Tiger Woods cheated on his wife.

We, the morally upstanding public, are supposed to hate him.

Michael Vick murdered dogs.

We, the morally outraged public, are supposed to hate him.

Bernie Madoff made a fortune scamming people.

We, the innocent victims, are supposed to hate him.

But Tiger Woods is also a dad.  Do we hate him for that, too?

If we hate Mark Sanford for cheating on his wife, do we also hate the way he governed?

If we hate Roman Polanski for his sexual transgressions, must we also hate his films?

We’re a public that celebrates the athletic feats of people we’ll never meet…

… unless those people play for a team we hate.

We love our artists and entertainers when they delight us…

… but we hate them when they make mistakes.

Is Tiger Woods “a golfer”?

Is Tiger Woods “a womanizer”?

Is Tiger Woods a human?

What are you?

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As you may have heard, the Mid-Atlantic US (in which I currently live) got hammered by a massive snowstorm this weekend.  Weather reports had been sensationalizing the potentially apocalyptic effects of the storm for days, warning that we could see a record snowfall and complete paralysis of city functions.  And if you doubt that people still take the media seriously, you should have been in any east coast grocery store on Thursday night: everything was wiped out.

Saturday morning, Ann and I awoke to the full brunt of the destruction.

Rufus needed his morning walk, and there was no way around it: we had to go outside.  Armed with a shotgun, a lantern and a blowtorch, we opened our front door with a mix of soul-rending trepidation and a sudden resurgence in our childhood beliefs in God — because when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arrive wearing ski masks, you can never be too careful.

Amazingly, all the buildings on our block were still standing.  The cars had not caved in beneath the mountains of precipitation.  There were no sirens, no wailing children trapped beneath the rubble, and no marauding gangs of anarchists raping and pillaging the survivors.

So we dug a little walkway midway down the block so Rufus would have a place to poop.

Then we went back inside, and we turned on the news, and IT WAS INSANE.  Somehow, the same morning news anchors who are on TV every week had managed to get to the station!  Neither of them looked like they’d had to cannibalize their loved ones in order to get out of the house. In fact, one of them was laughing at a picture someone had sent in of a dog in a snowsuit.

HOW WAS MASS COMMUNICATION STILL WORKING??? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE PARALYZED!!!

Too confused to function, we went back to bed, mostly to conserve our strength in case we needed to light flares on the rooftop later and help guide the evacuation planes.

But by noon, we once again ventured outside (this time with only a pistol and a hatchet, in case we needed to run) and discovered that our neighbors were not only not dead or eating their own young, but they were shoveling out their stairways, sidewalks and cars.  They were even talking to each other, which never happens.

By this afternoon, a full 24 hours after we were supposed to have borne witness to the final sub-arctic battle between good and evil, Ann and I were digging our car out from its snow tomb and romping in the park with our dog.  Other neighbors were sharing shovels and helping one another chip away at their icy vehicles or sidewalks.  Our next-door neighbors, who never speak to us, even managed to find the time to blatantly ignore us while walking past us!

If they have time to be petty and vindictive over perceived slights, how much of can Armageddon could this possibly be?

And that’s when it hit me:

We got through it.

The world was supposed to have ended (at least by modern meteorological standards), but it didn’t.  Somehow, despite all advertised odds, we were all still functional.  One guy was even going to work, which is as American as you can get during a crisis of biblical proportions.

And that got me thinking…

The country was supposed to have collapsed during eight years of Bush tyranny.  But we got through it.

The country could have collapsed during our current financial meltdown.  But we’re getting through it.

And Obama could still turn this nation into a socialist collective, unless the GOP outwits him and turns it into a fascist dictatorship first.  But we’ll probably get through that too.

In fact, there’s never been anything that’s happened in this country — and, in broader terms, on this planet — that the bulk of us haven’t gotten through.

