Voting is the Best Cure for "Common Enemy Intimacy"

Ever since the last presidential election, we've been engaging in “common enemy intimacy”--the problem is it undermines the world we want.

As a person who follows politics and public policy closely with a commitment to my own personal integrity, I am not alone in finding elections (and the entire period since 11/9) challenging.  In TED Talk goddess Brené Brown's latest book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, she says “the challenge is to stop using gossip, common enemy intimacy, and oversharing as a way to hotwire connection.”  

 “Common enemy intimacy” is the coin of the realm right now and most of us, myself included, are trading in it constantly.  Every time I laugh at Trevor Noah's skewering of the President, exchange outraged comments with my husband over the breakfast newspaper reports or bond with a friend at coffee over the latest report, I'm engaging in it.

But, I hear you saying, what's wrong with this?  Aren't the things that we're outraged about, well, outrageous?  And doesn't it make sense to bond over it?  Well, I was reminded recently in listening to a talk by integral enlightenment guru Craig Hamilton, that our evolutionary success as a species depended on exactly that, tribal loyalty over a common enemy.

The problem is that every time that those of us who believe in a world that works for absolutely everyone are bonding over a common enemy, we go backward, not forward because we are engaging in separation.  The reason its wrong to pit people against each other by race and nationality and class is because we're all one.  And that includes the people that are using this strategy of pitting people against each other.  When I use common enemy intimacy, I move away from a world that works for everyone and return to the tribal model. 

There are two cures for this conundrum:  1) bond over what we're for instead of what we're against.  I don't know about you, but I believe in world where every single man, woman and child goes to bed with a fully belly, a full heart, a roof over their head, and enough clean water to drink and clean air to breathe.  That's what I'm for.  2) Vote for candidates whose policies you believe will bring us closer to that world that works for everyone and try to get others to do the same.