Notice the intense fracturing, again, of human communication across philosophical and political divides.
Think of all the billions of humans worldwide who demonize opposing people and their lifestances, who don't make an earnest effort to see and feel things from other people's perspectives.
This doesn't mean that you moderate what
you understand is ethically true;
all humans are equal,
BUT ideas and putting those ideas
into action aren't.
Many ideas are horrifically wrong
and need to be opposed nonviolently
with all of our effort and all of
our intellect and all of our
emotional strength.
HOWEVER, it does mean that we seek
to honestly understand others,
to approach them personally
with empathy and compassion,
realizing that most of the other
with very different worldviews
than our own, probably are as sincere
in what they believe as we are.
We need to speak the truth in compassion and kindness.
“Self-righteous politically homogeneous echo chambers,
where we support and encourage derision and suspicions about the “other side,”
end badly for everyone.
History’s...slavery, gulags, concentration camps, genocide, the removal of indigenous people…don’t stem from a bunch of folks committed to seeing things from another’s point of view.
These come from those convinced of their own righteousness.”
--Jason Boone
Peace and Justice Support Network
June 2017, Dove Tales, Mennonite Church, USA
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
