Going Viral With the News 11-22-18

Anderson, South Carolina

One of the most compelling and challenging tasks facing ambassadors and Secretaries of State is consensus building; the formation of alliances of nations to accomplish mutually beneficial objectives. Across the spectrum of political domains robust alliances have formed to promote shared causes. Western Allies were forged into military alliances to combat the scourge of Nazi fervor overtaking Europe. NATO protected Western European interests in the Cold War era. The Warsaw Pact advanced Eastern Bloc causes during the same period. NAFTA is a more recent attempt to promote economic interests of North American states. Conceptually, alliances are good, providing a coherent voice to participating members; insuring all are reading from the same page.

Individuals also develop alliances, often immature, to promote self interest, to justify their actions. My childhood was replete with ephemeral alliances in which the kids next door would ‘be on my side,’ perhaps for a mere few hours. Fleeting were the moments of empowerment when I had alliances against the likes of my brothers. For so many of us socially marginalized nerds, childhood was a protracted season of facing alliances, often aligned against us.

Tragically these same childish behaviors often manifest in exaggerated forms in adulthood. Toy guns and pretend forts are exchanged for plutonium and battalions of real soldiers. Wars of words between children who never grew up have the ability to ravage the lives of millions. The 20th century saw the deaths of hundreds of millions of good people caught in the cross fire of people taking sides.

On a lower geo-political level I have been caught in the cross fire of people for several years, people who find conflict resolution in divorce, bankruptcy, reactivity, sarcasm, addiction, duplicity, ad infinitum. Thermodynamic disruptions as described by James Gleick in his classic 1991 work, Chaos, are easily portrayed by group dynamics seen in a group of perhaps two dozen people. Relationships form, relationships fail, alliances form, they collapse; individuals are ejected from the group. At any one time or another I found individuals in my group attempting to draw me into alliances of opinion, wanting me to be on their side. Alas, there was no effective ambassador or Secretary of State to mediate conflicts. I’m no longer connected to any of these individuals, ejected from the group. Nearly as important to ambassadors as building consensus is defusing misunderstandings and tempering explosive emotions. Without mediators, discord often escalates into open hostility and worse. Groups fracture.

Those with some sort of perceived injury or insult are inclined to broadcast their misfortunes with great animation to those around them. It’s an unfortunate quirk of human behavior that they are often believed. Years of prior positive experience with someone is often completely overwritten by reports of a single negative episode. Another reality is negative experiences are eventually reported to more than a hundred and twenty individuals, if academics are right about such matters. Positive reports travel much less extensively, perhaps a dozen listeners getting the message. In journalism, a long standing quip states, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Bad news goes viral in the human experience. We don’t hear about planes landing safely after a routine flight.

Today I found a voice message in my phone that was staggering in its venomous nature and the breadth of allegations it contained. The purpose of the message was to strongly encourage me to give up my loyalty to people I have known and worked with for twenty years. The impassioned imperative of the message is that it’s far more important for me to honor the offense of one individual by abdicating long-standing working relationships and loyalties with dozens of other individuals. False accusations were used freely to gain my mutiny of spirit. In a very real sense I was being asked to participate in a mutiny that could easily cause the collapse of an important volunteer community organization.

A friend of mine was recently accused of all manner of sexual misconduct, something inconceivable for a man with his high ethical standards. Today a long-standing friend reported being accused of using her sexuality repeatedly to gain favor in her workplace, again something simply inconceivable. While visiting a church recently for dinner, a member conveyed to me reports of my supposed sexual recreations with others in the room!

During my precarious attempts to survive childhood I would often remind myself that ‘stick or stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” The fallacy of this sound byte was borne out too soon in my alcoholic childhood. Words would prove more destructive to me than any kind of stick, and I had some pretty big sticks and rocks thrown at me, literally. Over the years devastating evidence would prove again and again their destructive potential. Only this week I am reminded again of the toxic power of misplaced words.

The Epistle of James describes the tongue as perhaps the deadliest thing on earth. It’s described as “a fire, the very world of inequity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.” It would be difficult to imagine a more impassioned declaration as to the dangers of running loose with one’s mouth.

In recent weeks I estimate several dozen acquaintances and friendships have disrupted because of the loosed tongues about me. Fires do burn up many fine forests, and so often hundreds of homes with them. There is no chaos described in the annals of thermodynamics or quantum physics that compares to that which detonates when a malicious chain reaction is set off by venomous slander.

Nuclear reactions can only safely proceed in the presence of control rods, which sop up excess nuclear particles. In the absence of control rods in our mouths we will continue to set of cascade reactions destroying the character and spirit of millions.

If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.