The merry go round of social issues.

When you were a kid, did you ever ride on one of those playground merry go rounds? The faster you go the more force pulls you to the edges. If you are in control, the ride can be pretty fun, even exhilarating. If you are working with someone else and moving in the same direction it can be a joy. But if someone else is pushing very hard and fast the ride can be more and more uncomfortable, especially if you are in the middle and that person just isn’t listening when you ask them to slow down. You can identify the playground bully just by watching children scatter from the merry-go-round when the individual approaches. Who wants to be caught on the ride when what could be fun or interesting is about to turn into torture? Even worse is when two competing bullies get on opposite sides of the merry-go-round and try to out control the other. And sometimes the innocents literally fly off the equipment. That seems to be happening a lot these days in a wide variety of venues.

I have been thinking a lot about centrifugal force recently – the force that throws you to the edges (or off) of that spinning merry go round. I used to think that social issues were sort of linear and you could imagine a tug of war. That really is how we frame most social issues and conflicts. One group is on one end, another on another and they apply force to try to bring more people to their side of the mud bath. But social issues are rarely that cut and dried. There are many factors that influence a person’s perspective – their own life experience, their friends and cohorts, where they live. If you think of a straight line from one point of view to another the vast majority of people actually don’t fall on that line on a particular issue. What they bring to the table places them somewhere else on a plane – on the platform of the merry-go-round. Probably, they are really in a three dimensional sphere but I honestly don’t understand enough about physics to go there with the analogy so I will stick to 2 dimensions.

For example, in the dog world I both support rescue (and the spaying and neutering of pets) and responsible breeding. I have 3 rescues and one bred dog who is a working dog. To me they don’t seem to be in conflict but many pose the issue as if it were some sort of either/or on a linear scale. If you aren’t with me you are on the other side of the mud bath and the hell with you. If you looked at what gets reported,  you would think it was the “Don’t breed or buy while shelter dogs die” versus the “Don’t buy a dog from a shelter. They are damaged goods” . These two groups seem to be on opposite sides of the merry-go-round. And the louder and more force they apply, the more those of us with a more nuanced view get flung about on a ride we don’t even want to be on. They really aren’t tugging at each other and gaining us in the middle as much as they are sending us on this uncomfortable and dizzying circular ride. What is interesting is, that as the speed of the merry-go-round increases, our own particular experience and perspectives may drive us to a more extreme position on the edge. But it may NOT be the edge or the position that those who are applying the centrifugal force were hoping for. Depending on where we started, we might end up diametrically opposed or in some other funky place on the extreme edge. Or holding on by our fingernails to some place in the middle. Those of us who want to stay near the middle and look at all the factors are hard pressed to do much because we spend some of our time saying “Would you just slow down and not apply so much force? There are more factors to consider than us versus them.” The faster they go, the more oppositional I get – to both sides because neither has a monopoly on the truth.

Unfortunately, I feel like our media -social and otherwise -and our human tendencies towards tribalism (face it we all have tribes of various sorts) keep adding centrifugal force to our social issues. Indeed, our media thrives on making the merry-go-round go faster. It wouldn’t be exciting to report on “The kids had fun today riding the merry-go-round”. It is much more interesting to lead with “several children were thrown from the merry-go-round”. And so we go round and round and round with greater and greater speed. Nobody is enjoying the ride anymore except those who are thrill seekers and secretly (or not so secretly) enjoy the control and the bullying.

 

Those of us who provide the centripetal force seem to have less and less of a voice. Centripetal force is that which keeps things moving in a circle around the center rather than just scattering to the edges of the universe. Perhaps we speak too softly or perhaps it is that we want to slow things down a little and consider not just the edges but all the points on the circular plane in the middle. Our line which is keeping things in check seems to be frayed and stretched. Although I am rarely really in the “middle” of any issue I find myself more and more drawn to the middle (despite the centrifugal forces operating on me) because the extremes just don’t work. Maybe like any reasonable dog, I don’t like it when you start swinging me around your head on a leash without letting me think for myself. Stop it. Please. It is a form of abuse. As long as I can breath, I am going to resent you more and more! Maybe you can break my spirit. Maybe you can draw people to your point on the circle but you are also flinging other people away. And in the mean time, you are just a bully.

All that said, centrifugal force can be good. It helps us separate out the elements of blood for analysis, a very useful and life saving thing. We can look at each piece individually and analyze it. So thank you for highlighting the elements of that which makes up the entire social issue. But ultimately we need whole blood re-mixed in order to live and prosper. When you slow down the merry-go-round we can integrate it all.

Regardless of how strongly you feel about a particular stance on a social issue , I am going to ask you to stop being the playground bully by ever increasing the force you are applying. You really aren’t drawing people to your cause. You are making them reluctant participants in your unpleasant playground bullying. It is pretty clear that a lot of folks have gotten off the merry-go-round because they can’t find a place for an enjoyable ride. I can respect your opinion and the place where you stand on the vast plane of social issues. I know your life and your experiences, dare I say your temperament, have influenced where you stand. I also know a lot of other people, who have had different experiences, have different temperaments and whose points are JUST AS VALID. Ever increasing the force on the spin on the merry-go-round isn’t going to make me forget those people but it sure is going to make me avoid YOU. When we are passionate about something, sometimes it is hard to see that we are also bullying and not respecting the other person. Slow down. You might not fling as many people AND you might have more people join your ride.

And for those of us – who are somewhere in that vast and murky middle that really looks more like a circle with lots of dots all over than a line – we really do need to find a way to apply our centripetal force. I hate when bullies, intentional or not,  win. We don’t have to let them win. Let’s get our gravity together and slow them down. We need the people on the forefront of social issues – they keep the merry-go-round moving but they don’t have to take us on their joy ride and spin us into outer space

And so, wouldn’t it be better if our spinning around actually produced something? In Africa, they have developed a merry-go-round that pumps water in addition to providing exercise and fun for the kids.