Someone upthread spoke of how wisdom is the taking of the emotional "charge" out of memories - or something of that nature...
I think that when diversity exists (hurray) potential faultlines also exist (boo!). And they can easily be made wider by driving wedges into them. In Northern Ireland, the wedges driven into small faultlines, which made them so much more "abyssal", were actual atrocities, each of which made the "other" side seem more frightening and alien, and "charged" the alienness with grief, sorrow, shock and awe. Even though the actual atrocities fell on relatively few individuals, each one amplified the "charge" in one of those positive feedback loops that you get in badly placed speakers. I often speculate that it would have been easy to start the feedback loop with a psy-op or two (there were plenty of "security" personnel busy about the place) to get things going, and then the runaway process would have developed a momentum of its own, as locals joined in.
To do the opposite, would be to somehow "remove the emotional charge" from a potential division or faultline. As you point out, this was actually done by generations before us, through the Civil Rights years, and right up to and including the passage of "marriage equality" provisions almost everywhere. The "charge" had been removed from previously highly charged differences, even though the differences themselves did not stop existing.
So, perhaps the task set before us (and I do seem many commenters struggling valiantly to accomplish this), is to "take the charge" out of existing faultlines as much as possible. And yet, those who have suffered atrocities, may simply be unready or unable to allow their real emotional experiences to be defused without some sense of a "balancing" of injustice. (And I also see many commenters struggling valiantly to express their sense of an imbalance, an injustice, needing to be rectified).
I think we cannot "wish away" the emotional charge that arises from harm and damage done to people. Their pain exists, and it cries out to be spoken, and to be heard.
Perhaps, though, we can decide to not be "amplifiers" in any positive feedback loop of suspicion and fear that will ultimately frustrate any possibility of future rebalancing or reconciliation.
Taking the charge out, can only be done one by one, by people who will risk "coming out" to those near them - "yes, I am the scary monster you've been told about - gay? atheist? unvaccinated? etc - but ALSO I am the son, daughter, sister, brother, friend, neighbour, that *you* already know and love. So, now that you know, do you still feel like you need to be scared of me?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
Re: breaking the binary
Date: 2022-11-12 02:01 pm (UTC)I think that when diversity exists (hurray) potential faultlines also exist (boo!). And they can easily be made wider by driving wedges into them. In Northern Ireland, the wedges driven into small faultlines, which made them so much more "abyssal", were actual atrocities, each of which made the "other" side seem more frightening and alien, and "charged" the alienness with grief, sorrow, shock and awe. Even though the actual atrocities fell on relatively few individuals, each one amplified the "charge" in one of those positive feedback loops that you get in badly placed speakers. I often speculate that it would have been easy to start the feedback loop with a psy-op or two (there were plenty of "security" personnel busy about the place) to get things going, and then the runaway process would have developed a momentum of its own, as locals joined in.
To do the opposite, would be to somehow "remove the emotional charge" from a potential division or faultline. As you point out, this was actually done by generations before us, through the Civil Rights years, and right up to and including the passage of "marriage equality" provisions almost everywhere. The "charge" had been removed from previously highly charged differences, even though the differences themselves did not stop existing.
So, perhaps the task set before us (and I do seem many commenters struggling valiantly to accomplish this), is to "take the charge" out of existing faultlines as much as possible. And yet, those who have suffered atrocities, may simply be unready or unable to allow their real emotional experiences to be defused without some sense of a "balancing" of injustice. (And I also see many commenters struggling valiantly to express their sense of an imbalance, an injustice, needing to be rectified).
I think we cannot "wish away" the emotional charge that arises from harm and damage done to people. Their pain exists, and it cries out to be spoken, and to be heard.
Perhaps, though, we can decide to not be "amplifiers" in any positive feedback loop of suspicion and fear that will ultimately frustrate any possibility of future rebalancing or reconciliation.
Taking the charge out, can only be done one by one, by people who will risk "coming out" to those near them - "yes, I am the scary monster you've been told about - gay? atheist? unvaccinated? etc - but ALSO I am the son, daughter, sister, brother, friend, neighbour, that *you* already know and love. So, now that you know, do you still feel like you need to be scared of me?"