It's so very true that living in a silo is mostly fruitless. I recently started making friends outside of my usual, core group, and found that I actually can make new connections - it's much easier than I thought.
I think this is a really important conversation and I appreciate you being willing to take fire from folks in order to write about it. It's easy to fall victim to siloed thinking. It's also becoming harder, I think, to articulate personal values without having to "choose a side". I have fallen prey to othering from time to time, but one thing that has helped guide me is a refusal to forsake the people I love. Even if my opinions and understanding have shifted, I trust the person I was when I brought that loved on into my life. If having a certain opinion requires me to cut people off, it's probably being influenced by an outside agenda. I think you've hit on an important point in highlighting that humanity and conncection can be a guiding light when we try to sift through the onslaught of news and information to get to the truth in the messy middle.
Politically, it really does seem like the left and the right are set up to keep us fighting with each other instead of paying attention to anything deeper. It reminds me of that comic where the king stands on the balcony while half the crowd holds pitchforks and the other half holds torches, and the jester says, ‘All we have to do is keep the pitchforks fighting the torches, and we can do whatever we want.’ The truth usually lies somewhere in between the extremes.
I’ve experienced real hostility from people who believed differently than I did( COVID was especially harsh), so I understand why people are cautious. But I’ve also been pleasantly surprised when someone I assumed thought one way turned out to be kind and reasonable.
It does feel like charity has grown cold in our times. If we loved others simply because God made them in His image and likeness, and remembered that we ourselves are not perfect. So much of this division would soften. I’m also realizing how important it is to avoid rash judgment of others (I’m definitely convicted there myself)
"I could swap the words “Left” and “Right” in most of the comments I see online and no one would notice. It’s the same posture, the same fear, the same certainty that “those other people” are the problem."
This is helpful for figuring out what you *really* believe in many cases, I've found.
I heard someone say once when you sit down with someone who thinks differently than you, politically, and get to the core of what they want for their lives and loved ones it boils down to we all want the same things… we want our families and the people we love and care about to be happy and healthy. No one is arguing that fact. It’s just a differing of opinions on how we get there.
I grew up in a fundamentalist silo and it took many years of my adult life to unravel what was ingrained in me from a young age.
I quit social media back in 2020. I deleted my fb account and I never got into any of the other platforms. I am trying this substack after watching your podcast the other day where you talked about it. Please keep sharing your thoughts and know that they are most definitely resonating with so many people and is so needed these days.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Thank you for so eloquently voicing the depths of this algorithmic scourge we all navigate daily, and how it has impacted us. I am hopeful (on the subject of tech, anyway) that as the two sides work together to try to better protect kids, that possibly tech's overreaches will be what brings us back together. Fingers crossed.
It's so very true that living in a silo is mostly fruitless. I recently started making friends outside of my usual, core group, and found that I actually can make new connections - it's much easier than I thought.
Absolutely! I think we tell ourselves it's harder than it is-- I know I certainly have. <3
It's the simple things in life that take time to reveal themselves to us :)
I think this is a really important conversation and I appreciate you being willing to take fire from folks in order to write about it. It's easy to fall victim to siloed thinking. It's also becoming harder, I think, to articulate personal values without having to "choose a side". I have fallen prey to othering from time to time, but one thing that has helped guide me is a refusal to forsake the people I love. Even if my opinions and understanding have shifted, I trust the person I was when I brought that loved on into my life. If having a certain opinion requires me to cut people off, it's probably being influenced by an outside agenda. I think you've hit on an important point in highlighting that humanity and conncection can be a guiding light when we try to sift through the onslaught of news and information to get to the truth in the messy middle.
Politically, it really does seem like the left and the right are set up to keep us fighting with each other instead of paying attention to anything deeper. It reminds me of that comic where the king stands on the balcony while half the crowd holds pitchforks and the other half holds torches, and the jester says, ‘All we have to do is keep the pitchforks fighting the torches, and we can do whatever we want.’ The truth usually lies somewhere in between the extremes.
I’ve experienced real hostility from people who believed differently than I did( COVID was especially harsh), so I understand why people are cautious. But I’ve also been pleasantly surprised when someone I assumed thought one way turned out to be kind and reasonable.
It does feel like charity has grown cold in our times. If we loved others simply because God made them in His image and likeness, and remembered that we ourselves are not perfect. So much of this division would soften. I’m also realizing how important it is to avoid rash judgment of others (I’m definitely convicted there myself)
"I could swap the words “Left” and “Right” in most of the comments I see online and no one would notice. It’s the same posture, the same fear, the same certainty that “those other people” are the problem."
This is helpful for figuring out what you *really* believe in many cases, I've found.
I heard someone say once when you sit down with someone who thinks differently than you, politically, and get to the core of what they want for their lives and loved ones it boils down to we all want the same things… we want our families and the people we love and care about to be happy and healthy. No one is arguing that fact. It’s just a differing of opinions on how we get there.
I grew up in a fundamentalist silo and it took many years of my adult life to unravel what was ingrained in me from a young age.
I quit social media back in 2020. I deleted my fb account and I never got into any of the other platforms. I am trying this substack after watching your podcast the other day where you talked about it. Please keep sharing your thoughts and know that they are most definitely resonating with so many people and is so needed these days.
Love this analogy!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Thank you for so eloquently voicing the depths of this algorithmic scourge we all navigate daily, and how it has impacted us. I am hopeful (on the subject of tech, anyway) that as the two sides work together to try to better protect kids, that possibly tech's overreaches will be what brings us back together. Fingers crossed.