Yes, we’ve had disasters and war and terror and plagues and homicides and genocides and secessions and depressions.  Yes, we’ve been inconvenienced and had to sacrifice.  Yes, we’ve abused and taken advantage of.  And yes, we’ve been trained to believe that things can only ever get worse.

And yet, regardless of what life throws at us, we’ve always gotten through it.

Which, finally, makes me wonder one last thing…

What If We Didn’t Spend Our Entire Lives Worrying About “What Might Happen?”

If we weren’t always petrified about rain, snow and murder, our local news would have to find something else to report.

If we weren’t entirely convinced that one of our political parties was going to drive our 200-years-young nation to ruin, our national news (and, perhaps, our politicians) would have to find something more useful to do.

And if we weren’t perpetually preoccupied with our immediate concerns about our own health, wealth, relationships and social standing, we might actually find the energy to move forward in the direction we’re so certain someone or something “out there” is preventing us from reaching.

In the end, what prevents us from being amazed at our own resiliency is just how commonplace the act of survival really is.  The world isn’t perfect, and neither are we, but we always manage to find a way to scrape by — and sometimes, we even make the future better than the past we grew up in.

Just ask your parents, or your grandparents, or anyone who’s fled to where you’re living now from a homeland they simply couldn’t bear to live in anymore; they’ll tell you that tomorrow has at least a 50% chance of being better than today, and unlike we modern cynics, they’ll believe it.

And if tomorrow happens to be worse than today?  Trust me:

We’ll get through it.

Lately, I’ve been arguing against the perpetual “us vs. them” method of storytelling because I think it’s ruining our ability (and desire) to understand each other.  Opposing groups have always been quick to condemn “the other,” but the degree to (and zest with) which we do it these days borders on alarming.

A few days ago, Michael Hasko tweeted something that sums up our increasingly polarized world:

Apparently any sort of dissenting comment on a message board is trolling. -sigh-

And he’s right.  While you might think “social” media should involve an exchange of mutually-respected POVs, that’s rarely the case.  Instead, like-minded tribes flock together and hurl stones at one another with such zeal that anyone offering even a mildly disagreeable opinion is immediately branded as The Enemy.  With “discourse” like this, is it any wonder we all cling so desperately to our own fishbowls and echo chambers?

Since when did we become so convinced of our own infallibility that we’re now completely unwilling to consider the opinions of others?  Shouldn’t global access to information make us more skeptical of absolutes, and therefore more accommodating of our individual differences?  Or maybe it’s just the opposite: when we’re presented with so many opposing viewpoints, perhaps we cling to our own ever more fiercely because admitting we might be wrong would undermine one of the only “truisms” we don’t feel compelled to question on a daily basis.

Whatever the reason for our social decay, things have gotten out of hand.  From the Senate to the cubicles, we’ve lost our willingness to listen to, learn from and discuss any assertions other than our own.  And as this erosion of civility continues across all walks of life, we run the risk of handing future generations tracts of dogma instead of the ability to reason.

But it doesn’t have to go on like this.  We just need to take incremental steps away from our own intellectual isolation.  As such, here are 11 ways you can stop perpetuating the cycle of exclusion.

1. Stop preaching to the choir.

Everyone loves being told how smart they are — or, more importantly, how right they are.  The assurance of being correct is a drug like no other.  And the “connectivity” of the Internet provides you with an endless supply of listeners who’ll fall all over themselves to agree with you, no matter what you believe.

Avoid that.

If you really believe something, try selling it to someone who thinks you’re wrong.  If you’ve ever tried pitching social media to a hostile boardroom, debated the existence of God with an atheist or argued with a child who refused to buy into your set of rules, you quickly realized that “just because” is never the right answer.  Defending your beliefs helps remind you why you do believe them in the first place — and, occasionally, it reveals the gaps in your own logic that might lead you to question your own certainty.

