Do Negative Stances Hold Us Back?
Is it possible to come together over something we don't believe in? Can anything be done to create community without severe tribalism?
I want to kick this week off by thanking you all for the massive reads on last week’s narrative entry. I wasn’t sure what value you’d find in a piece like that, let alone a horror themed one!
This week I want to get back to talking the hard talk. Over the weekend, I stayed busy with going to movies, shoe shopping, and yardwork. Cathryn and I saw Barbie, which was worth every penny! I got some new kicks, and we bought a set of discount patio furniture. Summer is creeping toward a close which means the seasonal outdoor goods are switching from grills and chairs to those perplexingly popular inflatable Halloween ornaments. We toured several stores before picking out a four piece set for our back patio.
It’s a deeply adult experience, picking out furniture that sits outside. But this isn’t the story of squishing our butts in seats and looking at each other saying, “not bad.” This is the story of pulling into a Menard’s parking lot and having Cathryn notice someone watching us. She paid close attention to a gentleman who fixated on our car. Often attentive, my focus was not on the person puzzling out my window stickers. Not until we strolled into the building, did I see what was going on. Cathryn pointed at his car and declared, “he’s got an atheist sticker on his car, too!” Just then, the guy excitedly replied that he had a tattoo, as well. He hadn’t been confused by the logo on my window with the electron shell and a stylized A. On the contrary, this gentleman was excited to see someone out and proud about their atheism. The meeting of words was brief, and ended by his pleasure in knowing he wasn’t alone in the county.
I’ve seen people squint their eyes and stretch their necks to read, “credulity is not a virtue,” printed below the American Atheists logo on my back window. Usually, I assume they’ll have no context and conclude I’m a fan of the Big Bang Theory… I am not. If they recognize the logo, or understand the phrase, my next guess is that I pissed someone off. Being open and proud of skepticism and atheism is often met with belligerence, meaning I’m not as open and out about it as I wish I could be. I’ve worked with enough religious organizations to know I sweat a bit when someone stares at that logo.
Cathryn was impressed by the small interaction we had in the parking lot. She remarked that the excited guy found community. I agreed, and quickly followed up that it is hard to build community around a negative stance. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god, it’s not a rallying cry. In fact, when non-believers organize, these groups often find themselves more at odds than unified. Atheism isn’t a political stance. It isn’t a position that claims we all deserve rights, or equity. It’s just as hard to build community out of people who don’t care for celery. You can’t rally around that as well as a community that loves celery.
I don’t want to look at things as though there’s no community to be had, however. Atheism and humanism have started walking hand in hand. As the reigns to non-belief have been wrenched away from the less inclusive Dawkins of the world, atheism has begun to indicate someone might be more in favor of trusting science and doctors while opposing aggressive book bans, and standing shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s not a given. Hard work has gone into creating positive stances around which skeptics can rally.
Creating community is essential to running a business, especially a creative business. It’s important to have a positive claim and utilize some sense of tribalism around it. If you’re McDonalds you need people to get into heated debates about who has the best fries. Rampant success can easily be driven by creating an identity strong enough to outlast cognitive dissonance and persuasive enough to get fans to double down in front of every argument. These themes have penetrated everything online. Nowhere else does tribalism see the volition it wields on social media. I fucking hate it.
Skepticism is important to me. I want to believe as many true things as possible and let go of as many false things as possible. I want to create as much benefit as I can, while reducing as much harm as I can. I am pretty damn far from good at it. I’m not immune to tribalism. In fact, sometimes tribalism is fun. It’s fighting over your favorite Pokémon, or standing up for ska. But I’d rather remember we all have tastes and preferences. That, although ska is the king of all music, it’s cool if you’re not convinced. Because of this, I struggle to build community. I’m cautious of building any in-group.
If I stopped and talked more with the guy in the parking lot, I may have found that what we don’t believe in is the only common ground we’ve got. If I could go back, I’d tell him that I do have a small community, and he is welcome. My community isn’t about gods, or a lack thereof. We’re skeptics and believers who try to uphold a few things:
Truth - we strive and search for truth, even if that means abandoning sincerely held ideas
Fearlessness - although fleeting, fearlessness is a state of being worth striving for and offering others
Humanity - a reminder that we are all in this together, our stories and humanity are what binds us
Power - we all deserve our own strength, our own power, we can find it together
Deconstruction - everything changes, we should be ready to take anything apart to better understand it, to utilize what serves us, and abandon what doesn’t
It’s not perfect, but, “perfect is a fault, and fault lines change.” If you’re able to question yourself and what you believe in, then yes, we are community. For the guy in the Menard’s parking lot, I’ll never know. For everyone else, we’re more than what we don’t believe in.