How to Not Lose Your Family

Surviving the Culture War

People are tuning forks.

They match your energy. You, likewise, have a strong tendency to match theirs. Very often, conflicts are the result of “feed-back loops.” Just as when you get a microphone so close to a speaker that it begins to hear itself, one person’s anger is being amplified by the other, which, in turn, they amplify back. This is something you cannot change. It is endemic to the human condition. Everything is musical and the laws of resonance and harmony you can’t escape.

You can however, use them to your advantage.

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We have a tendency to exaggerate. People always do this. Usually, you can quickly tell when something is being exaggerated by how often battle or economic-based imagery is used to describe it.

“Spend time.” “Invest in your future.” “Wow, this post blew-up.” “Yeah, she and I crossed swords a few times.” “It was a net loss.” “Took an emotional toll on me.” “Not sure if this is the hill to die on.”

Etc.

Money and war. The only two things people take seriously enough to let stand on their own. Everything else, in order be raised to the category of Serious, has to be allegorized into one or both of those terms.

In that sense then, I believe that referring to the current disagreements and arguments in the culture as a “war” is quite overselling it. Such speech is only possible by a population who has mostly never been punched in the nose. One for whom “fighting” the other side means something as safe as walking to a ballot box and sharing memes on Facebook. I doubt for example, that any of the Taliban ever refer to present-day political squabbles in Afghanistan as a “war.” Combat metaphors don’t hit as hard for people who’ve actually been shot at.

Nonetheless.

Legitimacy of calling it a “war” or not aside, the “Culture War” has and continues to produce real casualties. Not so much in terms of bodies, but very much so in terms of broken homes, collapsed relationships, and lost loves. I suspect, for example, that the number of children not talking to their parents because the latter voted for Trump is quite high and that, similarly, the number of parents who’ve written off their kids for being “blue haired liberals” is likewise staggering. How many families have been torn apart over gender issues? How many divorces because of rifts over politics? How many neighborhoods collapsed over issues of race?

Millions?

I’m not sure.

At any rate it is too many.

In Islam they say that Demons who are able to break up families are given a special award. That Satan hugs them, promotes them to his highest ranks. If you, like me, have seen far too many of the above happen and have watched families torn apart, you can believe it. The amount of anger and bitterness, the degree of happiness and love lost by such things is almost immeasurable. Generations of lost souls whose primary attachments in this life have come undone.

Ours is a divisive time.

If demons are real, then those “in power” are surely working for them, for they seem to have little to no incentive to try and turn that divisiveness around. Like the agents of Satan they rather feed upon it. They use the anger and despair to drive donations and protests and votes. Social Media has thrown gas upon that fire, with everyone feeling the need to signal their position and their moral stances, ready to dismiss or block anyone who disagrees, forming an almost instant bubble of groupthink around themselves which no outside influence can penetrate.

It’s not good.

Like I say, I cringe at calling it a “war” but…

It’s not good.

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To win any war you must first be clear about who your enemy is. Therefore, I want you all to stop for just a moment, take a deep breath, and ask yourselves if you really want to define your family as “the enemy”.

Think about it.

Even if you reflexively say, “No, of course I don’t want to do that…”

…

Are you doing that?

“If my dad would just…”

“My daughter. Brainwashed at school!”

“My husband is such an asshole! Why would he think…”

…

Well?

…

Repeat after me: “My family is not my enemy. That’s not what I want.”

No.

The enemy, rather, is Fear.

That’s it. That’s the real enemy.

Your Dad, your MAGA hat wearing dad, really does believe that his kids are in physical danger due to crime from immigration. Your wife, your “I’m with Her” wife, genuinely thinks that if Kamala doesn’t get into the White House your daughters are going to suffer through a live-action remake of The Handmaid’s Tale. Your granddad doesn’t approve of LGBT issues because he’s convinced it causes people to go to hell. Your college-aged kid actually believes that without instituting Communism, he’s going to grow-up enslaved.

Put aside for a moment whether or not you also think some of those things. Doesn’t matter. Not the point. MAGA Dad or I’m with Her Wife or Communism Kid might be right or they might be wrong. Forget about that. The point isn’t who’s right. The point is that everyone is the way they are because they are afraid.

People have the positions they have as fear responses to perceived threats.

Perceived.

The threats might be real. Might not. Again, doesn’t matter. The Emotion produced is the same.

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People are tuning forks.

This is extremely important to remember in any sort of conflict one has and, more than once, has spared me from physical violence with vagrants or would-be muggers. People going to self-defense schools or martial arts academies mostly have vague dreams of being Captain America, and they like to imagine themselves heroically kicking a bad guy’s ass. Fair enough. There is a time when asses must be kicked. However, as I said, most people today have seldom, if ever, experienced real violence and, if they did, they’d realize that getting to the point in a conflict where you have to actually kick or punch someone should already be considered a failure. At that point nothing is certain. Nothing whatsoever. No matter how good you are, nor how much training you’ve had, combat is inherently chaotic and disastrous, and even those who “win” might never fully recover.

The same is true in relationships.

Daydreaming of “the perfect clap back” or inventing arguments with strawmen while you’re in the shower might feel nice, just like imaging that you’re Captain America might feel nice. It’s not reality though. In the MCU, all the bad guys Cap is decking don’t have names. They don’t have faces. They don’t have families. It doesn’t matter if he kills them.

The people you will be in conflict with though, actually exist.

And you love them.

People are tuning forks.

If someone approaches you…