Like the rest of the world, my attention and intentions were hijacked over the weekend by what is happening in Minneapolis. I did not intend to write this post, but I feel I must.
What is
happening right now is, plain and simple, authoritarianism. Some, like Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic, have used the word fascism. Whatever label you put on it, it has the same flawed logic
behind it: the belief that might makes right. It’s the same calculus of cruelty and coercion that the schoolyard bully uses: I’m bigger than you, so do what I want you to do.
But the bewildering thing about humans when we’re faced with a crisis is this: The harder you push, the harder we’ll push back.
This is the reality of the red line. We accept
adversity only up to a certain point. Past that point, individual concerns give way to that of the greater good. We join together for a coalition, dismantling the smaller walls that used to separate
us to fight a greater enemy that threatens us all. Rather than being beaten down by adversity, we are raised up.
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We have always done this. Journalist Sebastian Junger documents one example in
his excellent book “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.” During the London Blitz, Hitler believed he could bomb Londoners into submission. For 56 days he tried, dropping over 12,000 tons
of bombs on the city, sure that it would break the will of Londoners. On one day alone, in September 1940, over 700 tons of high explosives and 86,000 incendiaries fell, killing 1,436 people. But
Londoners' resolve never wavered. In fact, it grew with adversity. They kept calm and carried on.
I’ve seen it firsthand in my own community. Our city, Kelowna, British Columbia,
has been threatened with wildfires a fair number of times. In 2003, our city of 150,000 lost over 200 homes in one night, and one third of the city was evacuated.
I have never seen this
city come together as it did then. Neighbors helped neighbors. Those of us who weren’t evacuated opened our homes to those who were. In many cases, spare bedrooms and pullout couches were
occupied by total strangers. Crisis centers were swamped with offers of food, clothing, blankets and volunteer assistance.
This is how we’re wired. We are tribal creatures who band
together in times of trouble. As Junger found in his research, psychological health actually seems to improve during a crisis. He cites a 1961 paper by American sociologist Charles Fritz, which opens
with this sentence, “Why do large-scale disasters produce such mentally healthy conditions?” Junger writes, “Fritz’s theory was that modern society has gravely disrupted the
social bonds that have always characterized the human experience, and that disasters thrust people back into a more ancient, organic way of relating. Disasters, he proposed, create a ‘community
of sufferers’ that allows individuals to experience an immensely reassuring connection to others.”
Humans evolved to unite to overcome obstacles. Our modern world doesn’t
often ask that of us. But right now, in Minneapolis, that’s exactly what’s happening as thousands of ordinary people are coordinating protection patrols to document authoritarianism. They
are using the encrypted Signal platform to communicate and direct observers to emerging trouble areas. They have established their own protocols of behavior. It is, in the words of Robert F.
Worth, writing in The Atlantic, “a meticulous urban choreography of civic protest.”
At least two Minnesotans have paid as much as they mortally can, with their
own lives.
This is the wrench that humans throw into the crushing cogs of authoritative behavior: The more you crack down on us, the stronger we will become as we join together to push back
against you.
Of all the places on earth, Americans should know this. I can think of one more example of this that is particularly relevant. It happened 250 years ago, when American
colonists joined together to protest against the authority of the British Crown.
We shouldn’t forget that.