It’s hard to break old habits. I still want to know what’s going on around me, close to home and thousands of miles away. I continue to consume words in newsprint and magazines (even if they now only exist as pixels) in publications that require research and documentation, and offer wide-ranging opinions that are clearly labeled as such. But friends and acquaintances regularly (and accurately) point out that they rarely feature anything resembling good news.
Without a concerted effort, my mind easily ventures into the quicksand of national and local news, the jungle of our modern society and government. Certainly, the previous five years have been a tsunami of conflict, crisis, and chaos. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd suggested “America is reeling backward, nasty and uncaring, with everyone at one another’s throats.”
Have you seen the news about organized gangs of masked robbers attacking Nordstrom stores to steal luxury items like handbags, then escaping during the confusion? Around the world and in the U.S., people protest, even riot, against mask and vaccine mandates just as the ever-resourceful virus mutates again. How about that weather, veering from a summer that was too hot and dry to one that was too hot and wet? As the polar ice cap melts, an even faster rate of melting is assured.
In many states, voting rights are being energetically curtailed. Gerrymandering (assisted by sophisticated software) is creating more districts which essentially cannot be won by Democrats, ensuring that a minority of voters can elect a majority of the state’s Representatives. Politically and socially, the country feels hopelessly divided, with little middle ground. Friends and families stare across a divide that shows no sign of narrowing, as a Republican Senate and Democratic House and president continue on their merry way, carping and complaining, fussing and fighting, balking and blaming.
Compared to this emotional feeling, years of Gallup polls show that Americans agree on much more than they imagine (https://bit.ly/3oEvjDd). For example, in 2021, 80% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances; 75% disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job; 68% believe that the current level of legal immigration should be maintained or increased; 69% believe corporations are paying too little in taxes; 70% believe same sex marriages should be legal; and 63% believe our country’s energy policy should focus on conservation rather than production. Just a few years ago, about 90% of Republicans, 73% of independents, and 71% of Democrats approved of spending $1 trillion to improve infrastructure.
But politicians appeal to our appetite for division, and thrive on emphasizing “wedge issues” that force us into false choices: gun rights or gun prohibitions; critical race theory or white supremacy; “securing the borders” or “open borders;” Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter; “free market capitalism” or “socialism.” This “binary thinking” forces us into accepting one side and rejecting the other.
According to psychologist Andrew Hartz, binary thinking erases “ambivalence . . . the experience of having conflicting emotions toward the same thing at the same time,” which can be “anxiety-producing.” Binary thinking is a short cut that limits our thoughts and allows us to separate the ideas and people in our world into opposing camps with little thought or consideration. Ideas, individuals, and groups are either good or bad, right or wrong, with me or against me.
For example, if someone strongly believes in the ideas behind Black Lives Matter, does that mean they don’t believe that Blue Lives Matter? This idea is manifestly false when considering the nearly 270,000 Black and minority police officers in the U.S., including many who strongly support BLM. The same is true of most of the other false choices we’re faced with.
For some reason, the phrase “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” (carelessly getting rid of something good in an attempt to get rid of something bad) has stuck in my mind recently. I think it’s because I am often faced with people who I respect in some, or many, ways, but I radically disagree with on politics. Do I throw out the relationship (the baby) along with the politics (the dirty bathwater)? It’s an uncomfortable choice, one made much more intense by Donald Trump. With so many Republican politicians still supporting the Big Lie of a stolen election and the politics of hate and disrespect so virulent in Trump himself, I’m afraid that it will become a choice that is more and more common in the coming years
Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era crime novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on a Saturday. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.