The Balance of Neutrality

I've always tried to live up to the standards of being a neutral person, especially one that could look at an issue from different perspectives no matter how uncomfortable it might be, putting on shoes made for someone else. Looking back, my appreciation for scepticism probably sprouted from my early debate days. Among many things, scepticism was one of the most important aspects that my amazing debate coach (who I will forever be indebted to) taught us when we're at the formative years of 14. 

I am also glad that despite my horrible memory, these key values were things that stuck with me almost stubbornly along the years. 

I've been trying to get myself to understand what is going on in the world. It's a slow process - I do prefer escapism via imaginary and fantastical worlds instead of residing in the physical one - but it is something that I vowed to do, inspired by the reinterpretation of Edith Sampson's speech by Andrew Scott. I've done this for the past year, but this time, I've wanted to write my experience down. 

Why you ask? Well, I initially wanted to post this on other platforms, but I can't safely say that I will be safe from online bashing. Thus, I retraced my steps to this refuge of mine.  

I believe everyone knows about the BLM movement, no matter if you've been living under a rock or not. The entire movement is leaving no stones unturned, exploding and spreading all over the world like a bottle of coke fed with the world's largest strip of Mentos. Of course, people pick sides in all arguments, especially in something of such a scale. 

The community I'm in were overwhelmingly on the BLM supporting side. I see where they come from - the incident is almost objectively wrong, no matter what perspective you're looking from. However, when I see no dissuading opinions on my timeline, I grew afraid. After all, extremism breeds in an echo chamber; and my Facebook and Twitter was quickly becoming a huge chamber itself. 

In the online world of today, we like what we see, then we see what we like. It's a self-biting snake cycle for everyone, frankly. In one day, our entire feed will only consist of posts we agree with and none of those that remotely jabs against our comfort. This limits the potential of a truly neutral conversation between two sides, while also forming a very nice bubble for us to live in.

Sometimes when I want to leave the comforts of my echo chamber for a while, I'll deliberately seek the right-leaning profiles on the internet and just read what they're sharing every day.

On the 2nd of June, I've found myself a perfect profile for this - a Trump-supporting, gun-loving person on Twitter. Of course, this individual will also be against the current BLM movement in the US, but that just comes with the whole package, no?

I spent a good 15 minutes reading the posts on the profile. It's almost frightening how all of the information shared among this individual's feed is nothing like what I've seen on mine. I must clarify, though, that this person was by no means an extremist. No KKK, no white supremacy, no Nazi. He was just fed with an entirely different news source than mine. When a person lives in a reality so different from my own, formed by different narratives and worldviews, I can't help but feel some dissonance when I tried to make myself understand from their perspective.

You know what's surprising? They did share sentiments on George Floyd's death. They do understand that it's wrong, how the police misused their powers, how they took someone's life so thoughtlessly as so. What they stood against was the riots, the looting, the beating of people. Yes, the left argued that peaceful protests had yielded no results in the past, and desperate times call for desperate measures. However, does this make two wrongs a right? Could we really coldly shrug off losses of small neighbourhood businesses? Is it just for us to justify our actions and name them as 'necessary collateral damage', when everyone with a modicum of sense would know that they were in fact, unnecessary? 

What I saw instead was how these collateral damages had single-handedly dismantled the efforts of the gun control movement for the past few years. Imagine yourself as a liberal-leaning business owner. What choices do you have on your hand that could aid you in protecting your assets? You're almost forced to go and purchase a gun as an act of defence in these turbulent times. Now imagine if you're a neutral person with no political opinions. This would have been the catalyst for you to become a member of the right, no? 

How can we rally more people to our side when we refuse conversation? How persuasive will our cause be when we're now the cause of unnecessary chaos that hurt the very people we wanted on our side? 

I am all for riots. Historical data have shown that protests like these are the only way to overthrow archaic rules, and I would even go as far to say that it is the only way that the ruling class will listen to our voices. However, we should also take pity on our fellow people, those who had nothing to do with the oppressors, and were already clinging to their last threads due to the pandemic. Loot the big names. Rob the huge chains. Make this a fight against capitalism, even though it really has nothing to do with the cause that we're currently fighting in. Even though I am morally against looting, but I will be willing to allow that given the aggravating circumstance. Still, we must guard our actions as closely as we would watch out enemies', as one single domino would cause the ultimate unravelling of the empire.  

The very fact that I can't post this online without being called a racist speaks volumes. Anger stops conversations, culls rationality, and destroys objectivity. We are much more educated than our ancestors combined, and we must rise up above these very primal impulses of fury and rage. 

We can do better.