#10 Taking Sides, Taking Stands
I've been thinking recently of the old labor song with the refrain, "Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?" Are you with the hard working folk who are risking their livelihood--and sometimes their lives--to stand up for their rights, or are you with the greedy, unscrupulous fat-cat owners? As I used to sing that song, I felt connected to the courage of the downtrodden and warmed by the assurance that I was on the right side. Yet over the years I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the question itself.
There are certainly lots of questions like that in this world. Are you on the side of the earth or with those who would heedlessly ravage it for short-term gain? Are you on the side of the abused or the abusers? Are you on the side of democracy or tyranny? In a way, they all end up boiling down to one question: Are you on the side of the good guys or the bad guys?
We all want to be on the side of the good guys. And we all want the good guys to win. Our sports teams give us the opportunity to be for the good guys (our team) against the bad guys (the other team). And life certainly seems sweeter when our team wins.
We come to this adult investment in being good guys on the winning team from a host of deeply-felt, and often painful experiences growing up. School is full of taking sides. Teachers take sides in disputes. We choose--or are chosen, or not chosen--for teams. We join--or are excluded from--social groups that help define who we identify with, who we like and don't like. Team games that we play involve putting all our attention and energy into helping our side win. Many of us have even earlier experiences in our families--needing to be on one parent's side, or one sibling's, or on the children's or the grown-ups' side. Or our ethnic or racial or class or religious identity in a divided society requires us to be part of a side. We have been pushed and shoved and cajoled into a world of side-taking from the very beginning.
I don't believe we are wired this way. Our earliest experience of taking sides grew, rather, from a scarcity of options. I don't think we chose freely as little ones--it just seemed that there was no other way. It was painful to choose against, as it was painful when others chose against us. And now we find ourselves entrenched in that painful mode. Somehow our fears about our goodness, perhaps about our very survival, have become entangled in the choosing and occupying of sides.
The ultimate in taking sides is warfare--and taking sides in the context of a scarcity of goodness is absolutely basic to making war. By definition our armies are the good guys because they are ours. The other side has to be the bad guys--because they're on the other side. Whenever our choice for the people on one side sets us against the people on the other, then we are cultivating the soil in which the seeds of war can grow.
But what if the whole concept of opposing sides is flawed? And what if there is enough goodness to go around? What if there could always be a third way, something beyond our side or their side? Those who are quick to take sides, or are passionate about their identity as good guys, have little patience with this possibility. They see the ones who refuse to take sides as weak fence sitters, lacking principles or courage, ultimately pawns of the bad guys. Yet, while there could always be cowardly motives for refusing to make a hard choice, I see courage in daring to challenge side-taking, and a willingness to embrace people from opposing sides as critical to our survival.
Then we can see the web that trapped us all when we were growing up. As we begin stepping away from the sides we felt required to take, the world starts to look different. The bully gets our attention as well as the victim. Both the protesters and the supporters listen carefully to the others to fill in their picture of reality. We discover that nobody truly wants to destroy this earth. Of course it means taking stands. It means mobilizing energy toward our vision for the future. It means saying, "This behavior is not right and must stop." But it doesn't demonize. It doesn't require a framework of good guys on one side and bad guys on the other. It doesn't cultivate the seeds of war.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 4/03
There are certainly lots of questions like that in this world. Are you on the side of the earth or with those who would heedlessly ravage it for short-term gain? Are you on the side of the abused or the abusers? Are you on the side of democracy or tyranny? In a way, they all end up boiling down to one question: Are you on the side of the good guys or the bad guys?
We all want to be on the side of the good guys. And we all want the good guys to win. Our sports teams give us the opportunity to be for the good guys (our team) against the bad guys (the other team). And life certainly seems sweeter when our team wins.
We come to this adult investment in being good guys on the winning team from a host of deeply-felt, and often painful experiences growing up. School is full of taking sides. Teachers take sides in disputes. We choose--or are chosen, or not chosen--for teams. We join--or are excluded from--social groups that help define who we identify with, who we like and don't like. Team games that we play involve putting all our attention and energy into helping our side win. Many of us have even earlier experiences in our families--needing to be on one parent's side, or one sibling's, or on the children's or the grown-ups' side. Or our ethnic or racial or class or religious identity in a divided society requires us to be part of a side. We have been pushed and shoved and cajoled into a world of side-taking from the very beginning.
I don't believe we are wired this way. Our earliest experience of taking sides grew, rather, from a scarcity of options. I don't think we chose freely as little ones--it just seemed that there was no other way. It was painful to choose against, as it was painful when others chose against us. And now we find ourselves entrenched in that painful mode. Somehow our fears about our goodness, perhaps about our very survival, have become entangled in the choosing and occupying of sides.
The ultimate in taking sides is warfare--and taking sides in the context of a scarcity of goodness is absolutely basic to making war. By definition our armies are the good guys because they are ours. The other side has to be the bad guys--because they're on the other side. Whenever our choice for the people on one side sets us against the people on the other, then we are cultivating the soil in which the seeds of war can grow.
But what if the whole concept of opposing sides is flawed? And what if there is enough goodness to go around? What if there could always be a third way, something beyond our side or their side? Those who are quick to take sides, or are passionate about their identity as good guys, have little patience with this possibility. They see the ones who refuse to take sides as weak fence sitters, lacking principles or courage, ultimately pawns of the bad guys. Yet, while there could always be cowardly motives for refusing to make a hard choice, I see courage in daring to challenge side-taking, and a willingness to embrace people from opposing sides as critical to our survival.
Then we can see the web that trapped us all when we were growing up. As we begin stepping away from the sides we felt required to take, the world starts to look different. The bully gets our attention as well as the victim. Both the protesters and the supporters listen carefully to the others to fill in their picture of reality. We discover that nobody truly wants to destroy this earth. Of course it means taking stands. It means mobilizing energy toward our vision for the future. It means saying, "This behavior is not right and must stop." But it doesn't demonize. It doesn't require a framework of good guys on one side and bad guys on the other. It doesn't cultivate the seeds of war.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 4/03
posted by Pamela Haines | 3:27 PM
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