A friend recently sent a link to a Michelle Goldberg column titled “We Should All Know Less About Each Other.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/opinion/facebook-social-media-problems.html
Goldberg was writing about knowing each other “online” and quoted heavily from a study by a Duke University professor and colleagues who paid Twitter users who identified as either Democrats or Republicans to follow particular Twitter accounts for a month. Participants didn’t know it but Democrats were assigned to follow a bot account that retweeted messages from prominent Republican politicians and thinkers while Republicans followed a bot account that retweeted Democrats.
The team wondered if getting people to engage online with ideas they wouldn’t otherwise encounter might moderate their views. The opposite happened. Republicans became more conservative, Democrats more liberal.
Goldberg ended her most excellent column, “we might be able to tolerate each other more if we heard from each other less.”
Her column reminded me of a recent experience in my life. I took two small oil paintings to a local framer to see what he would charge to frame them. A friend had recommended him and warned me that he is a very trump Republican. Before going to his workshop I had spent the previous three hours with good friends having lively conversations, drinking great coffee, and eating delicious blackberry coffee cake. In addition, since Dec. 4, 2020 I have been sitting with Gil Fronsdal, an amazing Buddhist teacher, Monday through Friday. He leads guided meditations from 7-7:30 a.m., followed by a 15-minute Dharma talk. For the last few months his emphasis has been on taking our practice into the world, offering everyone we encounter kindness, respect, and compassion.
So, in a fabulously good mood and knowing what to expect, I drove to the framer’s studio. I had rehearsed a statement, “I don’t discuss politics or religion, ever,” and practiced smiling as I said it. I parked behind his delivery van and noted his bumper stickers (Everything WOKE Turns To Shit, and Make American Great Again).
His three Russell Terriers announced me and he came to the door to welcome me (I’d made an appointment). I went into his shop and while he looked at the paintings and chose some material for me to look at I observed the large signed Trump photograph on the wall along with numerous examples of his work. We discussed what I wanted for framing, he showed me several options, made suggestions I liked and once we agreed on styles and colors he wrote an invoice, then walked me outside. He asked me if I would like some fresh tomatoes and of course I said yes, but turned down the offer of zucchini. He told me how he makes lasagna using sliced zucchini for noodles. I noticed that he had planted zinnias along the side of the house facing the driveway and felt a wave of compassion for this man who was offering beauty to the world in a small way.
Our conversation was general. Several years ago, he left Sacramento where he had lived and done framing for 30 years, he should have left sooner, nearly lost his house. His three dogs are all rescues and I heard a little bit of their stories. He didn’t offer any political opinion and I offered no openings.
Had I met him online, seen his workshop with the photo of Trump, seen the sentiments on his bumper stickers, I would have thought unpleasant things about him and would never have taken work to him. I would have actively disliked him.
I’m not very involved with social media. Not on Facebook but I do have an Instagram account, mostly to post photos of trees, sunrises and sunsets, book recommendations, pictures of my cats. I have in the past posted the occasional sharply worded political opinion and after reading Goldberg’s column I decided I won’t do that again. My account is private and I have only 40 followers, several of them fellow amateur photographers I met online during the photography class we took together. They are from all over, one in England.
I have a blog with a very small following. I get a few comments which I must moderate, and nine out of ten are Russian bots. Really! A circumstance I share with all WordPress bloggers.
I think about the man who is framing my pictures frequently. We will never be friends, break bread together, or probably even ever see each other outside his shop. And, we are not enemies. I like him and I think he likes me.
That wouldn’t happen online.
I think you, and Ms. Goldberg are correct. It was better when we knew less about each other and politics and religion were politely avoided as casual topics of conversation. I know my real life immersion in an environment of my loud and proud political opposites have deepened my general dislike into pure undistilled hatred. And that’s not a good thing.
Shared human experience, this is how we can start a relationship with people who have different political beliefs from us. Oslo is a play about the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians and Israelis could only talk politics in one room. Outside of the room, when they ate together, walked, they could talk about family, music, movies, the weather, anything but politics. This is how people learned that people on the other side were people. I wonder how social social media is. I wonder how a person sitting in a room typing is called a conversation. Of course, here I am doing it – Ha!