Let The Civil War Begin
Here we are one week after the American presidential election, and despite fears, the threat of all-out violence seems to be in the rearview. Some are elated with the results and others are grieving. There’s one thing everyone is asking however: What’s next?
This whole time I thought we might be headed toward a certain kind of war. In reality, it appears we’re engaged in a completely different one: a war of ideas.
For the first time in ages we seem to be breaking everything apart, asking massive, foundational, future-shaping questions. Up until now, we took these questions for granted, assuming everyone agreed on what we each thought were “the basics.”
Does democracy still work in the age of social media?
Whose contribution is considered waste and whose is vital?
Where does someone’s autonomy begin and end?
What does “great again” really mean?
While the outcomes to these arguments will carry tangible consequences for our neighbors and ourselves, thankfully, it doesn’t look like we’ll be taking up arms, organizing militias, and storming government buildings again anytime soon.
This war will be a civil war.
Perhaps not always polite or respectful, but at the very least, civil. It will be unarmed and hopefully open-handed.
It will be a war fought over kitchen tables and under our skin, online and off-the-record, across social media and around spaces that feel socially awkward.
It will be tested in the limitations of our own assumptions and awareness.
It will last long after the knee-jerkers sacrifice themselves as pawns.
It will be won by whoever can be more disciplined in the art of conveying truth without snark.
To be clear, this will be a battle. There’s no quick fix or kumbaya chorus that can heal the canyon we’re all echoing across right now. There will be no shortage of prompts presented to us to fight over, no photo opportunity wasted, no story left uncovered by the myriad of media options incentivized by our emotions.
How we go about those disputes, the places we decide to put our anger and outrage, and the unlikely alliances we form — will matter more than the unrelenting hum of those prompts.
If peace does come, it will be by way of proximity. It will be because I moved closer to you and you moved closer to me and when it happened we realized the stories we heard about each other were far too boring.
Look out for the ones who facilitate these close encounters, who lean in so that others might also lean in. Keep watch for these dangerous peacemakers. They could disrupt everything. And at any point, any one us might become one.