America is Devolving and Civility is Dying

Photo: Rebecca Florence Miller 

Over the last decade I've become just as troubled by the way our country handles controversy as the controversies themselves. I don't know if this means I'm maturing or getting "soft". The pleas we hear for unity are drown out by the noise of hostility.

People are looking at each other with malice in their hearts and distrust in their eyes. It saddens me to see us devolving. I read social media posts everyday from people who are actively rooting for the further unraveling of our social fabric. There are people preparing for an actual war. Ironically, many of the people pushing for a new "Civil War" are the same ones who found themselves on the losing end of the cultural and ideological wars. 

America changed. America is changing. America will continue to change. The train of history doesn't have a pause button. The future doesn't care if we are prepared for it or afraid of it. We are never going back. This reality is triggering for some.

Much of the pushback against diversity and social justice movements I've studied is rooted in fear and anger, but more fear than anger. 

Fear and anger, from a neurological perspective, are very similar. Someone afraid of you will hurt you just as quickly as someone who hates you. A lot of people spreading hatred do so out of a lack of understanding. It's easier to hate someone than address the preconceived notions and prejudices inside ourselves. Hatred in the heart and mind has a way of manifesting itself in the real world. 

We have regressed as a society and the causes are many. Truth has become our enemy and comfort is too often found in narratives that fit our world view. We use to have utopian dreams of everyone loving each other, now we should push for just tolerating each other.