Sunday Musings - October 31, 2021
Denying our shared humanness
Much is being written about the seeming increase in rude and even violent behavior pre and post covid. Some researchers maintain that rudeness, mean and even violent behavior has increased post covid while other researchers suggest the problem started prior to Covid and has not increased much since covid.
Most of us would agree in many places, including the United States, we are living at a time when the rawness of racism, sexism, and other forms of social constructs which separate the population into us and them is nakedly present. Some would maintain that a variety of factors have brought us to this time when it is exceedingly difficult to deny the emperor has no clothes.
For people of color, women, and many members of so-called minority groups such as LGBT + and those who identify as other than Christian being covertly or overtly treated as less than is not new. What may be new is we have moved from public and religiously sanctioned oppression to more covet oppression to a return to public culturally and religiously sanctioned oppression.
One can argue the chicken or the egg when it comes to the sanction of overt oppression and the body politic. I suspect that it is very interactional and systemic, each fueling the other. Why now more open and unashamed oppression? I would suggest (1) the internet has made it easier to connect with other like-minded people and (2) continued oppression will always eventually result in an eruption of emotions and then there is a fearful response to the eruption.
I also suspect, for some, having to respond to covid - social distancing, isolation, and mask wearing - has contributed to negating the commonality of our shared humanness. Us humans have a long history of training ourselves to dehumanize others as a means of feeding our egos through the accumulation of power by stealing land, goods, and other objects such as jewels to which we have assigned value. We justify this by constructing social constructs such as color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, mental health, physical difference and others. We systematically then create labels to identify them as the enemy - as non-humans - gooks, Japs, terrorists, faggots, demons, etc.
Ironically, while writing this, a young man approached me in Panera’s asking for donation to a Christian Church based recovery program. When I asked him their policy toward addicts who identify as LGBT + he proceed to tell me of the demonic nature of such orientations. I explained to him the etiology of such constructs, but he was not open to even considering the social and medical beliefs and conditions which resulted in the original admonition to not waste seeds by having same sex relationships. I digress.
As any social scientist will confirm us humans are social animals. We are also the only species who struggle with believing that our humanness is enough; that we are inherently sacred/worthwhile. The necessity of wearing masks and social distancing which I believe was imperative to reduce the infection of each other creates additional barriers which can prevent one from being reminded of our shared humanness. The reduction of facial communication, the lack of handshakes, and other forms of touching may have strengthened the us - them belief system. It has long been known that one of the barriers to a solder doing his or her duty to destroy “the enemy” is to be reminded of their humanness by seeing a family photo or some other reminder of shared humanity. Killing women and children in a moment of out-of-control fear or rage will feed the nightmares of soldiers for the rest of their lifetime.
I also suspect the lack of touch or direct connection with others is resulting in a profound loneliness, the symptoms of which are also evident in the increase in the belief in the us them social construct. I suspect that beneath the rudeness and even angry rage of many is a profound sense of disconnection - of loneliness - of intense pain and grief. All social scientists know that rudeness extending to rage is often, if not always, a mask hiding underlying pain. Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries maintains that pain is always behind bad behavior.
I am not suggesting it is time to remove our physical masks, resume all physical contract with those outside our inner circle of safely, or otherwise remove the barrier to spreading covid. I am suggesting that we practice using our ‘third eye” to see the shared humanness behind “bad behavior”; that we find ways of metaphorically touching each other’s humanness in a way which is physically safe. I am also suggesting that if we have a safe inner circle we practice asking for the touch/connection we desperately need.
Written October 31, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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