The Personal Pendulum Swings

 

It has not-so-gently been pointed out that I’m quickly becoming one of those rage farming, self important, opinionated, judgemental goons I held in such low esteem not so long ago.

Here’s the difference though.

Not so long ago I was one of those dyed-in-the-wool Southern Alberta better dead than red Conservative partisan supporters. It was bred into me from a couple of generations of right-wing descendants who exemplified the brand. I was strongly urged to continue on with the Conservative tradition because all that was evil and hateful lived under the Liberal banner. As soon as I reached the age of majority, I was carefully guided to mark my ballot and continue the proud heritage that beat the socialist and progressive dragons back into their lairs. My X would ensure that the Sr. Trudeau wouldn’t march his jackboot minions west of the Great Lakes and impose some sort of martial control over our oilpatch and nationalize our beef industry.

I still recall the look on my father’s face when Pierre Elliot was elected for the fourth time in 1980. The air of doom in Alberta was displayed on faces across the province. We were in the midst of a drought, unemployment was high, oil prices had tanked, and the National Energy Program was regarded as an assault on our resource sector. It was just a piece of the calamity that cost Alberta dearly. The message was clear to this young teenager. A vote for anyone besides the Conservatives would be the undoing of our province and eventually our country. So, I became a loyal partisan Conservative without an inkling of political knowledge. I remained so until 2019.

Enter the opinionated judgemental goon.

In 2019, a good friend of mine – a ranching neighbor – decided to run in the provincial election for the provincial NDP. The incumbent NDP government had won previously, and that old Southern Alberta anti-socialist sentiment was bent on getting back to the way it was supposed to be. I chipped in with our United Conservative candidate to make sure my friend would be soundly defeated. I did some unsavory things. I said some hurtful things. I burned a friendship bridge and sure enough the UCP carried the day. Despite the swirling rumors of election impropriety, I supported the successful MLA and the UCP. Things were as they should be in my indoctrinated mind.

Then Covid.

The fledgling government was mired in the pandemic well over its head. Despite having a pretty good Chief Medical Officer of Health, the response to the virus went from being guided by medical knowledge and evidence-based strategy to a political wrestling match between those who knew the way through and those who didn’t want to follow the way. The government sided with those who didn’t want to follow the way. They usurped the authority of the medical and scientific community in order to maintain the support of their base. It quickly became a populist exercise festooned with unscientific, conspiratorial influences and people were getting sick and dying. Vaccines were developed and the political base resisted them. People got sick and died. Public health orders were shot down by populist mobs and the virus proliferated. People got sick and died. The best summer ever was when I realized that my political affiliation was with a party that yearned only for power and had little regard for public well being. It was no longer a choice of political stripe, it was a choice of morality. People were getting sick and dying.

I did quite a bit of navel gazing. I wrestled with the ghosts of my ancestors. I looked at my own son who I counselled to maintain that Conservative tradition. A task he did very well. I felt the weight of a lifetime of bad political decision. I looked at what I had done through the lens of morality, empathy, humanity and found myself lacking. I replayed all the things I said to people about the scourge of Socialism and how the left was doomed to enslave us all to Communism. I replayed those things I said to my friend about how he betrayed his family and our community by taking up with the Socialists and how our friendship was likely done. I looked at the version of myself that was merely tinder in the political rage fire that Conservatism was becoming.

The final straw came when the MLA I had befriended was whipped into the party line and pitched in with the Coal industry bent on poisoning our Alberta headwaters. The final final straw was the UCP MLA that replaced him being elected under suspicious pretense being entangled with a far-right political action group that had immense influence with the provincial government. I could no longer call myself Conservative. There were just too many signs there that the mission was power. The assault on the public safety nets – Health, Education – was alarming. Still wrestling with the pandemic, Alberta Health is overwhelmed with demand for service and with diminishing resources. Movements to privatize public health care and education have diluted the public institutions and have caused a bleeding out of professional practitioners and educators. People are getting sick and dying. Kids are struggling in overcrowded classrooms with partisan curricula being taught.

That’s not the only assault. The fundamentalist base and that political action group has influenced policy and legislation surrounding the social issues of gender and sexual orientation. Some draconian legislation has all but ignored all scientific and medical information regarding gender and has persecuted those struggling with gender identity with some restrictions that are being widely regarded as human rights offences. Experts are saying youth in those struggles will die.

So, here I am.

As much as I was a rabid Conservative with a lot of vitriolic zeal, I’m finding myself in very much the same frame of mind on the other side of the political spectrum. I’ve been marinating in my social media spaces guided by those pesky algorithms that are designed to validate my confirmational biases. The more I stew, the less empathetic and understanding I am becoming. I’ve found myself lacking tolerance for the right wing, judging others harshly, and belittling those who don’t share my viewpoints. Of course, I insist that my information is of better quality and that I’m properly informed. But I did all of that before. My critical thinking skills gauge swung so quickly past the center ideal operating range to the pin that I really didn’t notice whether I really improved. I might have if I had stopped for a second and looked both ways.

I should be in a better place. I’ve considered the ethical and moral consequences of political choice and find myself where I can look in the mirror and not be disgusted. However, if I look closer, I see those frown lines, the clenched jaw, the disdainful gaze. I feel the tension in my neck. I see the same face that said, “better dead than red” and “all you Socialists will be the death of us all”. Only this time I’m saying, “All you Fascists will be the death of us all”.

I don’t like what I once was and now what I’ve become. It has created quite a bit of friction between me and my community and now in my own extended and immediate family. That not-so-gentle lecture I got has reminded me of what really is important. It’s important to be engaged and informed. It’s more important that I don’t forget the people near to me. Burning those bridges will just leave me stranded and alone with that information.

For that reason, I’m dialling back my Social Media presence. I’ll do a bit more writing about important things. I’ll strive to think critically. I’ll try to find common ground and build bridges with dissenting opinion holders to try and heal what I can. I’ll learn some humility that my small voice making all that noise is a mere feather in the wind. I’m really not that important in the grand scheme compared to cherished relationships, a quiet mind, physical and mental health, self esteem, and sanity.