Imma keep this short because it’s really not a difficult concept, and I want to make it clear that my headline is a general statement responding to the spate of diaries on this subject, not a calling out of anyone in particular criticizing anyone’s specific acts or behaviors. It’s just a statement of fact.
If you’ve studied Conflict Theory then you’re likely familiar with the idea of conflict as a spiral. You can spiral up or you can spiral down. At every inflection point, all parties to the conflict have the choice to escalate or to deescalate. Escalation tends to lead to further escalation as tit-for-tat reprisals turn into blood feuds and matters of honor. An ongoing conflict can eventually spiral so out of control that the parties’ perceptions of the conflict, itself, change. It can eventually become so intractable that one or both sides view hurting the other side as equally important, it not more important, than benefiting themselves. In other words, they will put themselves in a worse position just to injure the other party or parties to the conflict.
We are in that sort of conflict with the modern iteration of the Right end of the political spectrum, and that end of the spectrum sees hurting us as more important than helping itself. It’s often asked why people aligned with that world view vote against their own interests. This is why.
One of the ways you can perpetuate any conflict of this type is to lose sight of the other party/parties’ inherent humanity, but demeaning someone else as sub- or un-human swiftly morphs from an escalation unto itself into a casus belli. It’s an inflection point in that spiral from which it is very difficult to come back.
And that way lies ruin. Stripping others of their humanity peels away our own. It justifies inhuman acts. In the end you may “win,” but what have you won? To ensure that there’s anything left when the conflict is over you have to establish rules. It’s great if all sides stick to the rules, but even if the other side or sides don’t then you really have to stick to them yourself. Otherwise it’s a lose-lose conflict no matter who emerges the victor.
So consider this an exhortation to two things:
1. To not go down the road of dehumanizing the other side.
2. To extend a measure of grace to anyone that is presently inclined to go down that path. Everybody gets worked up. Everybody has a bad day. Everybody gets tired of constantly being in conflict. Grace is a way of deescalating.