2. Stop letting yourself be preached to.

If you only consume streams of information that reinforce your own presumptions, two things happen: you’ll never learn anything you didn’t already suspect was true, and you’ll never be surprised.  The people who sell you the information you’re imbibing already know that you’re naturally opposed to philosophical conflict, so they have no reason to rock your mental boat.  And the more candy they feed you, the less likely you are to stray.

You wouldn’t consent to eat the same three meals every day for the rest of your life, so why sign up for the informational equivalent?  Start sampling.

3. I agree with you, but…

A good friend of mine once noticed that I always got extremely aggravated whenever I’d argue with a certain ideologically opposed family friend.  His point of view made as little sense to me as mine did to him, and each of us refused to concede any points because we were both dead sure we were correct on all counts.

After hearing us debate our polarized philosophies on several occasions, my friend suggested I employ the concession above.  By doing so, he explained that two things would happen:

• I’d establish a common ground, thereby dissolving the brutal tone of the debate, and
• I’d clarify the specifics of what we were actually disagreeing about, rather than allowing the discussion to roam unbounded.

So I tried it.  And it worked.  And no, even today that family friend and I still don’t see eye to eye on the vast majority of the world’s problems.  But we can also drink a beer and talk about football without every conversation dissolving into an indictment of our belief systems.  Sometimes a truce is a two-sided victory.

4. Ignore national politics.

As someone who’s spent the past decade getting irate over American politics, only to look back and realize I could have been doing something useful with all that energy, I say this with all sincerity: we care way too much about what Washington is doing.

Thanks to our jingoistic American news cycle, people are more aware of what the President is doing on a daily basis than what their neighbors across the street or around the globe are ever doing.  Our priorities and sense of scope are broken, with our own government being portrayed as having a disproportionately large impact on our daily lives and well-being, compared with the larger and smaller influences that actually mean more to us in the long and short term.

Yes, we elected them.  And yes, they’re going to rape and pillage us as their way of saying thank you.  But obsessing over lofty claims, party rhetoric and things that may or may not happen only distracts us from the real news that we could have an impact on, if we only knew it was happening.

5. Focus on what matters directly.

You have bills to pay.  You have mouths to feed.  You have love to find, and some to give.  You have goals, hobbies, passions and concerns.  And you have a nagging sense that things could be better in your life, “if only I could ___.”

So does everyone else.  Get those basics squared away and you’ll have time to spend on filling in that blank, rather than alleviating your frustrations by obstructing someone else’s attempts to do the same.

6. Focus on what matters globally.

Every time I watch the TV news from another country, I find myself quietly astounded that there is another country besides America.  In the US, we only talk about world news when there’s a war, a disaster or a missing blond girl in a hard-to-spell place.  But if you venture beyond our borders, you’ll find there’s a swath of other people with other cultures, values, beliefs and problems that need to be solved.

You don’t need to solve them yourself, although that is a pretty American thing to want to do.  But just being aware of those problems so you can not contribute toward making them worse would certainly be a good start toward making things better.

And, as a bonus, you might not be so afraid of people with different skin colors, wardrobes or last names.

7. Take direct action in your locality.

Hating either national political party doesn’t get you very far.  Neither does making sweeping generalizations about systemic national problems like failing education, absent health care, abused ecology or a corrupt economy, and ending with a proclamation that these problems are “too big to change,” or that “someone should do something about it,” is just an excuse to keep whinging.

Surprise: you’re someone.  And no, you can’t wake up tomorrow and fix nationwide problems with a wink and a smile.  But you can probably make a difference in your neighborhood.  You can probably call your city council representative and ask for help.  And you can probably conduct yourself the way you wish your elected officials and other people of influence would, and lead others by your example.

It’s not as folksy as bitching about Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow over wing night with your buds.  But it might make everyone’s life a bit more palatable.

8. Hold people accountable.

When your friend, lover, coworker or boss doesn’t do something he said he would, point it out.  Don’t be a dick about it, but don’t let it go uncorrected either.  Because the more lax you are in your accounting of others, the more lax everyone — including you — allows themselves to become.  We’re only ever good people when there’s a reward for it, or when there’s a penalty for being bad.  Don’t wait for someone else to enforce acceptable standards; that’s how mediocrity takes control in a lazy culture.

