The United Stance

Don't tread on each other

Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans. (If you are from a different country, I hope you are also having a wonderful day.) Today I always make a point to read the Declaration of Independence. It takes five minutes, and I believe it’s my civic duty. The ideas in that document are what this holiday is all about.

They are also a window into the mindset of our Founders at the time. I often wonder what they would think of us now. I honestly don’t know. Some people are quick to put thoughts into the heads of men who have been dead for 200 years, and I think that’s a bit presumptuous and often self-serving. It’s usually about pointing fingers at what the other side is doing. We rarely judge our own actions in the same way. Ultimately I’m also not sure any of it matters. Asking if Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin would be proud of our efforts is an impossible query to answer and largely irrelevant. The better question to pose is—are we?

What I mean by that is, how are we doing collectively as a nation? If I were to give us a grade, it would probably be a C- or D+. We are passing, but barely. That assessment is based on one key thing we can’t seem to do anymore—work together. The problem isn’t what any of us believe. It’s the way we behave toward those that think differently. Instead of engaging in vigorous civil discourse, we now lob insult grenades from our various ideological bunkers. We don't even listen to each other when seemingly involved in a conversation. We simply wait for our turn to speak or, more often, shout. And when that’s not enough, we’ve become increasingly capable of physical violence against those who disagree with us. That’s true at either end of the political spectrum. The net result is that we keep drifting apart. Despite all the increased connectivity technology provides, we are probably more scattered and disparate than ever.

This trend began bothering me a few years ago, and I felt compelled to speak about it. However, I didn’t wish to add to the morass of societal infighting and contempt. Instead, I wanted to highlight the destructive tendencies pervasive across our entire culture, suggest we all take ownership of them, and recommit to conversations to find solutions. There’s nothing wrong with having differences of opinion. But we must remember that productive debate means not assuming we are right, presenting an educated position, considering opposing points of view, and potentially compromising in support of the public good.

With that in mind and with the help of a few friends, we created a brand called The United Stance designed to find radical common ground amongst our differences. We built the website, created t-shirt designs, started putting out content, etc. However, the concept was short-lived. Once I started devoting energy here, I had no time to keep it going.

But I also realized that much of it wrapped into the new path I was charting with RARE SENSE. I’ve always contended that, ultimately, it’s a we thing, not a me thing. While we typically think of mind fitness as a solo effort practiced alone, the benefits aren’t only felt as individuals. They extend to our families, friends, communities, and, hopefully, the nation or even the world. The more mentally fit we each are, the better we are together. And the independence we celebrate today is a communal one. It’s about “all [people]” being created equal and living however they want, provided it’s not harming others. By extension, that necessitates learning to collaborate despite varying amounts of differentiation. The degree to which we can execute that goal measures our mental health as a group.

So I would ask that we consider extending our mind fitness beyond ourselves. Start small if needs be. If you are prone to plugging yourself into an information feed that purely serves to feed an anger addiction, maybe cut back on that. See how it affects your close relationships. Also, realize that everyone is a product of their background and experiences. Much of who we are was ingrained from a young age. We shouldn’t be surprised that someone with a completely different upbringing has points of view that don’t coincide with our own. Next time you are around those who disagree fundamentally with you about something, be curious. Instead of asserting your righteous virtue, ask them questions with sincere interest.

If nothing else, realize that we agree on many things despite what the news may tell you. No one reveres cowardice. Statements like "lying is bad" strike everyone as a giant duh. And all around the world, people have venerated values like honor, courage, and humility for eons. At a minimum, we should be able to use our shared espousal of these concepts as a starting point for any engagement.

On a much grander scale, have some perspective. The United States is one of nearly 200 countries on the planet. Earth is one of eight planets (or nine, sorry, Pluto) around the Sun. The Sun is among hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. And our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions in the universe (that we know about). That is a size and scope which we can scarcely even conceive.

Next time you are outraged by something, take a moment to realize how trivial it is on a cosmic level. Each of us exists for a blip in a near eternity, amongst a practically infinite space. Every human didn’t exist for billions of years and will be dead for billions more after a brief few decades of life (if we are lucky). We should find it nonsensical to spend such minimal time engaged in any contribution to the suffering of others through rage, hatred, or aggression. Certainly, we can start by realizing that, as Americans, we are all in this together.

To highlight that point, consider this photo. It’s called the Pale Blue Dot. The image was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it left the solar system over thirty years ago, and that speck in the band of light is not a star. It's Earth. Here’s what Carl Sagan said about it:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Returning to the founding of the United States, in 1775, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress named Christopher Gadsden designed a flag flown by various military entities during the American Revolution. It featured a coiled rattlesnake, a political symbol of unity amongst the colonies, and the words “Don’t Tread On Me.” This symbol has come to stand for individual liberties, but that’s a corruption of its original intent. It was a warning to Great Britain not to violate the rights of all Americans. It would be more appropriate to state, “Don’t Tread On We.”

As we work on our mind fitness, remember that we also need to use those gains to live with one another better. Freedom, liberty, and all that other jazz are fundamentally about celebrating diversity of thought. And there is nothing more American than co-existing with people who have a completely different idea of happiness than you. We can either try to find smaller and smaller groups of like-minded individuals to surround ourselves with, or we can start having some intelligent conversations, engage in civil arguments when necessary, and eventually compromise. It’s the only way we will solve big problems and ultimately improve our grades.

This Independence Day, let’s commit to not treading on each other. That’s as much a reflection of our mental health as anything.

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DISCLAIMER: RARE SENSE content is not medical advice. Nor does it represent the official position or opinions of any other organization or person. If you require diagnosis or treatment for a mental or physical issue or illness, please seek it from a licensed professional.