by Aiden McMahon
A few weeks ago, I took part in the nation-wide “No Kings” protest. The crowd in downtown Portsmouth, NH was estimated to have hit two thousand, filling both sides of the street approaching the bridge to Kittery, and flowing down into Prescott Park. And, for the most part, it was a peaceful event. I saw only two counter-protesters. The first was a truck, flying several flags, that looped through a few times. And then there was the man with the megaphone.
He was a curious sight. He had a service dog with him, and was being followed by a teenager who was filming the whole ordeal. I’m not sure who I felt worse for, the dog or the young man.The dog, at least, might have had some training to deal with that level of stimulation, but I would have to think it still wasn’t pleasant.
And in a sense, the teen with the older man, he had been trained too, hadn’t he? Trained to film whatever happened, taught that this was normal behavior; perhaps, borrowing from right wing vernacular, we might say “indoctrinated.”
And as he made his way around the crowd, somebody started a new chant - “Ignore Him.” I admit, I joined in too. That’s what you do at a protest, right? Make your voices loud, drown out people coming to disrupt things, don’t engage. I watched as he crossed the street and started up again with the people across from me, all the while we chanted.
But then a peculiar thing happened. Another older man, one who if I were to stereotype, did not look like the type of person I would have expected to join this protest, began talking to him. And this went on for more than a few minutes. The counterprotestor held his megaphone at his side, while the two had a conversation. I don’t know what about, but the man, his dog, and the young man filming him didn’t stick around too much longer after that.
The juxtaposition of the two men talking while the crowd - and I - chanted “Ignore Him” has stuck around in my mind. And with it has come a feeling of conviction, and maybe even a little shame.
Friends, I am angry at the state of the world. I am angry at the state of our country. I am angry at the corporate oligarchs pulling the strings of our outrage because it drives engagement and consumption and puts more money into their already full pockets. And as was made obvious by the crowd that Saturday, I am not alone.
I wanted to yell at the man with the megaphone. Hell, part of me wanted to slug him. He might have wanted that too - I heard several people in the crowd murmuring that maybe that was why he was filming - and even as I speak to you now, part of me still feels as though he would have deserved it.
In thinking about today’s message, I’ve been living in the tension between two ideas. The first is something called “the Paradox of Tolerance.” If you’re unfamiliar, the term was coined by a philosopher named Karl Popper in the mid-1940’s. It basically says that for a society to be tolerant, it must not tolerate intolerance, because if given enough space, enough of a platform, it risks becoming dominant, just like we are seeing happen in our country right now. Punching out someone spewing fascist talking points certainly feels like a decent way to express my intolerance of their intolerance.
But very quickly I am reminded that as a person of faith, there is another voice calling me to live a different way, from many of the world’s great traditions.
The most famous of which likely comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6: “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
Then there is Surah 41 in the Quran:“Good and evil cannot be equal. Respond to evil with what is best, then the one you are in a feud with will be like a close friend.”
And then there is this gem from the Buddhist Middle Discourses:
“Even if low-down bandits were to sever you limb from limb with a two-handed saw, anyone who had a malevolent thought on that account would not be following my instructions. If that happens, you should train like this: ‘Our minds will not degenerate. We will blurt out no bad words. We will remain full of sympathy, with a heart of love and no secret hate. We will meditate spreading a heart of love to that person. And with them as a basis, we will meditate spreading a heart full of love to everyone in the world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.’ That’s how you should train.”
I could keep going. The Jains; the Bah’ais; the Hindus, all major religions seem to have this ethic, as do a host of secular philosophers.
To be honest, though, I don’t know that I could find love in my heart for somebody who wanted to cut me up into little pieces, to say nothing of finding it for those who would harm the most vulnerable amongst us.
Jesus, after all, said it would be better for them to have millstone tied around their neck and be tossed in the sea, so I suppose I shouldn’t feel so bad about wanting to punch someone I perceive as a fascist.
But I don’t know that it would do any real good, and this is the crux of my message today, frustrating though it may be. I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of different books and podcasts lately about moral and political psychology. There are some fascinating studies out there about the different ways in which people on the left and people on the right think, what arguments resonate with each group, and how people, in general, make moral judgments.
Did you know, for example, that people on the left don’t generally respond well to appeals to authority?
I suspect you did.
How about this? Did you know that people on the left and the right understand the word “fairness” differently? People on the left tend to understand it in terms of equality, while people on the right typically think of it in terms of what you have rightfully earned. This is just one of many reasons that we often end up talking past each other when we try to communicate.
But there are two critical takeaways from what I’ve been consuming that I think have a pastoral application. The first is that we are far less rational than we like to believe we are.
