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After the 2016 presidential election, with the country in shock and deeply divided, I remember reading articles with topics like, “Now what? What can I do?” These articles recommended volunteerism, donating to worthy causes and paying for real, verified news sources.
The general sense was yes, the ship may feel like it’s out of control, but we all have an obligation to make sure it doesn’t run aground.
Two years later, the rhetoric machines of political news and social media continue to foster division, stoking anger as well as an “us vs. them” mentality we all experience to some degree. Having a neutral or temperate opinion on any issue appears almost out of fashion.
Simple and clear truths have become mired in chaos. Our collective patience, tolerance, and understanding have waned as well. With all of the yelling and outrage porn at our fingertips, optimism can seem like an impossible pursuit.
Our options become binary: Tune out or tune in. Neither is necessarily better. To tune out is to disconnect and risk detachment. But even tuning in might just mean paying closer attention to our own digital echo chambers, a phenomenon we are just beginning to understand. These echo chambers make us forget that “we” are just somebody else’s “they.”
Is this really the best we can do? Are we not capable of a more meaningful dialogue without self-perpetuating discussions or the yelling, criticism, and condemnation that come with “discourse?”
Taking a stand on an issue, controversial or not, means opening yourself to a publicly connected world quick to judge, often harshly. Sometimes that judgment receives little or no attention. Other times it is the pebble that causes an avalanche of vitriol.
The New York Times recently discussed the backlash unleashed on a culture writer after her critique of Nicki Minaj’s latest album. It is not an isolated incident. We are less interested in discussing than we are defending. Such fervent support turns an issue or individual into a fortress above reproach. Questions and criticism prompt an uneven uproar.
So how can it honestly be necessary for people to continue to raise their voice when it seems all voices have already been raised? Because all voices have not been raised. We need the voices of the rational, the honest, and the interested to contribute to the dialogues that may very well dishearten them.
I am my own best example. Merely writing reflective essays for the rest of my life would be to ignore the greater desire within myself to foster a more holistic view of masculinity, and the opportunities I see to contribute to the conversation. I am sure there are others out there right now debating whether or not to speak up about something they’ve kept quiet about. Avoiding confrontation is for sure an easier road, but also one paved with denial.
It is easy to imagine for every positive voice on an issue there is also a negative one to match. But I have to believe there are way more positive voices in this world than negative, they just receive less attention. And we can’t allow that to happen anymore.
A decade ago when we all started sharing our opinions online it was messy and exciting. Whether or not any voice was important or not was irrelevant, because it was merely one of many, and certainly not one working towards a specific cause. At this point in time, there is nothing but room for better dialogue. For less yelling and more listening. For less criticizing and more querying.
The author Seth Godin talks about the artist’s responsibility to make art:
Artists are human beings who are doing the brave and scary work of doing something original and human that has a risk to it that changes someone else for the better.
Anytime you share something online, you take a risk. And when what you share is your voice, and your considered point of view, it so very much a part of you. An assault on your art is an assault on your core.
The low hum that now persists throughout our lives is the private thoughts of the masses, liberated and released into the greater consciousness with degrading degrees of consideration before, during, and after.
We have become desensitized to all the yelling. It is dangerous to think the outlandish, vulgar, and inflammatory media personalities we currently have, are the worst they will ever be. I don’t want to be a part of a conversation where the loudest side wins. It turns us all into unwitting recipients of an unmitigated monologue.
The time of blissful ignorance has passed. We are too aware and too knowledgeable of how our world is changing. We need more people willing to speak up and broker understanding, to put themselves out there to possibly suffer the slings and arrows of those seeking a monopoly of ideology. In a land without questions, targets are easy to find. We can avoid such confrontations, yes.
Or we can raise our voice.
So again, we find ourselves without a paradigm to figure out the way forward. How do we know when we must raise our voices? How do we know to do so would actually be to add value and not merely be an exercise in vanity?
There is no answer.
There is only our time and what we do with it. And if my belief is indeed correct, that there are far more people who seek to connect our world as opposed to dividing it, we will all benefit from a greater dialogue.
We must take our time to come to our thoughts and opinions, but once we do, we cannot hold them to ourselves if they can impact positive change.
The time to hesitate is indeed through.
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