Oh, and when it comes to politics, forget party affiliations: if your elected official didn’t do what he said he’d do, or if she did things you find reprehensible, vote ‘em out.  Fear that “the other party would only be worse” is irrational; focus less on how bad it could get and focus more on holding your representatives accountable for doing the job you paid them to do with your tax dollars.

9. Be unafraid of change.

As mentioned above, fear of change is irrational.  We’re always petrified of “how bad it could get,” but we forget two things:

• Whatever “it” is, it’s probably already pretty bad now, and
• No matter how bad “it” gets, we’ll live through it.

Look at the vast amounts of shit people have lived through for centuries.  For every enlightenment, there’s a dark age.  For every scientific advance, there’s a worldwide cataclysm.  Your parents always had it better and had it worse, depending on the topic of conversation.  And the past always looks more romantic than the future, because the past is something we’ve proven we could get through while the future just might involve that one insurmountable challenge we just can’t overcome.

Don’t bet on it.  We’ve come this far without destroying the planet, so one more bad piece of legislation or ill-timed hurricane won’t do us in either.  Worry less about the unknown obstacles and fear more the possibility that if we don’t move toward change, this might be as good as it gets.

10. Refuse stereotypes.

The problem with stereotypes is that they’re usually accurate.  Clichés don’t happen based on once-in-a-lifetime irregularities; they happen because the same kinds of people repeatedly do the same kinds of things, and those things tend to be irredeemably stupid.

But instead of seeing those aggravations as uncorrectable offenses, ask the larger question: why does this happen? What cultural, sociological, geographic or political influences cause certain people to act in certain ways, or to believe certain things?  How do those habits get started, and why do they perpetuate despite their impractical disadvantages?  Are they even considered disadvantages by the people who do them?

Once you understand that everything has a root cause (or multiple causes), you can understand our differences rather than writing them off as cultural deficiencies.  And that brings us one degree closer to not hating each other.

11. Question certainties.

If you do nothing else, doubt everything.  Doubt what you’ve always believed.  Doubt what everyone else believes, too.  Refuse to say with certainty that any one thing is irrevocably true.  See the world as a massive grey area, rather than pillars of black and white.

The world is full of conflicts and riddles, and we have the capacity to quell some of them and solve others.  And yes, by doing so, we just might create more problems in the process.  Such is life.  But whatever worldviews we form, and whatever actions we take, we should be making our decisions based on data, not ideologies.

And if that means you spend a little less time watching TV news, a little more time talking to those neighbors you’ve never actually introduced yourself to, and a lot less time posting anonymous hate screed to your social network of choice, then maybe 2011 won’t seem like the festering shithole 2010 seems poised to become.

And that’s a start.

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Last week, I urged us all to reconsider the way in which we tell stories.  I believe oversimplification and a reliance on “us vs. the other” is destroying our ability to understand and relate to one another, which obstructs our chances of evolving culturally.  And since what we choose to care about is entirely subjective, that means the stories we tell ourselves are incredibly important in shaping our values.

Now Jack Rice asks a loaded question that highlights the life-or-death consequences of the way we tell stories:

Would We Use This Photo If These People Were White?

My answer:  Yes.  Devastation isn’t about color, it’s about scope.

Natural disasters create destruction on a massive scale, and while everything in life can be politicized, the disintegration of an entire nation can only be understood visually.  If we all heard that thousands of Hatians were dead and rotting in the streets, but all we saw were photos of weeping individuals, there’d be a cognitive dissonance: we need proof of such histrionic claims, and that proof must come in bulk to be believed.

Grotesquely, we also need a reason to pay attention.  The global stage is increasingly filled with tragedies, and since Haiti might feel a little too “Katrina-y” for some viewers, it needs a way to distinguish itself not only from other current headlines but also from the memory of other recently-digested miseries.

