Looking for Ways to Resist and Reconcile? The Anti-Nihilist’s Guide to Meeting in the Middle
By now, many of us are intent on escaping the echo chambers we’ve created for ourselves online. The problem is that we don’t know how to handle the reconciliation process in real life. Too many political conversations go south before anyone gets a chance to be heard.
In my previous conversation guide, I made suggestions about how to handle conversations that turn racist, sexist or otherwise deeply troubling. If that guide was emergency triage, this one serves as anti-inflammatory medicine. The following framework can help begin the deeper discussions we’ve all been avoiding, but which are necessary to successfully resist Trump.
1. Relax. Pat yourself on the back just for trying. If you need, take a sip of wine, a puff of that joint, or, if you’re not a lush like me, just a nice, deep breath.
2. Focus on yourself for a second. Think about how you come across to others. You control your words and actions.
Are you a conservative opposed to Trump’s ascension? Perhaps you’re even a Trump voter who has lost your blinders. Have you thought about joining a new coalition to defeat him? Are you also feeling unequipped to fend off the verbal assaults you’re bound to take from liberals? Is that why you haven’t dared to take steps towards reconciliation? We need you to be brave and hold yourself accountable for your political choices going forward.
Hey liberals! I know you’re about to scream, OMG, DON’T GO CRAZY ON US, ANNA. THE OTHER SIDE CREATED THIS SHIT STORM!
Yes, they did. And? At this point, we’re all wading in the shit storm in question, and beating the other side over the head may feel good but it won’t help get us clean.
As liberals, let’s learn to be grateful for small victories, however incomplete. Baby steps add up. We lost big-time in an election we couldn’t afford to lose: we can’t now turn compatriots away, however misguided they may have been. When persuading someone, being right matters less than being heard.
Speaking of which, can we please stop re-litigating the primary? I’m guilty of it, as are many of you. It’s pointless and only divides us. Trump is our present and future so long as we don’t act together to remove him.
3. Use your words. Be creative, and if you can stomach it, more generous than usual with others’ mistakes.
A close friend once remarked upon the monotony of propaganda. Even with an animated, intelligent person, he said, the tone never changes. He wanted me to see how my own voice flattened when I shifted our conversation from talking about personal issues into a more ideological stance. Propaganda is a lullaby for the brain; a delegation of personal responsibility to someone else.
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor lectures Jesus on the nature of freedom before burning him at the stake. Freedom makes people unhappy, the Inquisitor says.
The masses turn to the Inquisitor, not the returning Messiah, because they find comfort only in obedience and submission. “For who shall possess mankind if not those who possess their conscience and give them their bread?”
This is the path that leads us to nihilism. Are we so cynical, naïve, or lost that we’d let anyone, especially a politician, possess our conscience because they’ve promised us a smushed loaf of Wonder Bread? Gross. Of course not. We have to do better, because weak, insecure men with formidable executive power have always made terrible rulers.
4. Make an effort to meet people you disagree with in real life.
Think of it this way: just in meeting you’ve created a shallow bond. You both showed up, right?
Liberals, resisting Donald Trump will mean taking an hour off from ranting about the GOP to have coffee with an anti-Trump conservative.
Conservatives, it will mean swallowing your pride and admitting your party’s base chose this nightmare for us.
It will mean everyone taking the conversation seriously. Yes, I’m asking for your unpaid emotional labor. It’s true that this is more than I have a right to ask for as some random white lady in New York City.
Because being the bigger person isn’t really about justice; ask any minority forced into the role. We hold ourselves accountable because we care about achieving long-term goals. The world is cruel, violent and fundamentally unfair to so many while others float on in oblivion. Divisions run deep right now. We cannot let short-term, reactionary thinking undermine our larger ambitions.
5. With that in mind, share your personal goals and fears with one another.
We’re all human. Our daily routines are not that different. We all worry about aging, or where to send our children to school, or what we’re going to eat for dinner.
In our minds, we’ve associated our problems with corresponding political policies. Try and undo those associations. What is it that you actually want your government to provide? What are its proper functions and duties? How do issues affect you personally?
I find that it’s harder for people to reject Obamacare in my presence, for example, when I explain that my mother’s cancer was a pre-existing condition which prevented her from getting insurance. At a minimum, it begins a conversation that might never have happened otherwise. Success is the best revenge.
6. Remember that none of this is an excuse to normalize bigotry.
Quite the opposite: I’m expecting you’ll do your best to point bigotry out. That goes especially for those of us who haven’t suffered discrimination personally. If you still need clues on how to handle irrational views with a measure of kindness, take a look at my previous guide.
Originally published December 29, 2016 by Anna Lind-Guzik, legal historian + co-founder of the Anti-Nihilist Institute.
