Despair has an almost seductive quality to it, the delicious moment just before surrender.
And who could blame us for falling into despair?
We’ve had half a decade of an increasingly harsh news cycle, more than two years of fear and isolation due to the pandemic and being separated from others and the things that bring us joy. Instead, we have swapped socialising for screens. But what a terrible swap this has been. Increasingly sophisticated and all-pervasive algorithms are designed to sow division among us and create strong emotion, and our physical isolation from each other means these emotions don’t get a chance to cool or soften in the way they can when we interact face to face.
Add to this the increased anxiety about “going outside” or having people in your home, or spending time with anyone “not in your bubble” (in both senses of the word), then you have a recipe for feeling alienated from your fellow humans.
Rather than settling into the divide, I’ve been thinking lately: what small acts can I do that might reduce the gaps between us? How can I shift the bad vibes that seem all around? Where do I – and you! – have the power to bridge this division?
There are a couple of small things that are within our control to change that could have a major impact on the way we come together as a society to solve big problems. But in order to solve big problems, we need to get more practised at interacting with people who have opposing points of view.
Not having an opinion on everything
It used to be that most people had strong opinions on one or two areas of interest (high-speed rail! Coaching strategies at the Essendon Football Club!) but in the last 10 years the world has started inviting our opinions on everything, even on things we don’t know much about.
This accelerated when popular online platforms tied news to social media and we had the option of commenting on every single post on our friends’ pages, which means we are essentially invited to have an opinion on everything.
But having an opinion on everything is not natural or normal.
The great Roman Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius said almost 2000 years ago: “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
Leave them alone!
Having a strong opinion on everything creates a volatile, febrile atmosphere where you are constantly stating, defending and arguing your opinion, often on platforms such as Twitter where context has been collapsed in 280 characters.
The opinion becomes tied to the ego, your opinion becomes you – and so an attack on your opinion is an attack on the very fibre of your being. So, vigilant and anxious, you must defend opinion as you would defend yourself. This then creates a binary: people who agree with you are good and people who disagree are bad.
By leaving things alone, by not getting worked up, we are not adding to the toxic load of disagreement, hate and fury online, which of course seeps into people’s real life.
Be OK with being wrong
It’s liberating when you relinquish the need to be right all the time. The ability to wheel back on your positions, to take in new information, to see a different point of view, be curious about alternatives, to say “I was wrong” or “I’ve changed my mind” is to erode those hard binaries, the Us vs Them that so many of us have found ourselves stuck in over the last few years. When you put down your weapons, relax and have nothing to prove, then you can work towards a consensus on the big issues. How can there be real change in society when people don’t listen to each other or have an empathetic approach to other positions?
Breaking bread with people you disagree with
If there’s something that’s really gone out of style, it’s having people over for dinner parties and the night ending in passionate political debate.
It used to happen a lot, and although the arguments (Iraq! Socialism! Carbon rationing!) would get heated, it would rarely be unbearable. Most guests and their hosts could handle an opposing point of view and not let it ruin their night. In fact, opposing points of view were necessary to make for good table discussion and facilitate genuine intellectual and ideological shifts.
But in the last few years I’ve spoken to scores of people who now just won’t talk politics with those who have an opposing view. Whole members of their social circle are on non-speaking terms because their political views raise their hackles. Any conversation has to be kept mild and superficial so as to stop the geyser of political convictions from exploding and making everyone upset.
Over the last few years, many of us have lost our ability and tolerance to withstand opposition and remain friendly with the opponent. It’s no surprise there has been a real decline of the dinner party. Walking on eggshells or having everyone agree with you all the time makes for a dull evening.
But breaking bread with people you disagree with and disagreeing civilly is a crucial step to understanding different points of view and sharpening your own rhetorical skills, convictions and capacity for persuasion when arguing your own corner.
Like any suggestion, keeping an open mind has its limits. There is a time to listen to other points of view, and also a time to take a stand. Taking a more conciliatory approach to other views doesn’t mean accepting, say, injustice, fascism or climate change denialism. (Or as EE Cummings and others have said: “Don’t be so open minded that your brains fall out.”)
But the increasingly rigid way we hold ourselves apart from “them”, the unyielding position of being right can only win over so many, before the “them” becomes immovable and hardened.
“We must love one another or die”, wrote WH Auden in a despairing poem written in response to the start of the second world war. It’s always been our only way.
• Brigid Delaney is the author of Reasons Not to Worry (Allen and Unwin) about how using Stoic philosophy can make you more chill. Her book comes out in September
