Hiding in a Cave

I am wondering how many of my friendships are going to survive the upcoming election season.

I, for one, am not looking forward to it.  I already know who I am voting for, and I don't plan on changing my mind unless something completely unforeseen happens, but it's promising to be such a wild and crazy campaign that conflict will be unavoidable.  I had thought about hiding out in a remote cave in a wilderness area until November, but my boss said that I couldn't telework for five months and I lack that much vacation time, plus I have teenagers that constantly require groceries and new shoes. Therefore, that plan clearly won't work.

These days, the conflicts come fast and furious.  That is probably true for most of history, but now we have social media, which seems to exacerbate the rate of extreme interpersonal conflict. Pick any subject and given the right environment, a discussion involving it can escalate quickly into chaos.  Mentioning the word "vaccine" in any group of autism parents, for example, can be like setting a forest fire.  I've learned to give that topic a wide berth, and that saddens me because even though the other person and I might have so much to agree on, that one topic has been given the power to negate any common ground as autism parents that we might have.

This past weekend, another horrible tragedy happened in Orlando, Florida.  It is a crisis that deserved at least 24 hours of solidarity with the victims and their families and loved ones, quiet reflection and prayer.  However, because it involved three issue that on their own can be inflammatory (guns, Islam and LGBTQ), and everything moves so fast on social media, it seems that within seconds, the arguments started right up on Facebook.  It seems so disrespectful after such a great loss.

We are all typing so fast at each other but we are not listening to each other.

I will admit that I have un-followed people on Facebook, mostly because their posts on one subject or another got to be too much.  I'm sure that other people have done the same to me.  I consider myself a mostly reasonable person, although like most people I do have issues I feel strongly about.  I want to think that I am willing to consider others' views and perspectives, and am willing to concede when I am wrong about something, although I suspect that this may not always be true.  However, I don't want to be screamed at by meme, or sent volumes of articles from extremely questionable and slanted news sources about controversial issues.  Those have the exact opposite of the intended effect on me.  However, I also wonder if I am contributing to the communication problem by isolating myself on a digital island with other inhabitants that think just like I do.

I'm quite sure that if I were as extremely open about some of my beliefs on my Facebook wall as some of my friends are, I would lose friends.  I tend to stick to wildlife pictures and stories about my offspring.  Maybe that makes me a bit cowardly, but I find it hard to have intense discussions about controversial issues online, where you can't see the body language of the other person, or hear the inflections in his or her voice.  Perhaps that is also part of the problem- if those of us who are moderate (ok, maybe a little left-leaning) in our views stay quiet, then the extremes on either side appear to be normal.

Facebook is good for a lot of reasons, but it is not good for addressing major societal issues.  That requires, at a minimum, actual dialogue with other people. You know, talking.  Talking to people you don't agree with.  Listening to what they say in return for their listening to you.  The old timers used to call that a "conversation".  Not yelling.  Not responding with tired memes that oversimplify the issue.  Not de-friending people you disagree with.

I don't know what the answers are; that is way beyond the Mom of No's area of expertise.  But I do know that we will never reach any consensus by isolating ourselves in little groups and giving others the cold shoulder because we don't agree.