But There's Someone Wrong on The Internet: Appreciation and Connection
I just made a mistake. I was taking a break from writing to powder my nose and get that caffeine train a-flowing and I went on Twitter. Now, here’s the thing. I love Twitter. There are so many cool and interesting voices on it and I like learning new things. But then I made an even bigger mistake. I went into the replies.
Such a bad idea. This particular set of replies was two people arguing about how much to tell children about the state of current affairs. Now, I have very strong viewpoints on that matter so I could feel my blood pressure going up and I wanted to reply. But I don’t know these people, and I don’t have a connection to them and I’m definitely not going to change their minds without any connection.
I’m also not going to appreciate their viewpoints if I’m just focused on how wrong they are. Before I can get into a place of appreciation, I have to figure out what values I’m holding. Once I’ve affirmed that my values are reasonable, they’re important to me, and I chose them carefully, I can extend that same understanding to someone else.
Now, blood pressure lowered again, I can see why someone might want to maintain a blissful childhood for their kids. I don’t happen to agree, but that’s because I value honesty more than harmony, and I value knowledge more than innocence. Honesty and knowledge aren’t wrong, but neither are harmony and innocence. All that said, when we see differences that are incomprehensible to us, I find it helpful to get down to the root of it and most of all, to make sure I’m coming from a place where I know why I am thinking what I think. It helps take my own knee-jerk reactions out of an already charged scenario.
That is not to say that we can never speak or push back against how those values play out. Just because someone values innocence does not mean that we shouldn’t teach children about good and bad touch or how to get to safety. And just because I value knowledge doesn’t mean I should go around telling children the full gruesome details of war and carnage. We can honor each other’s choices while still working to create a community that is safe and appropriate.
And most of all, I think these hard conversations have to happen from a place of connection. Otherwise (and research backs me up here) people just get more hard line about their own ways of thinking. So how can you look at a conflict from a values perspective today? Where you see bizarre thinking, how can you rethink what’s going on? And how can you build connections to start real dialogue that opens hearts rather than closes them?
