Do you remember when people could disagree and still be friends?
I can. It’s been a few years—well, maybe a bit more than a few—but back in high school, I remember having robust political debates with one of my closest chums. We didn’t see eye to eye on anything, but still loved spending time together. We respected the other’s right to hold a different opinion. We didn’t automatically discount a person’s basic humanity if they opposed us on a contentious topic.
We both believed that reasonable people can disagree.
Now, in 2023, our society has forgotten this basic tenet, which used to underpin all high school debate clubs and all news outlets. Aided by AI and social media algorithms, we’ve slowly drifted deeper into our chosen echo chambers and begun to believe the things that the most polemicized among us say about their opponents.
I think that the overwhelming majority of us are guilty of this, whether we acknowledge it or not. Words like “dangerous,” “selfish,” “deluded,” “criminal,” “communist,” “fascist” and “insane” are thrown around flippantly when discussing someone who stands on the other side of a controversial issue
I thought I had my eyes wide open to this disturbing phenomenon, but one day I looked around and realized that I, too, had become trapped in my own one-sided bubble. Through the course of contentious elections, pandemic emergency decrees, and increasingly unreliable media coverage on all sides, I had begun to avoid conversations with people “on the other side.”
Then recently, I complained to someone whose opinion I respect about a dust-up I had had with my mother-in-law, and his response blew my mind. He said:
“I’ve lived a long time, and one thing I’ve learned is that, generally speaking, everyone is trying the best they can. Everyone is doing their best.”
I don’t know why this idea was so revolutionary to me—it shouldn’t have been—and maybe it isn’t to you. Maybe you already know this. But if you don’t, repeat those words to yourself and think about them.
Everyone is doing their best.
What this means is that everyone is trying to be as good a person as they know how. Everyone is trying to treat people the way they’d like to be treated. But sometimes, things get in the way of that. Things like a bad mood, a stressful situation, a mental illness, or a competing priority. It doesn’t mean they’re a terrible human being. It’s just life, and it happens to all of us.
I know that it’s definitely possible to poke holes in this theory. After all, I definitely don’t think the media corporations—on all sides—that shrug off objective truth in the race for clicks are doing their best. But the guy who hasn’t yet emerged from his own echo chamber and who sometimes gets a little too political on Facebook? He is.
So I’m going to try to remember that, going forward. I’m going to hold on to those days when disagreeing with someone didn’t mean writing them off as a human being. In a way, it’s kind of like passing hikers on the trail. You don’t know who they voted for, what they believe, or whether or not they were vaccinated. But you still say hi to them as you pass. Because they’re human beings, just like you.
Just trying to do their best.
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