Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash
On Saturday, I had a visitor. A man came to my door. A man I knew I had little in common with. A man who stood for a lot that I didn’t. A man that rubbed shoulders with people I didn’t really trust. It was my MP. I decided to open the door, greet him cheerfully and introduce him to one of the kids. There was no need to spar or debate. I told him I didn’t support his political party but that I did respect his work ethic (which is true) and he was respectful back. It was positive, it didn’t breach any of my personal boundaries, and it was good for the kids to see that we can still be civil and respectful with those we disagree with.
A photograph of 2 men who I’d often seen arguing bitterly, with real passion had caught my attention last week. It was such a contrast to the pictures I’d caught before of them often engaged in real emotional debates, the sense of feeling clearly captured in their faces and their posture. This was so different because it had portrayed a very different side to their relationship. One of the men had his arm reached out across the back of the other. I kind of want to put the picture on here, but I’m not confident to as I’m not sure how the copyright works but you can find it through this link if you want to look for yourself. The men, of course, Mark Drakeford and Andrew RT Davies. Men you’d be forgiven for thinking detested each other unless you too have picked up the subtleties of a picture here, a picture there showing their humanity in amongst a dense forest of images that would suggest otherwise.
A while back I was listening to a podcast from Brene Brown who was interviewing Bono entitled “Songs of Surrender and Carrying the weight of our Contradictions”. They were talking about those really tough connections – ones maybe you don’t want to make, ones with people you might otherwise not gravitate towards; possibly even seek to distance yourself from. But, with whom collaboration had the potential to make a huge impact. One line struck me as they talked: “You don’t need to agree with someone on everything if the one thing you agree on is important enough” – Bono goes on to explain that this was something he learned (rather than something that was instinctive) and that you sometimes need to look to something “higher” that you have in common in order to be able to do this. He recalls a conversation with President Bill Clinton who had remarked that he sure had a really big tent; a nod to the diversity of characters he had been engaging and working with.
This is such a stark contrast to what we are bombarded with day in and day out. That if someone crosses the line, does something we disagree with, says something that gives them away as “other” then it’s fair game to throw everything we’ve got at them. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of social media. I know, because I’ve done it in the past. Sometimes our zeal is well placed. Other times, not so much. Perhaps we’ve joined in with shouting down, with raising up, with some sort of reaction that is fleeting, that is superficial, that gives us that dopamine hit. Others join in, we may feel validated, but when you scratch beneath the surface things weren’t quite as they seemed.
Our media is so powerful. There is so much out there that seeks to catch our attention, begging for interaction and sucking us in. It’s incredibly easy to think we know a lot about a person based on images we see, images that get pushed our way, and the whirring cogs of those behind the scenes neatly packaging a message or story for us to just pop in our brains and move on to the next thing. Sometimes it’s easy to spot, like the relentless posts I had advertising political figures last year; it got ridiculous in the end. But a lot really aren’t. A quick flash on the screen and we barely even notice.
We don’t always think; we don’t need to think. It’s all there. Any yet, thinking is so important. As someone once said “You are paid to think” – I love this quote, no idea where I first heard it unfortunately but I use it a lot! Thinking allows us some control. Allows us to rationalise, analyse and weigh before we accept something. It allows us to layer in our values, and make a more rounded choice about how we act.
There’s got to be a line. Where is that line? Well, I think probably it’s somewhere in the place where abuse, disrespect and/or violence dwell. There may be other things that feed into this as well. But for now, I’m trying to practice perceiving the person with my interactions on social media. Because, there’s always a person. And, to discern what lies beneath those half-truths, and consider that which I don’t know. And think!
Receiving Consent 