Friday, November 18th at 7pm
At Annette's house (Zoom option for out-of-towners)
Your trusty founder here: This topic did not get my vote & I even encouraged a friend or two to vote otherwise so we could talk of anything but this one. But, alas, the majority spoke. Why the aversion, the cognitive inflexibility, if you will? The answer is two- or threefold.
From a banter perspective, we said from the start we would never talk politics for a topic in this group, since we can do that in plenty of other social circles if so inclined. From a personal perspective, I feel fatigued by extremism's plentiful nature currently on the world stage, so I'm not keen to fold it also into lovely, cozy banter nights. Also, I experience leaden-eyed despair when faced with the glazed over look of an extremist talking at you, or anyone glazed over talking, talking, talking & not engaged in anything like mutuality or curiosity. I fear that even talking about those who talk like this will feel akin to that glazed over look. And, lastly, my more ungrudging reason, I'm uncomfortable with the question itself. It seems to imply a hierarchy or a savior role, or one person in the right vs. the one tipping off the ledge, when aren't we all prone to these same mind conditions, these tendencies toward fairly massive cognitive distortions? And isn't one of those massive cognitive distortions to be quite easily convinced that we are saviors of others who are distasteful or less good than ourselves?
So, I posed my groans to Anna Stene, formerly in CFalls, now in Brooklyn for three years, and she graciously listened. Between the two of us we played with the topic in the below ping ponging convo:
Instead of focusing on saving others, couldn't it be how do I talk myself from the ledge of non-helpful thinking patterns, etc.? Suddenly that I'm very interested in, but not at all when it has some sort of savior complex, liberal or not.
What if it wasn't a free for all on any arena but we could only talk about areas where we brush up against extremism in our own belief systems and how that impacts our relationships?
...there I see hope and possibility of bridge building if I start with my self and my own mind inclinations and my own relationships. If we all do that together we might get closer to the root of this topic.
