The Key to De-Escalation

Today, we are wrapping up our Summer Recap series as we discuss a situation that is still developing just across the pond. Back in the middle of the summer, our plan was actually to kick off the new season with a month long series on the Cult of Taylor Swift; looking at the impact of her music and influence on culture and evaluating what is helpful and what is not. Then, on July 29th, a horrific incident involving the brutal murder of 3 young girls and wounding of many others at a dance studio in the U.K. where they were celebrating and dancing to Swift’s music caused us to put a pause on our plan out of respect for the families. But, from that day onward, there has been increasing unrest, protesting devolving into riots and violence in the streets across the U.K. This is a scene that is becoming all-too common on our screens and in our news feeds, but what is needed to quell these heated situations before they boil over? Well, the same thing needed for all of us in our personal relationships when they become contentious and out of hand. That is what we will discuss today!

One of the first reactions we have when we feel we are under attack is to quickly try to identify where the attack is coming from. It’s a survival mechanism. It makes sense. It’s the first step to being able to defend ourselves so that we can’t be attacked again. The problem is that our initial perceptions are not always correct. With the situation in the U.K., early on there were reports being circulated in the news media about the identity of the attacker which later were found to be untrue. This is one of the unfortunate byproducts of the age we live in; those we rely on to report what is happening in the world accurately are not always as focused on being accurate as they are at being first. Once a thing has been said, especially in an official and public capacity, it is very hard to correct course when people are already set in motion on bad information. Many times, redactions and corrections are made quietly, a few days or a week later, multiple pages deep or with a little update at the top or bottom of an article that everyone has already read and probably won’t be coming back to.

This is the type of behavior that we have come to expect from many of our media sources.Everybody has an angle, an agenda, their own bias – thinly veiled and intended to lead people to a desired outcome rather than allow people to decide for themselves. In the U.K. by the time that information was being corrected, it was coming out slowly and incomplete, leading some to doubt its veracity altogether.  As the unrest turned to protests and the protests began growing in number, frequency and intensity, U.K. officials seemed to place an undue emphasis against the protestors rather than the issues they were protesting against, even to the point of declaring certain forms of speech and online activity as criminal behavior, which of course, stirred the pot all the more.

As we look at what is happening overseas, it is important for us to notice the patterns that we may be culpable of in our own lives and relationships. How do we respond to legitimate wrongs that are done against us? Do we wait to get accurate information before assigning blame or do we go hard-headed at the first person we see? Do we seek to understand before we decide, or do we act without thinking things through? It is understandable that we would become defensive when we are under attack, but we need to learn how to defend without adding additional undue offense.

We also need to be careful about who we are listening to. Proverbs 16:28 tells us, “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer (or a gossip) separates close friends.” When news and social media outlets are more concerned about being first than being accurate, they’ve made themselves nothing more than the loudest gossip in the room. The problem is that their words carry far more weight than the average busy body. In your life, who are you listening to? Who are you following? Do you always seem to find yourself fired up about the next big issue? Are you increasingly viewing people you once considered close and trusted friends and family as your enemies and adversaries? If so, then it is possible that you have been lending your ear to the gossips rather than tuning them out.

Now, these are all good practices that will help you to avoid escalating conflict when someone has wronged you, but what about when you are the one doing the escalation? The situation in the U.K. reached critical mass when the attack happened at the dance studio, but tensions had been boiling up under the surface for quite some time. It was easy for many to believe the original reports about the identity of the attacker because it fit a pattern that they have been experiencing and seeing for years. This was not the first attack seemingly of its kind and many U.K. citizens have been growing in frustration and disillusionment as those elected to protect them and who had promised to do so, continued to double down on policies which the people felt were increasing the issues. Rather than acknowledge and try to rectify the cracks in the wall due to apparent breaches of trust, they instead began trying to silence the dissenters with threats of arrest. In your own life, have you ever felt the need to defend yourself when you knew you were wrong? Have you ever doubled down on a mistake or a bad choice in order to maintain your standing, influence, power or control?

There is one key component that seems to be missing here that all of us need to begin to cultivate, and that key is repentance. Repentance is not just saying, “I’m sorry.” Repentance is acknowledging that you were wrong, you sinned, you deserve the judgement you are under and then, and this is important, you turn from your path and walk in the opposite direction. How many half-hearted apologies have we seen over the years, in our personal lives and on the world stage? How many times have we seen people just move past their obvious failings like they had never even happened, only to gaslight you and say you’re the problem for bringing it up? Repentance puts us in the necessary place of humility. We’re not God. We’re not perfect. We will fail. We will even hurt the people we love and care about the most in this world. That is not a little thing. It’s not a trivial matter. Simply saying, “We all fall short,” does not absolve us of the guilt we carry for the wrong that we’ve done and, even worse, ignoring the problems we’ve caused doesn’t make them go away. Repentance is an act of crucifying our own pride because we know that is what pride deserves. It’s sin, and sin needs to die, sometimes publicly. Sometimes shamefully. Alfred North Whitehead famously said, “The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.” Well, the purpose of repentance is to let sin die rather than ourselves, too. It is only through true repentance, humbly laying ourselves at the mercy of one another and turning from our sins that the breaches of trust between us and one another can be mended.