From “We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence” by David Dark
Parker Palmer has a dramatic word for what conflict avoidance costs us: “If the end of tension is what you want, fascism is the thing for you.” Home is where the fury is, but it doesn’t stay there. Feelings cascade into behaviours. We might imagine the cost of a misspoken, reactive word is small, but it yields harm. Fascism cuts the beautiful world down to the size of our own fear. If I’m skilled at preemptively easing tension with easily tossed out words and gestures, preventing and policing the curiosity that might otherwise lead to moral realization about myself and others, I’m skilled at fascism. It could even be said that I have a knack for it.
I’m not a fascist. But I have an inner fascist (likely you do too) to contend with. I feel it at intersections literal and figurative. My reactive self (hello, inner fascist) is often debilitatingly uncomfortable with one issue intersecting with another. But issue silos are fictions that dissolve upon contact with the sweet, social fact of relationship – and there’s no escape from relationship. Every fact is a function of relationship. Good news for bullies: a bullying train of feeling – like a bullying train of thought – can be stopped. We can freeze the frame and slow the tape.
Best to lean into the tension and ask for specificity.