Jonathan Haidt, author of the book “The Righteous Mind,” compares our moral decision making to someone riding an elephant. The rider likes to believe they are in charge, but how much can they really do to steer an elephant? We feel things before we think them, and then our rational mind, the “rider” in this case, comes in after to justify them. It says, of the metaphorical elephant,“of course I wanted to trample that garden instead of going around it.”
People on the right love to say things to the effect of “facts don’t care about your feelings.” But the truth of the matter is, when it comes to the way our brains work, feelings don’t really care about the facts. And this leads to my second point. Social contact - basically, exposure therapy - is the primary way in which people’s feelings are changed for the better. Even secondhand contact can make someone more tolerant. And only through changing what the elephant does - our gut reactions to things - can we change how we think about them.
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “it’s hard to hate up close.” As it turns out, that’s very good psychology. It’s one of the primary reasons that people from large cities and people with college degrees tend to be more liberal - because they have experienced living in a multicultural space and learned that it is not inherently threatening. No wonder the current administration has turned its fury against such targets.
And I know this effect to be true, because I grew up in Evangelical spaces. I grew up being told things like that the Republicans were the godly party, that abortion and gay marriage were the great moral evils of our day, and that the ACLU was doing everything it can to trample the rights of Christians and defend sinful behavior in the public square.
It was only because people were loving and patient with me that I broke out of that box. And now I’m on my way to becoming a UU minister.
So when I think of that man with the megaphone, I see someone I could have become.
When I think of that young man with him, I see the kid that I was.
And I am so glad that people didn’t ignore me, because feeling ignored is one of those things that drives people towards radicalization - especially, it seems, when it comes to young men. I think that, at the social level, the Paradox of Tolerance makes sense. You cannot love a mob, or a cult, into changing. We must have a united front at that level, unafraid to stand up for what is right and sacrifice whatever it takes for the greater good. It’s at the individual level that you have to work to syphon off support. And that’s where this idea of loving your enemy comes in.
I know that an increasing number of people have made the difficult decision to cut off contact with former friends and family members over the last decade or so. Some of you, I suspect, have had to do it because you felt they were a very real threat to your safety, and because of this I cannot in good conscience give everyone here the same counsel.
Some of us, however, can safely be like the other man at that protest. We can choose not to ignore the people we vehemently disagree with. It will not be comfortable, but as my first UU mentor liked to say, “comfort is not a spiritual virtue.” But we have to get people out of their echo chambers, and this actually goes for people on all sides.
The pandemic was horrible in many ways, but the ways in which it forced many of us to be perpetually online was amongst the worst. Dr. Steven Hassan, an expert on cults and cult deprogramming, says that we are willfully brainwashing ourselves with our curated feeds and dopamine-drip doomscrolling, getting little hits every time we find the next thing to be outraged about.
What’s worse, and I have noticed this in myself, some part of me feels as though it is my moral imperative to know all of the horrible things happening in our country.
I feel it even as I preach against it, for the sake of what I believe to be long-term good, because as a Liberal I believe that knowledge is power and knowledge is freedom. But if all we do with that knowledge is despair, or argue online, or build a strawman version of other people, we’re not practicing liberation - ours, or anyone else's.
So then how do we do this? How do we learn to hold no secret hate in our hearts for people who through their ignorance and prejudice have uplifted a tyrannical government to power, allowing a modern-day gestapo to detain and disappear migrants and citizens alike, stoke the flames of transphobia, and slash the social safety net for millions of Americans?
I do not know. What I want to do is rage, and froth, and punch a Fascist. I want to make Nazis afraid again. But I also want to be able to love my uncles again. Maybe that’s where we start, not with some stranger on the street, and certainly not with some faceless commenter on the internet, but with the people for whom there might still be some underlying foundation of love, some memory of care for their wellbeing.
We might have to bite our tongues at first, loathe though we are to do it. Certainly there are things that cannot go unresponded to, but we will have to ask ourselves if we are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Without the other person experiencing our empathy first, we cannot expect our criticism to hold any weight. It will only serve to drive them further away into their own echo chambers of hate and prejudice.
To those of you who cannot do this, know that I affirm your choice. Focus your energy on taking care of yourself and those in similar positions. We all have different callings, and I know that you have plenty of love to give where it is likewise needed.
To those of you who, like me, who often struggle to find the courage, who tend to avoid conflict, know that you are not alone. Many of us have been trained to not rock the boat. We can start small, so long as we start. It might be something as benign as saying “I disagree, and I want us to continue to be in relationship with one another.” These two things do not need to be at odds.
And to those of you who can, and who are, know that you have my deepest gratitude. Continue to speak the truth in love. Continue to affirm the worth and dignity of everyone, even when the person you’re speaking to doesn’t. Continue to be curious, and teach others to be so - curiosity and prejudice cannot coexist for long. I have learned this firsthand, and am better for it.
Thank you.
Amen.