I have been thinking of the mass demonstrations, the chanting, the ability of people to latch onto slogans and chants and to advocate for causes they do not understand. I also have been thinking of the increasing division in people, the lack of willingness to engage with those with differing opinions. I see this in the news about the US and Europe chiefly.
On the other hand, I see here in Israel kindness. Although I am 80 years old, I am able to do everything that a younger person can do. Granted, I may tire more easily, but I am physically in good shape. My face belies that description because the years show on my face. Several times in the last couple of weeks, I have been in a place where people were waiting and there were not enough chairs for everyone and not two chairs together and my husband and I are capable of standing and waiting, yet EVERY time someone has gotten up to let us both sit together ow moved chairs and insisted that we sit.
I began to wonder why there is such a feeling of connection here in Israel and how my perception is that in similar conditions in the US (the land of my birth and first 50 years) this would not occur.
The simple reason, it seems to me, is that despite the differences in our population (and oh my gosh, there are huge differences in lands of origin, customs, ethnic identification, religious practices, etc. etc.) We all are highly aware of the joint reality we share and that our fate is tied together. We laugh and smile with our Arab-Israeli pharmacist, we feel responsible for protecting the families of our Druze citizens, we take pride in the accomplishments of our immigrants from countries around the world, and we prize the devotion of our foreign workers.
I think our shared future is what binds us. I think our shared values enable us to value each individual. I am not sure that that is true in other countries.
When massive numbers of people turn out to demonstrate knowing little of what they are chanting, unable to respond to questions that cannot be answered by the stock phrases the are supplied to chant, then there is a massive problem and I believe I may have an answer to one component of the problem.
I was raised in the 1950s to 1960s- married in 1966. My world consisted of school, of course, but also of friends and also of trips to the grocery store where the owner was a friend and had a daughter my age, to the butcher shop where we were welcomed by name, to the delicatessen where we knew the guys behind the counter, to the bakery where we would see people we knew from school, from the neighborhood. We experienced person to person contact. Everything we bought or experienced was in person. We were taught how to “act” in public, how to be a good citizen, how to be polite, how to listen respectfully.
Now, we order from the internet- books, clothing, food, jewelry- pretty much everything. Half the time we have no idea where these items come from- marked “from Tel Aviv” tracking information has the package arriving in the country and going through customs…
We have lost person-to person contact, And when we do, we lose the ability to see people as people. Many years ago, I was in China. I was with a group that I was leading, and we had stopped in a silk shop where they showed us how silk was made, from worms to cocoon to boiling and unraveling the cocoon…. And of course, they were selling items of silk. As I was sitting in the small coffee area of the store, a woman came and sat at my table. We naturally asked each other where the other was from and it turned out that she was from Iran- and immediately, she said, “Please don’t think that I agree with our government. No one I know does.” Years later I was on a plane seated next to a couple from Pakistan. Again, we asked each other where we were from. They responded, “We would love to visit Israel; our crazy government is not following the will of the people.” I told them I too would want to visit Pakistan (I really would).
Person to person contact can counter stereotypes and foster understanding, yet in the online era, there is less and less person to person contact. It seems to me that college students in the US, at least, accept what they are told by professional agitators and then reify it by talking to other mislead students.
The corner store is no longer a meeting place. We live next door to neighbors we don’t know.
I don’t advocate shutting down the internet. It has its uses. But it should not take the place of human interaction- not with people who may have a political or financial agenda unknown to the casual user. We need a place in our lives where we have contact with others and are able to appreciate differences, rather than fight them. We need to have a mind that is open to new ideas and possibilities. We need to be able to take in new information and consider it when making judgments.
When we were in Vietnam, we met a couple who was finishing their tour. When I asked them how they enjoyed their trip, the wife responded in words similar to this: “We were horrified by the way the people in the villages lived. No floors, just dirt, no TV, no internet.” I thought about what she said and I thought- I have seen people in villages in Vietnam quite a few times, and yes, she is accurate about the modern conveniences they don’t have, but I have seen them smiling and laughing, socializing with their friends, a close-knit community, sharing resources, transporting sick or injured to hospitals by their own or their neighbor’s motorcycle, shopping in the colorful outdoor market with their young women dressed in beautiful, modest clothing hoping to meet a future husband. They raise their own food, they store it in their attics for winter, they light fires for heat- and the ones who offer their homes to tours from visiting tourists, earn money from them. They live lives that are meaningful and never have to worry about income tax, or the dishwasher breaking down. They do laundry together by a communal water source and laugh and joke with their friends in the village. Would I choose that life for myself, no, but they are not suffering.
What’s missing, in my opinion, is person to person contact and the ability to see things from another person’s perspective. Prescription: get out there and meet people, talk to them, get to know them. You will enrich yourself- and them.
