Oppose Harm, 2nd ed

Oppose Harm

This tenet usually brings up the rear in my list of the tenets of Distilled Harmony. The simple reason for that is that if we are doing the first three right we prevent having to move on to Oppose Harm. Sadly, the current international scene with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine requires a more in-depth examination of the tenet.

The most ticklish aspect of this tenet is the definition of “harm.”  Like beauty, love, and truth, harm is a purely personal notion. One person's "harm" is another's "desired objective." So harm is inextricably linked our experience with the world. And in today’s world that “experience” is increasingly digital.  I was surprised, and I now realize foolishly so, to learn that a young Ukrainian woman trying to explain to her mother in Russia the horrors of her life in the midst of the Russian invasion, was met with her mother's unshakable conviction that the invasion of the Ukraine was necessary to "protect Russia from the neo-nazi threat from the extremists in the Ukraine." While the mother's perception strikes us as bizarre, it is based on the "reality" reflected on Russian media, and the mother - according to our media - has little or no access to any alternative point of view. So from the mother's point of view "harm" emanates from the Ukraine and Russia is doing what is necessary to oppose that harm.

Now, before we shake our heads sadly at the mother's distorted picture of "reality" we really must look here in our own backyard and the wildly varying perceptions of truth and harm relating to covid vaccinations. I have been following with surprise equal to the Russian mother/ Ukrainian daughter varying versions of truth and harm, our own variations of truth and harm regarding covid vaccinations. In the name of full disclosure I am a 73 year-old immunocompromised guy, fully vaccinated and boosted. Which puts me in a somewhat unique demographic category. The data I have been looking at rather arbitrarily divides populations into red and blue based on voting data from the Biden/Trump election. That particular division yields some rather obvious differences. Red people and places place little emphasis on vaccinations, masks, social distancing, school policies, etc. Blue people and places see vaccination and related policies as the best way to confront the pandemic. Red people and places have significantly higher rates of covid infection and related deaths than do blue places and people.

It is important to remember the phrase above "the data I have been looking at." And remember that truth is a personal construct. I do believe - probably because I am an optimist - that our nation is far more purple than red or blue. People with school age children, I'm guessing, are quite purple in their desire to see schools opening, as both red and blue media favor that point of view. But again let me draw your attention to the phrase "red and blue media." They are both out there and they paint pictures of our nation that can be as different as the "realities" being experienced by our Ukrainian/Russian mother/daughter thousands of miles away.

When we encountered the "who do you trust" issue in my media classes we used the following exercise. First we tried to isolate a particularly divisive issue prominent in the news. After eliminating the obvious reality that UNC got more and better coverage in the local media than did NC State, we would move on the issues of broader - hopefully national or even global concern. I would then require them track that story through a wide variety of local, national and international media. I gave them group of local, national and international media outlets identified as right wing, left wing, or neutral. I can share the list with you if you like, just drop me a note. To include it here would greatly expand this post which is already getting too long.

The point of the exercise was not to argue for the verity of one source or another, but rather to demonstrate that various media paint very different pictures of the world. We then followed up with values clarification exercise and I asked them - in a non-graded, anonymous exercise - to define which media mirrored most closely their own view of "reality." The objective of these exercises was not to pinpoint the source of "harm," but rather to demonstrate that truth and harm are often media constructions and before voicing or marching or whatever in opposition to a particular locus of harm, they would be well-advised to consider the source of the information that most, and best, informs their opposition. Then it becomes their - and our - responsibility to determine what form their opposition should take.