounded like and worshiped like and who enjoyed the same foods and music and traditions, and decided to put all those things aside for an idea.
It had never been done before - a nation formed on an idea rather than some physical or geographical commonality. It resulted in a brand new creation of a group of people called "Americans."
Yes, people came to this country and lived with people who were like them. That's why, particularly in the Northeast or the far West, you had the Italian neighborhood or the German neighborhood or the Polish neighborhood or "Chinatown." But even with that, the longing was for the children of those immigrants to become something new: Americans. And even though they were not all equal, they believed those words that said that "all men are created equal" and they couldn't actually go on to becomes whatever they dreamed of being, perhaps their children could, or certainly their grandchildren.
I fear that one of the problems we face today is that we're hyper-focused on our differences. We're told to celebrate what makes our neighbor different than ourselves, and if we don't then we're bigots or racitss or small-minded or "deplorable." Don't get me wrong - we do need to accept people who are not like us, and welcome the traits they bring that can make us all better.
But the goal to become that one thing that is unique in all the world; to take our genetic and geographical and language and religions differences and blend them into something new, something we call being an "American."
When we have no basis for agreement upon what that means, though, then we are simply fighting with no resolution in sight.
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