No. 13: Practical corporeal politics. Show up for people you may not like.
Become familiar. Look below the surface.
The Old Truck on Tyranny.
This week continues a series inspired by Tim Snyder’s 2017 book On Tyranny and the “20 Lessons” derived from his study.
Lesson 13: Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
I felt late to Facebook, even though I have had an account for nearly 15 years. People I knew, but had not seen in years, began sharing thoughts and I wanted to know what those were. News articles were being selected and re-posted by people I knew offline, with their own thoughts added and then dropped into something I learned to call “my feed.” When I saw something I liked, I could say so for all to see. Back in the day there was nothing but a thumbs-up button, no heart or hug or duplicitous laugh emoji. I saw a lot of dinner photos scroll by.
Long before “FB,” I had been involved in a lot of email groups (anyone recall majordomo or listserv?), the original social media before this term was coined. During the early years, it felt like online realms were a new town square or pirate utopia, full of conversation, humor, protest, and more or less civil debate.
I learned the things people are willing to say when they do not have to look me in the eye while saying it.
Those naïve days are over, of course. It is now well understood that social media algorithms suppress or promote anything we post to serve their murky corporate agendas. Any sense of the public good runs a distant second, at best, for those at the tollgates of our digital highways. Shadow-banning is common1. Worse, digital addiction is a vast and underreported problem2. Unreported, perhaps, because over half of all Americans rely on social media as their primary source for information3. Social media barons have no motivation to bite the jeweled hands of the market kings who feed them.
Yes, this is all old news.
Most Americans did not want to attack Iraq. The anti-war protests on the eve of that attack were the largest in the history of the world4. We did not stop that war. But, the pressure created by this movement forced President George W. Bush to admit, three years later, that he lied to justify his attack5.
This same public pressure also forced people into each others’ living rooms and back yards. These 21st century protests served as mass networking events, just like the earlier years of anti-war and anti-nuclear protests6. People showed up and got to know each other, and to know each others’ views.
I had finally decided to stop working as a road-warrior, flying away from home for a week or more each month. I felt hungry to talk with people who would still be there if I showed up. I wanted to join a club. And, that is hard to do if you know you will be gone for seven or so random days each month.
There I was, sitting in my grey robe in our stuffed gold chair, grazing the interwebs on a Saturday morning, coffee mug to my left. An organization I had been intrigued by for a long while popped in mind. I wondered what it would be like to have a regular meeting with people who expected me to show up. The internet being what it is, within a minute or three I had contact information at my fingertips. I filled out a form, wrote about why I was inquiring, and hit the submit button. I expected it would be days at least until I heard back.
It took twenty minutes. An hour after that I was sitting with two members, drinking more coffee, getting the rundown on who they were, sharing a bit of myself, and learning some of what the club was about. They seemed affable and interesting. I decided to get involved. Thirteen years later, I consider some members of that same club to be among the best friends I have ever had.
How did this happen? Because when you show up regularly over time, a tensile strength forms in the relationships you build.
To be honest, a number of folks in this organization piss me off. Given our differences, it is unlikely we would have ever met were it not for the reason we share: we belong to this club. We respect its traditions. We want to raise some funds to help do good work. We enjoy a beer now and then.
We generally avoid talking politics. But, the practical reality is that when you bring a diverse group together, politics are always quietly in the background. The mere fact some of these guys are happy to know me — an openly gay, married man, with earrings — is a political statement for them in some parts of their lives. The mere fact that I am happy to know them, NRA caps and all, is likewise political in some of my own. In this club, I am certain we all know people who wouldn’t want to be seen in public with some of the rest of us.
Yet, we keep showing up.
In Lesson 13, Snyder advises us to:
“… Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.”
Which leads to me think about the word unfamiliar. It does not mean unfriendly, or un-knowable, much less un-likable. It just means someone or someplace or something I do not yet consider … familiar. Comfortable enough to sit with, or in, or near, to have coffee or a beer, and some friendly conversation.
The Tibetan term for meditation is gom7. In literal English, this word mean “to familiarize.” In Buddhist tradition, meditation is not prayer, it is a tool. It is a practice taken up for the specific purpose of learning how to slow down and pay attention.
What you choose to pay attention to is a different topic. Americans have come to call this technique mindfulness and often treat it a bit superficially. But, I digress.
When I slowed myself down enough to pay attention to other people and get familiar with them, I discovered I tended to like them even if we disagreed on some things.
Sometimes we even find we agree more than we thought, after unpacking things for each other a bit. Which is something we become more willing to do, once someone is familiar.
Familiarization like this cannot and will not happen unless we physically show up. Get to know someone’s voice and moods. Eat their bad pot luck casserole, or make them try our own.
We must put some personal skin into this human game we play. It is the only way to keep our brains from melting into the nearest flat glass or plastic screen.
When we get to know our neighbors, we may think twice before voting against each other. We might even find reasons to vote for each other.
Wouldn’t that be a nice change?
“They demonstrated that shadow banning could shift users’ opinions and alter polarization levels. Interestingly, even when the goal was to steer collective sentiment left or right, the moderation tactic appeared neutral. Dr. Zaman found that opinions could be shifted by simultaneously lowering the visibility of accounts on both sides of a debate, creating the illusion of impartiality.” https://sasin.edu/content/insights/social-media-suspensions-shadow-banning-political-bias-disinformation
“[P]ervasive use has given rise to social media addiction, particularly among teenagers, characterized by excessive screen time, compulsive checking, and detrimental effects on real-life relationships and responsibilities. This addiction is driven by a combination of psychological factors, such as low self-esteem and mental health issues, technological mechanisms like infinite scrolling and personalized notifications, and social influences, including peer pressure and exposure to idealized content. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11594359/
Over 50% of Americans rely primarily on social media for their news. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/
“The Guinness Book of World Records said between 12 and 14 million people came out that day [Feb. 15, 2003], the largest protest in the history of the world.” https://ips-dc.org/february_15_2003_the_day_the_world_said_no_to_war/
“[T]he main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn’t …” - President George W. Bush (Aug. 21, 2006) (Note, the official transcript of this news conference has been removed from the White House website). https://www.democracynow.org/2006/8/22/president_bush_admits_iraq_had_no
“As distinguished from the radical politics of the GI movement or the self-defense tactics of the Black Panther Party, anti-nuclear activists drew on a host of pacifist, non-violent, and civil disobedience tactics. Many had backgrounds in religious social justice work, and pacifism was both a protest tactic and a personal philosophy.” https://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/nuke_intro.shtml
What is meditation? https://sravastiabbey.org/what-is-meditation/