 |
| 4edges [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons |
"Fascism is cured by reading and racism is cured by traveling."
- Miguel de Unamuno
In his classic The Republic, Plato tells of a group of people, who have spent their whole life in a cave, bound in place so that the only thing they could see is the shadows playing across the wall as those free to move pass between them and the fire behind them. To these unfortunate prisoners, the shadows are reality. Only when they are released and can turn around do they begin to understand what is indeed real. Their discoveries only grow as they leave the cave and experience the outside world. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has become a staple of Western philosophy and its truths are more valid today than ever before.
As a fluent Russian speaker and a person who has spent a substantial amount of time there, I am often asked Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. Most people expect me to repeat what they hear on the news or to defend Putin. The problem is, while the human mind wants a black or white answer, most often the truth is somewhere in between.
If you look at the cave wall from the average Russian’s perspective, things look very different than from an American perspective. NATO is not an alliance opposing oppression and championing human rights, but a coalition organized to oppose Russia and its way of life. To many Russians, NATO has purposely isolated Russia and refused to welcome it into its fold. To Russia, NATO is a force marching ever closer to its borders, devouring former allies and even former Russian territories. It is an existential threat to the Russian values and Vladimir Putin is the only one capable opposing it.
To many Russians, Vladimir Putin is the man who pulled the country from the brink of economic and social collapse in the late 1990s and the only one keeping it from slipping back. He is the only one able to counter Western hegemony and restore Russian pride on the global stage.
The world we see on our cave wall largely depends on our perspective. This is determined by where we live, whom we associate with, and where we get our information. While the human psyche tends to cling to these perspectives throughout our lives, we can only change them for a more accurate understanding of our world if we have access to information that brings these views into contrast with others.
Unfortunately, our world is moving away from liberating people from the bands that tie them to their convictions and is, in fact, binding them ever more tightly to them. The echo chamber of our mass media and the way we receive it more frequently feeds our biases than challenges them.
We have more sources of information now than ever in human history. The Internet, 24-hour news channels, social media, and instantaneous communication allow us to find information on virtually any topic at the push of a button.
However, with this plethora of information comes the need to separate the important from the superfluous. Our minds naturally seek those things that we know and are comfortable with and avoid those that challenge our beliefs and debase the perceived stability of our world. Information providers understand this and, in the quest to attract readers, increase the click-through, and garner ever greater advertising revenues, they have developed specialized systems to give us the stability our minds crave.
News outlets today cater to this need and provide a news resource for every view. Fox or Breitbart for the conservative and Huffington Post or MSNBC for the liberal. The news these outlets produce is no longer news, but political commentary. They no longer provide us with the facts and allow us to put them into the context of our own understanding, but the news comes with a ready-made context. We are told what it means and how to think about it. Even the algorithms in our search engines look at what we most often seek and provide us with more of the same. It is no wonder our society is becoming more and more polarized every day.
This polarization has migrated from our own personal cave wall to our collective walls.
We wonder why our governmental institutions are so dysfunctional. Why our elected officials can seem to get nothing done other than blame each other for the mess they all have created. It is because we choose the candidates that make us feel good about the shadow-play before us. They are a reflection of our own opinions and views.
“People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.”― Jonathan Haidt
To keep our attention on the shadow play they have created for us, they demonize anyone that offers an alternative view. Our society no longer cherishes and nurtures diversity, but tells us accommodation is a weakness, a sellout of the “defenders of truth.”
This is tearing our society apart.
The greatest leaps forward in American history have been brought about by cooperation, accommodation, and compromise – by a willingness to listen to alternate views and admit that certain institutions must remain while others must change. Government for the people, of the people, and by the people and a free market economy are as important as ever, while practices like slavery, Jim Crow, religious discrimination, and gender inequality in any form must be rooted out of our society. This process continues today.
While the shadows playing across our cave walls may seem comforting, we must confront them for what they are, as distortions of reality. We must do all we can to break out of our echo chamber cave, to expose ourselves to alternative ideas, to accept that others may see things from a different perspective and that this is what enriches our society.
For example, the constant influx and integration of wave after wave of immigrants has played a significant role in making America an economic and cultural force in the world. While commonsense legal controls are important, shutting the door can only lead to cultural stagnation and decline.
America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
- James Madison
When we buy into the extreme narratives that immigrants are a threat or that all who want a secure border are racist, we push the possibility that we can find a compassionate and secure solution ever farther away. Dialog and a willingness to consider all views is the only way forward.
As we emerge our the cave, we must accept that not everyone will see things as we do, and this is not only all right but essential.
