Asking for Decency & Basic Respect is not "Silencing" - It's Facilitating Conversation
It's Hard to Build Connection & Community If We Can't Have Healthy Conversations
Conversation works better when we don’t insult the people we’re trying to get to listen to us.
I bring this up because we’re trying to encourage and facilitate connection and community here. Like that’s one of the key features of our work at this nonprofit.
Connection and community works better if you can have healthy conversations. Dialogue. Back-and-forth. Listening. Understanding. And so on.
I often try to get this point across on my personal Facebook wall… with mixed results. For some reason, people will keep being obstinate, stubborn, non-listening yahoos; even if you’re trying to explain how you’re more likely to listen to them if they don’t disrespect you or your other connections.
I recently shared a post on Facebook written by another connection, as I tended to agree with that gentleman’s original post. A second gentleman who we’ll call Frank commented: “F*** this smug asshole OP [original poster] he's representative of the problems in the Democratic Party that keep us sliding right.”
I responded with some stuff about how I’d prefer it if people on my wall don’t insult my other connections; or me for sharing what they wrote. Another connection and I then commented on the substantive content of Frank’s comments. He responded to those comments of ours with various non-hostile points and ended with “…So unlearn the hogwash.” Uh, yikes. Like it was normal normal normal normal normal… then BLAM.
Fabulous. Now he’s telling my connections (and I) what to do, and in a judgmental way.
I came back with “I really ask people to treat each other on my wall with respect and not to tell each other what to do. And also not to insult each other (or me) for posting content. I’d like to stay connected but some of the hostilities here on this thread are not the kind of conversation I want to foster here. We need to build alliances on the side of the Democrats... and we can do it respectfully and with listening and authenticity.”
Frank responded with a bunch of stuff that wasn’t relevant to the thread or to the original post, and ended by saying that “Demanding me to be the bigger person is only asking me to comply in my silencing.and said my asking for civility [sic].”
I ended with a clarification that I had not asked this person to be silent, and said “I asked you to be decent to other people on my wall. Not to insult them, or me for sharing their stuff…. It's asking you to not insult my other connections. I'm okay with that. People are more likely to listen to you if you are not insulting them, and if you are not abrasive. I don't think we're going to be a good connection. I'm really sorry to see that because I have appreciated your perspective. But I cannot have connections who insult my other connections and then [make judgments] for asking people to treat each other decently. If we just treat each other decently in the first place, how much more could we talk about together, and hear?”
Maybe I sound preachy. I hope not.
I can’t explain how many social media connections I’ve lost because I’ve asked people to treat others on my wall with kindness, decency, or respect. I don’t have stats, but most of those people I’ve disconnected from have been white men. Not always… but there is a trend. That’s not the main point on this post, though.
Why is it that people don’t get that we’re not likely to listen to them if they insult us? If they misrepresent what we’re saying? If they misrepresent what we’ve said?
Why don’t people get that we’re more likely to listen to and respect them if they listen to and respect us?
Our threadbare social fabric is one of the reasons we have an authoritarian movement in the first place in the US. I mentioned on Friday’s post that community is a key way to fight authoritarianism.
But how do we grow connection and community now in this time of shock and trauma… given that threadbare social fabric?
One of my friends has been talking lately about how our society isn’t putting time and effort into teaching us all how to build connection, how to have healthy relationships of all kinds, and how to grow community. I tend to agree. All of that takes skills — life skills. Where are we learning them?
So if we need to do way, way, way more connection and community in politics… do we also need to have more conversations about how to do that in healthy ways? We’ve got a strength and solidarity Zoom event set up for next Sunday specifically to do connection and community. It would be a great place to talk about all this.
The Shift the Country 5 Things are literally anchored in connection and community. Do we need to start by talking more about to build connection and grow community?
What’s your take?