America is a can-do country. Therein lies the rub. The American message has always been about making it, conquering stuff, “manifest destiny,” inventing a lot, landing on the moon, defeating fascists, policing the world. And it has inspired many around the world as well.
But this country has grown to where the frontiers are no longer clear, people can't find homes, officials and media out-and-out lie in public, businesses claim a “fiduciary duty” to make profit at the expense of the public good, and blatantly fraudulent snake-oil salesmen get elected to high office because they’re thought to be rich and famous and have golden toilets, even if they celebrate formerly unAmerican attitudes such as suing the ref if they lose a game.
During the Obama era, conservatives felt shut down; during George W Bush and Trump, liberals felt shut down. And in the pandemic, everyone was shut in and shut up, except on social media.
People who are shut down feel they've lost agency. They have no impact. They start to shout, to babble. And if they get together with the like-minded, whether in person or on social media, they bubble.
Many times when I've heard someone go on and on about gripes that begin to leave the realm of reality, I’ve had to think, "This person has been shut in too long. They are desperate to be heard." They’ve lost agency and need attention. In a country that has spoon-fed everyone with the notion that we are can-do people, something strange happens when there is widespread loss of agency and a desperation to be heard.
I've thought a lot lately about agency (see my short story The Agency Agency). Often, when someone has their agency taken away, they seek to regain it by taking agency away from someone else, whether through micro-aggressions, insults, abuse, exploitation, or worse. And we could be talking just as much about individuals as about groups, organizations, corporations, political parties, or nations.
These days, it seems that everyone is desperate for agency in a society that is, at least in their perception, shutting them down, ignoring them, going over their heads. They are losing patience, and feel the need to take definitive action that hasn’t been taken before, or at least to demand such action and get someone else to do it for them (for which they can take credit (and regain some agency)).
What I’ve just described is sometimes simply called politics, but I’m trying to get at a rarefied species of politics that seems increasingly common and sometimes quite dangerous — extreme swings of political leaders as seen in their rhetoric, their doubling down on lies, shifting blame to disadvantaged groups that can’t fight back (this impulse was humorously but poignantly transparent when Maine Governor LePage was told about the impact of his policies on whales and he pointed out that whales don’t vote), and the general willingness of certain leaders to upend and dispense with rules of law that have kept things relatively organized and peaceful for decades, by taking “bold” action, such as denying election results, purging voters, or even starting wars to take power or shake things up.
In fact, “bold action” and “shaking things up” seem to be mantras among many groups who feel a loss of agency and perceive themselves as victims, whether as a result of violence, systemic racism or sexism committed against themselves or their ancestors, prosecution for violating laws they don’t agree with, public perception as losers because votes turned out the wrong way and therefore must have been rigged by the wrong side, or even the simple threat of having to pay tax money they’d rather hang onto, or tax money that might help the wrong people or policies.
Feeling entitled to a “can-do” attitude and yet feeling shut down, shut up, and shut out, results in an impatience with process. It pushes people to take matters in their own hands, take action, or call for action, to take care of annoying problems “once and for all,” as if all the hard work that went before was meaningless and spineless. Migrants coming to your country? Close the border, build a wall, block them out. Evidence of racism among police? Defund them. Speakers you don’t like at your college? Block them. Someone being accused of an abuse of power or privilege? Fire them or make them resign, rather than take the time to investigate facts. Military money covering transportation costs for reproductive health care that might include abortion? Block all military promotions until the enemy cries “uncle.” Centuries of intractable Middle East politics getting on your nerves and triggering bad Sunday school memories? Eliminate Israel. Scared of terrorists hijacking airplanes? Ban hijabs. Tired of having to explain difficult social issues to your kids? Ban the books that make them think about such things.
Now don’t accuse me of simplifying complex social and political issues into a single pretentious explanation. I’m fully capable of doing that myself. (Warning: This discussion may be simplifying complex issues into a pretentious presumption.)
But there may indeed be an overall problem of process that’s worth a look and could lead to some solutions. There may be basic misperceptions about due process, an ignorance that underlies the increasingly frantic and ineffective ways that problems are being addressed by individuals, media, and groups, including whole political parties. It may stem from the impatience bred by being deliberately left out of the discussions. Or the backlash which intentionally leaves certain people out. The magnification of drama on social media. The love of drama and ratings on all media. The human need for drama, especially among those who feel bored, trapped, or excluded.
There may be a human need for drama, but isn’t there also a human need for peace, for resolution, for working together, for succeeding in reality? Don’t people get tired of the alternate reality where everything we say is what we believe? Or is that the real reason for the separation of church and state — to keep a certain religious attitude, in which faith trumps all, at a safe distance from our efforts to improve the real world?
Some studies have indicated that the political center is a myth, that you can average people’s beliefs into a hypothetical centrist majority, but that if you look at people’s specific preferences about specific issues, they tend to lean pretty far one way or the other. This could signal a major defect in the way we communicate about real life.
There really needs to be a center hub to our discussions, and the center deserves more respect. It’s too easy to imagine that someone in the center is “weak,” as if they can’t commit to one side or the other. In fact, the easiest thing to do is to commit to one side, especially an extreme ideology, rather than have to think for yourself. It saves a lot of effort and doubt. Being centrist means trying to actually understand people’s arguments and needs and possible practical solutions, and it’s hard work. It’s the opposite of weak. It’s not a fallback or a position of pandering or trying to please all sides. Somehow our pundit culture has settled on the presumption that public figures are never sincere about their values, and instead are always promoting something in order to please a “base” of some kind.
Compromise, debate, negotiation, listening, and facing facts are all exactly what we need right now. The more we cave to the extremes and start believing that being inclusive, considerate, patient, and practical is a “weak” position, the more our troubles will grow and polarize.
The only way back may be to recognize polarization as an alternate reality.