Lessons from Literature

I’m currently reading a bedtime novel called Beartown by Frederick Bakman. It is about a town somewhere in a remote northern region in Europe where ice hockey is the collective obsession. Pretty much everybody gets caught up, most willingly, in the winning or losing. Apparently, HBO it made the novel into a program, and I am only a third of the way through the book. Please, no spoilers. But one quote really grabbed me and felt immediately applicable to our wider society today.

“The twentysomething men as the Bearskin have become the most conservative people in town: they don’t want a modern Beartown, because they know that a modern Beartown won’t want them.”

The quote talks about a group of men who hang out at the local tavern and are known to threaten any out-of-town players on the team who do not perform up to expectations – and anyone else that they decide are getting in the way of winning. The whole novel describes how the entire lifeblood, meaning, and economics of the townspeople are tied to the team’s success. For me, they are descriptions of people who may have gone off the deep end.

One clear reading made me think of a lot of the folks in the MAGA movement, the Trumpian diehards. They too have become the most conservative people in our nation. They also don’t want a modern United States because they know that a modern United States won’t want them.

I think this essential idea is playing out in the US (and elsewhere.)

Collective Emotional Truths

But the glimmer of truth that shines through this quote also points to something else.

The statement itself seems obvious, but I invite you to read it while feeling the emotions of not being wanted. Not being valued. Not belonging. It’s fear, and anger.

This emotional state has everything to do with figuring out how to back our country out of our polarization.

Demeaning people who think differently, even when we think they may have gone off the deep end, reinforces their experience of not being accepted. And makes them more afraid of not belonging.

Rejecting people who seem crazy makes them go crazier.

So the widespread practice of belittling MAGA is actually making the problem worse.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

The way forward might sound idealistic or romantic. So let me pause a beat.

We need to look again at people.
To embrace their humanity.
How do we respect their dignity? The root words of respect are: ‘re’ – to do again and ‘spect’ – to look, as in ‘spect’acles.

Have you ever looked at someone you’ve known, but seen them entirely differently? It can be a revelation. A gift.

This is our foundational challenge. Each person, each human being, is worthy of being treat with respect. Doesn’t matter what they did, or where they are from. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, by virtue of simply being human,

If we can pull off this enormous feat, all within ourselves by the way. Then the real work can start, together.

Because part of feeling like we belong, is feeling like we can live together in society, and all of us, all of us can be ok.

We are not just a collection of ‘I’s. We are part of something much larger than ourselves.