This morning I find myself debating with those who are outraged about right wing gun groups but deny that antifa/blm violence even exists. Is it possible both are true, that there is a threat from both ends? Of course there is.
One of the many problems that we see with the extreme partisanship that dominates media now is that people get in their own partisan rabbit holes and deny what they perceive to support the “other side” or simply ignore it. One example is Biden recently saying that antifa “is just an idea”. I am sure he is being told that by his lefty handlers, but it is really an ignorant statement.
The truth is that right now we live in a very ambiguous reality, with some truth and some lies coming from each side. It’s not an equivalence always, but then again it is not a competition either. That is another thing people do to deny it, well the other side is worse. Whataboutism it is called. Republicans have used that repeatedly to avoid criticism.
Consider these things we have been told, often from experts from the last few months:
Covid is mutating into a less harmful virus.
Covid is mutating into a more toxic form.
We are having the biggest protests in US History against police violence, biggest outpouring by whites against racism in history, yet 2019 had the lowest rate of police violence in Los Angeles in 30 years. Overall police shootings are down.
Police violence is so out of control that police in total must be unfunded and therefore eliminated,
the entire system is so racist it must be destroyed and built again from the ground up.
Yet the level of racism in the United States is the lowest it has ever been in history. Black wages and unemployment were the lowest in history in February 2020.
Respecting women means respecting their personal spaces, control of their bodies, and their value as women.
Gender is a social construct and there really is no such thing as women, there are women with penises, men who menstruate, anyone who calls themselves a woman is a woman, and gender can change from day to day.
The history of the human race is a gradual movement toward greater love, greater caring and human dignity.
The history of the human race is one race dominating another, one people, one sex, that is white males, dominating all others
One could go on and on with this. The messages we are getting are increasingly ambiguous.
What it actually demonstrates is a tremendous growth pattern. Ambiguity is what happens that precedes change. Ambiguity, confusion, mysteries, doubts, feeling uncertain, being lost, feeling uncomfortable are the first steps in changing, both on an individual level and societal.
When you are in a certain place, for example a certain level of racism that is stuck in the system, an inertia sets in which tends to hold itself in place. This is true of any structure, whether it be personal growth or societal institutions. The first step out of that is chaos of some level, which creates ambiguity. The ambiguity of that chaos is the first step in a search for a new, different state of being.
A certain level of racism is stuck in the system, and it needs to be busted. At the same time, that destruction needs to be tempered so that it actually produces positive change, and not just pure destruction. Once the chaos starts it can easily become dark, in this case rioting for the sake of rioting.
We were floating along, so to speak, comfortable with the things we were doing to end racism. Then George Floyd happened, and we realized there were still a lot of problems not being addressed, at least well enough. People then jump to conclusions, we are totally racist, or we solved that already and this is a made up problem. Ambiguous reactions and extreme reactions started to unfold. Chaos ensues.
White people, we are told, be uncomfortable. This coming from those primarily younger who as a group did not want the least bit of uncomfortableness in college, many who seemingly cannot stand to hear any opinion they do not agree with. But they are right, being uncomfortable is part of a growth process. If they had been willing to be uncomfortable themselves, their advice would come more tempered and with more wisdom than it often does.
Could it spin out of control? Yes, it’s possible, but to make sure that doesn’t happen it is important to find the light in this darkness.
Within the paradoxes of ambiguity lies great power and great change. Acknowledging ambiguities stretches reality into areas that otherwise may be unknown. In resolving those paradoxes, in resolving seemingly contradictory positions, a lot is learned. New creations form, new answers arise.
A similar process is going on with the world at large, and not just in the United States by any means.
We need to be able to embrace the fact that two seemingly opposing realities can be true, and not just hang on to our partisan position like a piece of driftwood carrying us through the sea. We’ll drown if we can’t carry two ideas in our heads at once. It can be that both right wing gun groups and antifa violence are both threats, and both need to be addressed.
It can be that there is remaining sexism and racism and yet those issues have improved to the greatest level in history. It’s hard and complicated work to sort through it all, and for many rather than do that it is easier to cling to a partisan position on one side or the other and turn your mind off and just rage.
The fact that we are wrestling with these ambiguities bodes well for the future, for changes that we need to make. A key is to allow it, to listen to all the voices that are present even if you don’t agree with them, even if you don’t like them. They need to reach some kind of resolution. There is some value in all of them.
Ok, well maybe not in a couple of them lol.
But in all the serious voices, there is some underlying truth, even if only half formed, half right. Extract the value and integrate it, and reach a new height.