Perspective

I spend quite a bit of energy reflecting on the power, and limitations, of perspective. I love to explore what other people believe, what underlying assumptions are motivating their actions and opinions. One thing I notice daily is how limited we all are. Yet, we can only notice the limitation in others, rarely in ourselves. We declare that this group or that is ignorant or hateful or acting immorally or has no values; we use words like idiot or evil or worse; we assume that the same could not be said about ourselves because we know ourselves; we know we're trying our best.

It all comes down to perspective. People tend to group themselves in tribes and we rarely look intimately and sincerely at the values and beliefs and motives of those in other tribes; when they disagree with us we assume the very worst about these strangers, and are willing to sacrifice a great deal to fight them and prevail over them. I have found this to be true about nearly every grouping of people, even (and sometimes especially) those groups who have formed under the banner of tolerance and not participating in this kind of behavior.

As you may have noticed, I am fascinated by perspective. As I've said, I love to learn what people believe, and what motivates those who act or believe differently than I do. One thing I have concluded is that there are very few, if any, people in the world who look at a set of options and intentionally choose the most harmful, the most evil of the choices. Almost everything that has been done in the world - the most beautifully healing and the most horrifically destructive - has been done by normal people who hold strong values and wanted to do what is best. The problem is that without being able to see from outside our own biases and perspectives, in most cases without even making an attempt to do so, and much of the time without even an awareness that there are valid perspectives beside our own, out best intentions and most sincerely motivated actions are liable to hurt someone...maybe millions or billions of someones.

There's a story that really drives this point home, about a well meaning monkey in the forest. He's fallen into the icy stream and nearly drowned. A fellow creature hears his struggling and pulls him from the waters onto safety. Dripping wet but full of gratitude for his life, he realizes that he has found his vocation, his calling. From now on instead of pursuing his own enjoyment, he will spend his days rescuing other creatures from the dangerous depths. And so he does. Over the course of his lifetime he valiantly risks his life saving as many of the multitudes of creatures he finds moving through the waters, pulling them on to dry ground. Most of these creatures, of course, are fish.

Can you blame this monkey? On the one hand - yes! He is solely responsible for the unwarranted death of hundreds or thousands of innocent lives. But on the other hand - of course not. His heart and his motivations are pure, and admirable even. What he lacks is the same thing we all lack - a perspective outside his own. Either way he needs to be stopped - but his passion will only be effectively channeled by someone who understands his motives and his beliefs.

In this crowded, global, increasing tiny world we live in, this kind of perspective clash happens every moment of the day. And while we are becoming more aware of it, we are not becoming wiser in how we handle it. I have see so many people react to the apparently ignorant, hateful actions of one group by forming or joining a group that abuses and acts ignorantly and hatefully towards the original group because they despised the ignorant, hateful behavior they observed. What is this about?? The enemy here is ignorance, hate, and failure to see from another's perspective. The only tools that will make a difference are humility, patience, a willingness to listen, to delay judgment, to gain understanding. The only way to rise above the cycle and stop contributing to the problem is to see this undesirable quality in others...and recognize it in ourselves. To attempt to see through their eyes, attempt to understand life as they experience it, to gain understanding into their motives.

But this rarely happens. Pick any strongly held opinion and you will find a sharply divided battle. Religion, faith, politics, abortion, lifestyle chooses, parenting, nutrition, workplace, war, whatever. We are teeming with people on both sides who believe that they are right and the other side is wrong...and ignorant, and devoid of values or ethics, and possible hateful or even evil. Most of us never come close enough relationally to "the other side" that we understand them from inside out, so our biases continue to fester, our self-assuredness to bolster. But I have never met a fairy-tale-style bad guy who really wanted to do the wrong thing, for no reason. What I have met are hundreds of hurting people trying to make sense of things; and when I find out why and how they were raised, what they're up against today - all the rest makes sense to me. Where once I saw lack of ethics, now I see strongly held values. Where once I saw ignorance, now I see deeply engraved experiences. Where once I saw hardheartedness, now I see a feeling, living soul. I may strongly disagree with them; I may wish they would seek out a change in perspective; I may realize that their beliefs or actions can devastate countless innocent people. But I do come to a place where, from their perspective, I get it.

This doesn't change the fact that we're responsible for our actions. Those poor fish are really dead, and someone needs to stop that monkey. But even more, we need to see the plank in our own eyes and stop ourselves. We need to realize that we are also every bit as grounded in our own perspective, every bit as likely to act in good faith and be interpreted as (or, in point of fact) doing damage.

There's a lot that needs doing in this world, and I think we agree on more fundamentals than we realize. We must find a way to work together; we must be willing to approach each other with humility, to walk a mile or so in another pair of shoes.

I wish we realized this. I wish we talked about it. I wish we spent as much effort trying to understand our own biases as we spend ridiculing others for theirs. I wish we traded arrogance for humility.

Today Julie asked us what we thought was the most important cultural issue of today. This was mine. Come join in the conversation!