Are you afraid of the dark?
Fear of darkness, or nyctophobia, is now relegated to a cute childhood memory for most of us. But an intrinsic fear of the dark is hard-wired into us humans. After all, we’re not designed to be nocturnal (except for the four brief years of college). Fear of the dark is an evolutionary adaptation that enabled our ancestors to avoid predators and other calamities. A hidden landscape is a dangerous one.
Today, we are blessed with a well-lit physical environment. But our social climate is murkier than ever before. Trust is at an all-time low. We seldom know our neighbors, much less talk to them. Our lives on social media are even more fraught. In this way, our assumptions about others are made in darkness, like attempting to discern a shadowy figure in the distance.
To see the entirety of a figure, one must closely examine it in the light. A pyramid could be mistaken for a cube or a prism for an octahedron. But all these shapes share one thing in common — they are all polyhedrons.
Polyhedrons are 3D solids comprised of polygons that are conjoined at the edges. Polyhedrons are complex, multifaceted entities that come in a variety of flavors despite the geometric constraints on what constitutes a polyhedron. Distinguishing one polyhedron from another takes patience and is the premise of the entire field of polyhedral combinatorics.
What if we viewed each other just as we studied polyhedrons?
In today’s sociopolitical climate, we group ourselves into binary categories. Are you a Democrat or a Republican? White or Black? Man or woman? Religious or atheist? Based on how you answer these questions, society infers certain attributes about you. The challenge is that people never align neatly into these categories, leading to stereotyping and polarization. We are all intersections of overlapping identities that may not be traditionally associated with each other. As the amount of people we encounter via the internet grows and our attention span simultaneously shrinks, we rely on simple characterizations to process information at the speed demanded by our fast-paced digital environment. Space and time compel us to reduce others into cartoonish versions of themselves. The path out of this spiral, is, naturally, to give ourselves more space and time.
The metaphor of a polyhedron is not a new one. In his encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" Pope Francis states that a polyhedron is emblematic of “a society where differences coexist, complementing, enriching and reciprocally illuminating one another, even amid disagreements and reservations." We are not supposed to pretend that our differences have suddenly disappeared, but rather acknowledge the shared human experiences that unite us.
But instead of appreciating the humanity of those around us, we too often act like the devices that we are always on — computers. Our modern computing architecture, despite all its complexity, still relies on a binary code of 0s and 1s. Even as servers are developed that process an enormous quantity of 0 and 1s in milliseconds, they still only recognize 0s and 1s — nothing in between. In the same way, we analyze those we encounter with the same dualistic mindset and respond accordingly.
The roots of this challenge can be traced back to where our values come from. Many cite the aftermath of the 2016 election as the moment when America became defined by polarization. In response to the election of Donald Trump, liberals began placing "In this house" signs in their yards. A conservative version emerged soon thereafter. Regardless of what the signs actually say, they serve as powerful symbols of values diffusion in our society. The signs — and the words on them — are curated and distributed by politicos. Normal people are expected to accept the values distributed to them or else risk severe condemnation. Values are, by definition, things that you believe in and motivate you to get out of bed each morning. Therefore, you should create your own beliefs, not your party. Top-down values creation is what suppresses organic creation of social norms. Original ideas, those developed within the local community, are more likely to help groups overcome their collective challenges. In other words, trickle-down values are just as ineffective as trickle-down economics.
These developments are coupled with the rise of partisan schadenfreude in American society. Schadenfreude is when one experiences pleasure derived from the suffering of others. It’s that feeling when the victor is happier about their opponents’ pain in failure than their own joy in winning. While it’s obvious to foresee the deleterious effects of schadenfreude on social capital, what’s less clear is how we got to this point.
Part of the answer lies in the constant temptation to define ingroup versus outgroup dynamics. One of the most oft-repeated lines in political communication is "You are either with us, or against us." This quote, or variations of it, has been used by a diverse array of public figures — including Cicero, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell, Mussolini, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Sarah Palin and Anakin Skywalker. Given that many of these figures lived in liberal democracies in which appealing to the median voters is the objective, villainizing neutrality seems foolish. As a result, polyhedrons, people who prioritize independent thought, get locked out of our social and political systems.
Most remedies for partisan polarization focus on strengthening our relationships with those around us. And while these efforts are impactful, they are only effective as the people who participate in them. That’s why civility can’t be restored without widespread personal introspection. In our nonstop information environment, we seldom have the time and wherewithal to reflect on our own existence. Only in these quiet moments can we truly understand that we are polyhedrons — unique creations shaped by a variety of identities and experiences that may contradict societal expectations. And we also become more aware that those around us — whether we agree with them or not — are polyhedrons too.
Aaron Siegle is a Trinity junior. His pieces typically run on alternate Fridays.
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