A society living in fear and lack is also in disharmony. When we are suspicious, untrusting, and ignorant of one another’s viewpoint, we are also fearful of losing our place, our standing, our…everything.
I recently became involved in a lively discussion on social media about something I posted in support of broadening our educational system’s sexual education curriculum. While I was not surprised at the opposing opinions, I was surprised at the ignorance, avoidance and antiquated thinking on the subject. In fact, after a long trail of replies and debate, the post deleted and I was blocked from the page, even though my own replies were calm, polite and filled with fact. This post is not about rehashing that particular subject, but it resonates with me and the mission of this website as it relates to the perception of gender roles, gender and sexual identity, and all aspects of masculine / feminine balance.
Everything can be seen with a masculine / feminine coating, be it climate change, immigration, LGBTQ issues, economic opportunity…and etc. Until we can come to some reasonable understanding that we each have our own way of viewing the world, and that none is particularly right or wrong, we will continue to debate the issues that so divide us.
Fear of “the other” whether person, place, thing or action, causes disharmony. While we should not expect agreement on all subjects, at least we can agree on educating ourselves as much as possible in both sides of an issue in order to make an informed decision. In my example above, the subject I posted about was the curriculum from “The Genderbread Person” (https://www.genderbread.org/). The site offers innovative material for educating teens on how gender and sexual orientation develops. Recent breakthroughs in the science of our human development show that we truly have a spectrum of gender and that it is a bit more complicated than just male or female. My thought in posting the information was that by looking at the website a few people might be inspired to educate themselves a bit on the subject. Being informed never hurts, it always helps when the goal is to have an intelligent conversation about something. Each person has an individual level of comfort in such discussion with children, and each of us have different opinions on the appropriate time, amount and subject matter. But that does not change the science. Eventually our children grow up to become the leaders and cogs in an ever changing society. It seems to me that the better educated they are, the less there will be to argue about.
Compromise and common ground are necessary for any form of progress. Removing fear is possible by being well informed. Harmony is achieved when everyone feels heard and we are willing to meet in the middle. The only thing that will put us on a smooth road into the future is fearless harmony.