“How do we build bridges across political difference when there is so much misinformation and disinformation coming at people which captures their attention? How can we have conversations when facts are denied and false narratives become more commonplace?” This was a question posed to me at the end of a presentation I gave last week, entitled ‘Seeing Beyond Polarization’. It was a great question, and a hard one to answer. I didn’t exactly ignore the woman’s query, but in retrospect I felt that my response did not adequately rise to the level of care, passion and pain with which she asked it.
As I continue to reflect on the escalating profusion of fabricated facts and intentionally disseminated misinformation, all of which is exacerbated by the approaching election, I realize that her question was an invitation – to me certainly, but to all of us. More and more people – of different political persuasions, are hearing stories that don’t square with the truth, and are, in turn, fashioning scenarios and histories that support their positions.
All in the interest of safety.
People want to be safe – physically, emotionally and spiritually. And the need for safety – in the face of enormous cultural anxiety and fear, can take precedence over reason, data and facts. The purveyors of misinformation know this. And the conspiracies – indeed the lies, become guides for people to find their way into various silos of safety; and at the same time demonize those who politically reside elsewhere. Generating enemies just ratchets up the need for safety, and causes people to move deeper into their protective silos. Misinformation is designed to keep them there.
I enjoy the safety of my silo. And while my compatriots in this protected arena realize that it doesn’t help to denigrate, shame or make fun of those who take refuge in another silo, we do it anyway. We can be clever in our self-righteousness. We can ridicule the false narratives that suffuse the other silos, and feel a degree of satisfaction in it. This may allay anxiety and fear, and give one a sense of safety in the short run, but can become a serious problem over time.
I recently read that between 1819 and 1969 the United States government operated or supported 408 boarding schools for indigenous children (according to a 2022 Department of Interior report). The Episcopal Church was involved in running at least 34 of them. Native kids didn’t apply for these schools; instead they were removed from their families and relocated to educational institutions where their native dress, language and cultural practices were forbidden, and where the intent was to teach children European American ways. The system created a trail of trauma and death.
As a child, I knew that Jim Thorpe went to Carlisle College in Pennsylvania. Widely regarded as America’s best-ever athlete (having won the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics, and who then went on to play professional football and baseball), Jim Thorpe was a hero of mine. What I didn’t know was that he was removed from his Oklahoma family and his Sac and Fox tribal community, and was forced to disavow his heritage, which after his athletic success, took a horrible toll on him. For decades, I thought Carlisle College presented Jim Thorpe with an unparalleled opportunity.
That was the prevailing story, which, it turns out, is shot through with disinformation. No doubt the advocates for these boarding schools felt that the removal of native children was an act of tender Christian charity, because they were providing communities of safety for kids who they figured could not find any on their home turf. These were thousands of cases of this sort of cultural arrogance. And what the arrogance masked – for decades, was the need that the boarding school advocates had for their own safety. Getting rid of Indians, the argument went, or at least the culture of Indians, would erase the savagery of Indians, which was the ethnic slur and cultural fear that had been employed for generations.
Safety is not arrived at by either subjugating or even destroying a perceived enemy. Safety is not preserved by generating misinformation which serves to seal up the silo. Safety is generated by a commitment to unity; that we belong to each other. In what is known as his farewell discourse, Jesus issues the hope, “that they all be one”. (John 17: 21) He did not mean that we all become the same, or that we all agree, but that we recognize that we share the same humanity. That realization builds an abiding safety, because the focus shifts from protecting ourselves from one another to being grateful for one another, which increases our desire to care for one another.
Misinformation and disinformation will undoubtedly continue, and may even escalate given all the vehicles that modern technology can devise. The false stories and data can indeed serve as protective armor for the silos that so many of us seal ourselves up in, all of which provides an illusion of safety. But true safety – soul safety, emerges when we are able to honor the humanity of one another, and dare the embrace one another as fellow travelers on life’s journey.
