Casting Blame: It’s My View, Too

Am I complicit in this? I think I am.

It was with shock and heartsickness that I woke up on Wednesday morning to find the world on fire.  I had followed the campaign process with a kind of grim amusement for the last year or so (how could one not?), and therefore I thought I knew what was going on.

Clearly, I did not.

I had gone to bed the night before mildly curious about the outcome of the presidential election, but not at all perturbed.  “Surely the majority of thinking, voting Americans share my viewpoint,” I thought.  “They’ll never vote him in.”

So how was it that I was so completely sideswiped by the next morning’s announcement? How did I not see it coming?

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because I was looking in the wrong places.

When I lived in Canada, I was a compulsive CBC listener.  I found out what was going on in the world by tuning in to FM 98.7 during my daily commute.  But I always had a sneak preview, before I left for work, when I perused my Facebook newsfeed.

Now a Facebook newsfeed is a very useful source of information in many areas.  Take bus cancellations, for instance: somehow Facebook is able to inform its entire constituency of a snow day long before the fact becomes known through the proper channels.  It’s like a happy kind of wildfire.

Facebook is also a great source of information about things like marriages, babies, pets, and report card stress.  These are universal realities.  People conjugate, bear offspring, harbour animals, and freak out about work.  We celebrate or sympathize with one another, using one of six “reaction” buttons beneath each post.  In this way we create the illusion that we know what’s going on in each other’s lives.

But, as I learned this morning, when it comes to politics, I got tricked.  Leaving my local airwaves behind, I had come to rely on my friends to feed me my news.  I did not realize that I had automated my morning scoop.

It’s simple, really.  Stupid-simple.  I am drawn to people who share my values and views.  We post things on social media that make us feel good about ourselves and our shared opinions.  Opposing views are acknowledged, but often with mockery or fear-mongering.  The “other” takes on the appearance of an evil, unthinking buffoon, as do his supporters.  We roll our eyes and give thanks that we are not like them.  And we assume ourselves to be the righteous majority.

Why did it not occur to me that this same thing was happening on the other side of the digital divide? That those who see me as the “other” might in fact be the real majority, and might be thanking God that they are not like me? Why did I not realize that the information I was getting on my so-called newsfeed was only the news I wanted to hear, as I wanted to hear it?

I want to tell myself that my social network is not as binary as it seems; that I have friends and acquaintances with many diverging views, engaging in real dialogue, and wrestling with complex issues in deeply thoughtful ways.  I want to tell myself that my world is not so neatly categorized into “this side” and “that side.”  But if anything brings out people’s polarities, it’s an election.  One camp will win and the other will lose.  People must make allegiances.  That’s how it is.  And if I only know about the one pole that’s reflected in my “friends” list, then I am part of the problem.  I am complicit.

And it gets worse.  If my willful ignorance has blinded me to the reality of the most publicized event of the decade, then what else am I missing? What am I missing in my own country, and in the country in which I now live? What am I missing globally? How many critically important things are going unaddressed while people like me are browsing our newsfeeds and congratulating ourselves for our witty comments and our pretty photography?

You see where this is going.  I am complicit; you are complicit; we are all complicit in everything, because we all make choices about the filters we place before our eyes.  What we choose to see or not see becomes our reality; and I’m ashamed to say that more often than not, I choose complacency.

I’m not sure how to remedy this.  We all know that unbiased reporting is a myth; in fact, unbiased anything is a myth.  There is no ultimate source of information that will allow us to know everything we ought to know, as we ought to know it; and if there were, it’s possible that we would know too much.

There is a temptation to choose one of two paths, or to volley our rhetoric between the two.  The first is to spew more judgement, prepare more I-told-you-so’s, and arm ourselves for the coming cataclysm.  The second is to simply shut down.  To wash our hands of it.  To cull our friends list, close our eyes, and walk away.

But we can do neither.  We are Atlas.  We do bear this world on our shoulders.  If not we, then who? We must somehow cut a third path, and build bridges to its gates.  It must be a path of welcome and not exclusion.  And it must be open to all — even those with whom we disagree.

Dialogue is a start, I think.  Listening to others instead of disregarding their positions as unworthy of our attention.  Asking questions.  Being curious.  Seeking understanding, rather than dominance.

But underlying those conversations (which, frankly, seem a little overwhelming for the introvert in me), is the need for an ever-so-slight adjustment to our own filtration system.  It’s an attitude that says, “I want to know,” instead of “I already know” or “I’ve got other things to think about.”  That’s the crux of it.  It’s a conscious decision to care.

And so, for my part, I will begin with one small action.  I will return to my first love, and click my way to cbc.com from time to time.  Not because public broadcasting is infallible, unbiased, omniscient reporting, but because it’s something more than what I’m feeding myself right now.  Because it involves going out of my way, just a tiny bit, to know more than I would otherwise know; it prompts me to step outside myself and my presumptive world.  I’ll listen closely to voices that are different from my own; and maybe, in time, I’ll become the informed, compassionate person that I thought I was all along.

These are hard things – knowing, caring, doing – especially when we’re all just trying to get through the day without going under.  But let’s try.  Let’s.  Let’s care a little more charitably, speak a little more gently, and step outside ourselves once in a while.  Let’s become complicit, all of us, in forging and tending that third, uncharted path.