The Scene Outside

The other day I was riding our exercise bike in the back of the house in a little room we call the pantry. (We store stuff there--flour, other ingredients, food supplies of various sorts; the previous owners had used it for a breakfast nook.)

Anyway, out the window in the back yard I saw, near a tree we share with out neighbor to the east, a rabbit munching away in the grass. His "silflay," as Richard Adams called it in Watership Down, 1972. (It came out in November; our son was just four months old!)

Above the bunny, in the tree, sat a male cardinal. Near him, on another branch, a nervous sparrow. None of the three creatures appeared to regard the other two as a potential threat. (Though I'm no reader of faunal minds--so who knows?)

The rabbit seemed intent on the grass, the cardinal on the ground (Did I just see something munchable?), the sparrow on where he (she?) would fly next.

Desperate not to think about the pedaling I was doing (thinking about it makes time go more slowly--and that is intolerable), I instead allowed my mind to drift into the Land of Metaphor.

Here are these three creatures, I thought, each very different from the other, briefly sharing space on this planet before they wing/hop off to their separate destinies--and deaths.

I know: That's not a very sanguine thought--or especially novel--but, remember, I was on a damn exercise bike!

And I thought about us these days--about us Americans--about how we can't seem to share our space with much amity these days.

Oh, I know: It has been ever thus. People opposed the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, slavery, World Wars I and II, etc. I doubt that we've ever been unified for very long throughout our history. And those divisions have not usually been gentle, compassionate, empathetic. We have long demonized those people who oppose our ideas (i.e., those people who are, you know, wrong).

But for much of our history these attitudes were generally not out there for everyone to see.

Now they are.

Facebook and other social media boil like the fetid brew in the witches' cauldron in Macbeth. And stirring the mixture? Those who would profit from our divisions--e.g., polarized news media, publishers of books that demean those who think otherwise, even sellers of T-shirts and baseball hats, apparel on which you can declare both your allegiances and your absolute certainty that you are 100% right, your opponents both 100% wrong and stupid and evil and compliant in deep, dark conspiracies.

I'm a Democrat--have been since the 1960s. I'm not a far feather on the left wing; I'm sort of a mid-wing guy. I believe in labor unions, in the idea that the government should help people (you know, "promote the general welfare"), that women and minorities should have equal rights, that we should have freedom of religion and not officially promote one over the other. These and other "libtard" beliefs lie in my core.

But from what I read and see on Facebook, I appear to be The Problem with This Country. I'm Evil. I am a Willing Conspirator in the Plot to Destroy Our Freedom. Etc.

No.

I believe deeply in this country. I view our current fractures with profound worry--even despair. As we approach the November election, I am terrified about what can happen if we don't accept the voice of the people--if we believe that the other side won because of ... well, you name the conspiracy.

As I've suggested, there have always been wacko fringes, both right and left, in this country. But the digital age has amplified their bellowing voices.

My bike slows--I'm nearly done--and I realize perfectly well that we are not rabbits, cardinals, sparrows. (And that no fox or hawk was in the vicinity when I observed the scene I saw.)

Yes, the foxes and hawks are out there, but if you look at them very closely, you'll realize they have human faces.