And Now the Part No One Wants to Talk About

Apart from its literal documentary value, this photo — like all photos of post-earthquake Haiti — serves a larger humanitarian purpose: it’s meant to elicit an emotional reaction in its viewers, and spur them to take action to help alleviate the tragedy.  Since aid is fueled by money, people need to be moved to donate in mass volume.  The more vast and unspeakable the horror, the more likely that even people who have political reasons to justify or ignore the tragedy will be moved to take action.

If we understood stories differently — if we processed information according to a universal understanding of importance, rather than straining it through degrees of “us vs. them” — maybe we’d only need one image of a dead Hatian to make the world care.

But I doubt it.

Whenever there’s a national or global tragedy, I’m interested in seeing how the world reacts.  But I’m even more fascinated by the ways people don’t react — and why they choose to do so.

For every Iran or Haiti that tops Twitter’s trending topics, there are a million #whyyouinchurch or #PantsOnTheGround just waiting in the wings, providing distraction and empowerment for the people who can’t be bothered to care about life’s larger landscape.  This dividing line between caring and ignorance used to bother me, until I realized that what we choose to care about is entirely subjective — even when it comes to epic disaster.

One Person’s Fiery Death Is Another Person’s Reminder to Mute Her Blackberry

A few years ago, I was in a Pittsburgh restaurant (an Eat ‘n Park, unsurprisingly), overhearing the conversations happening around me.  A college student and her mother were eating at a table nearby, and somehow the conversation turned to September 11.

“I remember you called me that morning,” the daughter said,” and I let the machine get it, and you were all like, ‘Turn on your TV, a  plane just hit the World Trade Center and  people are jumping out the windows!’  And I just turned the machine off and went back to bed, because I’m thinking, ‘Why are you telling me this?  I don’t even live in New York City!’”  (laughs)

Choosing to Care (And Why We Do… Or Don’t)

The truth is, everything you do is a value judgment.  Which headlines you read, whom you invest your time in, which obligations you allow yourself to believe you’re beholden to.  None of these interests or beliefs are pre-coded in your DNA.  They’re the product of your personality + environment + culture + immediate reality.  And all of those aspects combine to form the value system through which you process all incoming information, deciding what matters to you and what doesn’t.

The truth is, we’re all wild animals.  We only adhere to social norms as a way of streamlining the feeding and mating processes, and because living in a mutually-beneficial society has its benefits when compared to a life of anarchy.  But if the pros of being a part of a society ever cease to outweigh the cons, the only thing stopping us from checking out is the law.  (Jailers and hangmen are always the last line of defense against people who decide they’d rather not play along with our constructed normality.)

The truth is, you don’t need to care about your family, or about the next iPhone, or about Haiti.  Doing so doesn’t make you a better person; it just makes you feel better about being a person.  It also makes you more civil, which your fellow humans appreciate because it gives them a positive example to follow while simultaneously alerting them that you’re “normal” enough for them to not have to worry about (or defend against).

Caring also provides your life with something it would otherwise be missing: context.

I Am What I Laugh (or Cry) About

Maybe caring about a cause gives you something to feel good (or bad) about, and this helps you frame your choices.

Maybe championing a cause leads you to believe you have an externally-imposed purpose.

Or maybe you just enjoy feeling like the only person who cares about something no one else cares about, which reinforces your outsider status by way of empathizing with your fellow underdogs.

The people and ideals we choose to invest our time and emotions in are what defines us, both to ourselves and to the people who observe us.  Our causes are signals to others, and so is the degree of effort we ascribe to them — whether we profess to believe something in passing or whether we’re willing to stand up and take action when the need to defend our beliefs arises.

Whatever you choose to care about, or whether you choose to care about nothing at all, remember one thing: nobody can make you care.  Except you.  And that makes caring the only true freedom we have.