David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Hate will always turn violent until we all learn to disagree in peace

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Every time there’s a hate-driven attack on a group of people, there’s a mad scramble among political groups to score points by framing the attack to support their positions.

If it’s Muslims who are killed by terrorists — as was the case in New Zealand this week — there’s a rush to frame the attack as part of a worldwide conspiracy of hatred against Muslims.

If it’s Jews who are killed by terrorists — as was the case in the Pittsburgh synagogue murders last October — we hear about how anti-semitism is the worst and most common hatred in the world.

If it’s westerners who are killed by terrorists — whether the attackers are white Americans or Middle Eastern Muslims or something else — there’s another of half a dozen narratives.

So we hear all about how white people hate black people. Jews hate Muslims. Black folks hate white folks. Muslims hate Jews and westerners. Neo-Nazis hate everybody who isn’t white. The list goes on and on — and the narrative you listen to is determined by your political allegiances.

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What if a key to knowing what to do is built into everybody’s gut?

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I saw a woman at dinner tonight who I haven’t seen in a couple of years — and I felt the same electricity from her that I experienced six years ago when she first walked into my office.

I vividly remember that day. I was working at a college and she needed my help with something. I have no idea what we talked about, but I remember the day clearly because I knew — from the moment I saw her face — that she was one of those women.

I’ve never tried to explain this to anyone, because it’s been such a gut-level thing that I wasn’t conscious of it for a long time. All I know is that there were a very tiny number of women who come into my life who are “one of those women.” They are some very small group in which my gut recognizes something and says to me, “This is one of those women who might be a right partner for you.”

It’s completely from the gut. If my gut tells me that, I need to pay attention to the woman. If my gut doesn’t tell me that, I’m never going to fall for her, no matter how great she is otherwise.

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Please be patient with my site as it’s being completely remodeled

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If it seems to you that things suddenly look radically different around here, you’re right.

My site is under construction in the coming days. Maybe weeks. Some things will continue working. Some might not work as expected for awhile. Please bear with me.

This switch has been in the works for months and there’s still a lot of work to be done. The theme I’ve been using for seven years has served its purpose very well. I actually still like it a lot. But because it wasn’t designed for mobile devices — and the developer of the old theme isn’t still around to update it — I was forced to move to something new.

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