Culture should build bridges. Instead, we’re erecting silos.
Photo by Andrew Bossi, Creative Commons
Since learning that my father’s family originally came to the United States from Switzerland in the 1700s, Swiss history has been an item of interest for me. Not the least because its system of government, being in simplistic terms of a loose confederacy of cantons, has been deemed unworkable in the States since the Articles of Confederation. And yet, they have found ways to unite. And one of my favorite symbols of unification is bridges.
At the apex of literal history, unity, and symbolic culture is the Chapel Bridge (pictured above). The pedestrian bridge was built in 1333 to protect the city of Lucerne from attacks coming from the south. It’s a technical feat as one of the oldest wooden bridges in Europe, it served the practical purpose of defense, and it also features a painted hanged bellow depicting events and legends of Lucerne history. If I can stretch the bridge metaphor to its absolute breaking point, it seems fitting that such a bridge should exist in a country with a diverse culture: depending on geography, Swiss citizens may speak one of at least three different languages.
Enter Parler. Or Parlé. Or whatever the heck I’m supposed to call it. Yeah, I know, you may want some aspirin for that whiplash, but stay with me on this one. I recently concluded an interesting experiment on…that pirate social media thing. I’d be hard-pressed not to admit that it was morbid curiosity that drew me there. But both cancel culture and echo chambers have become increasing areas of interest for me. The emergence of the “free speech platform” as an alternative to Twitter was hard to ignore following the Harper’s Letter and its reaction, igniting a passionate and often angry discussion of, well, discussion itself. There are many particular flash points I could discuss here (the Vox shakeup, J.K. Rowling’s shifting place in our partisan framing, and so on), but frankly that would be kind of dull. Instead, I want to talk about the very principles that brought us here. And our absolute insistence against bridge building as a valuable enterprise.
The thing I found most interesting about Parler was that, despite the insistent lack of ideological censorship, what I mostly saw was homogeneous ideology, and rampant toxicity. I saw a lot of ugliness, including the doxing of a reporter. In fact, the only comment criticizing this doxing closed with “you should dox this guy’s boss instead, because he’s the real one to blame.”
Here's my point: this is exactly the kind of toxicity that generates when you isolate yourself with people who think about politics exactly the same way that you do. It’s a breeding ground for the worst kinds of devilish animosity, even if the original group was not that way in the first place (or may not be that way in face-to-face interactions). This is but one of the many dangers of creating separate spaces for discussion. This phenomenon is no respecter of political affiliation, either; the political left has its own version of this. When a group of (mostly center-left) public figures signed a letter endorsing free speech, Bari Weiss was driven out of the New York Times and Matthew Yglesias of Vox was ripped by fellow left-wingers. There, too, is an environment of toxicity that festers in an environmental of homogenous ideology.
“I thought this newsletter was supposed to be about culture.” It is. But in order for culture to thrive, we have to be open to a dialogue of ideas. Of bridge-building, if you will. Put simply, dialogue is not mere affirmation. I’m reminded of the words of film critic Roger Ebert:
“We are born into a box of space and time. We are who and when and what we are and we're going to be that person until we die. But if we remain only that person, we will never grow and we will never change and things will never get better. Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts. When I go to a great movie, I can live somebody else's life for a while. I can walk in somebody else's shoes. I can see what it feels like to be a member of a different gender, a different race, a different economic class, to live in a different time, to have a different belief. This is a liberalizing influence on me. It gives me a broader mind. It helps me to join my family of men and women on this planet. It helps me to identify with them, so I'm not just stuck being myself, day after day. The great movies enlarge us, they civilize us, they make us more decent people.”
We are increasingly avoiding these opportunities. Instead of seeking out opportunities to broaden our perspectives, we create our own segments of culture where we don’t have to encounter things we disagree with. This is true not just in the political sphere, where we have the liberal pundits versus the conservative pundits and CNN vs Fox and Rachel Maddow vs Tucker Carlson, but it’s also true in our culture and entertainment pieces. It’s now secular music versus Christian music, Netflix vs. PureFlix. A recent ad for a Christian social media network read, “What if the only media you saw were podcasts and videos by leading Christian thinkers?” I don’t want that world. The more we create ideas only to share with our own echo chambers, the worse our art and message will be. There’s even a significant compromise of the kingdom calling at stake:
“I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (John 17:15-18)
And yet, the modern evangelical asks, “but can’t I stay here and talk to all of my buddies?” We might as well ask if Jesus said in response to the eternal plan of the incarnation “But do I really have to?”
But the mission of Jesus was one of “go and seek,” not “withdraw and affirm.” Jesus was not particularly interested in making the world a more comfortable place for his disciples to inhabit. Likewise, the Christian should be seeking engagement with the world, rather than retreating to a media monastery. Only when you understand those outside of your box will you be able to truly reach them. And you may very well discover that you had some misconceptions about them as well.