I have a question for you, my dear neighbor: what type of community do you want to live in?
When I moved to Old Mission in 2019, I didn’t think I would last in northern Michigan. After spending more than a decade in San Francisco, Denver and Boston, the culture shock was huge — but I had resolved to give it a year.
Through that year, I developed a love for this community: the connection I built through joining the Old Mission Peninsula Education Foundation and Commongrounds boards, running into people I know at the park and the amazing natural resources we have available to us.
Countless experts have proven that we are happier and healthier when we are connected to a community and giving back to it. On the flip side, we become depressed, isolated and lonely without that connection.
After having lived in cities for so long and then moving to our intimate community, that fact certainly resonates with me. I get to see the impact of giving back directly on people I know, which fills me with joy and deep satisfaction. I’m sure many of you feel the same way — treasuring that neighborly connection and tight-knit community. We can turn to each other for help, use our collective resources to improve all our lives and have daily connection through windshield waves or quick hellos. I believe that sense of community is currently at risk.
Yes, we have conflict. It’s not the subject of conflict that concerns me, but the way in which we disagree. There will likely always be disagreement, which is natural, but the disagreement now has taken on a tone of jeering, bullying, berating and even name-calling. This degrading tone is destroying the fabric of our community.
In conflict resolution, we say: “Be hard on the issue and soft on the people.” Now, instead, we are being hard on the people and not even discussing the issue. The way to actually resolve conflict is by coming together in respectful dialogue, where we can all share our perspectives and find a path forward. From my experience, most conflict is resolvable if approached this way.
On the other hand, when we approach conflict with sharp comments and pointed attacks, it destroys our ability to find common ground and a reasonable solution.
No one likes to be attacked or bullied, and no one should have to be. It’s never anyone’s job to “put up with it.” Ever. What it does is make us feel more protective of ourselves and entrenched in our positions, meaning that we don’t want to engage because it hurts. Of course, it hurts! No one is immune to harsh words, and we can sometimes forget that people are human, our neighbors, and not just figureheads representing some entity.
What we are seeing repeatedly across the country are situations where people who are trying to give back and do good just can’t take the abuse any more and leave. This ultimately means the community suffers. People end up being worse off, more isolated and lonely.
If you look around at interactions happening in person and online, we are at a tipping point. People are starting to lean into the harshness and abuse, but I implore you to lean out. Imagine your child or spouse being verbally attacked and bullied the way some people currently are in the community. What would you do? Is it acceptable? What would you hope others would do?
There is an answer: Stand up against it. Each of us can change the dynamic. We can insist it is unacceptable to behave that way in our community.
We can call it out every time we see it, and we can call it out gently: “It sounds like you have strong feelings around this and have something important to share. Is there a way you can do that so it focuses on the subject and your needs, rather than attacking people?”
It may feel like an overwhelming problem, or that it’s too late, or that it’s “someone else’s problem.” We are not helpless in this situation, and we can change it — but we must do this collectively. We have to be allies for each other and insist on treating each other with respect, even in disagreement.
When enough of us stand up and say, “No, this isn’t acceptable,” it will stop. People will change their behavior, and we will be able to come back together as a community to resolve and move past conflict – rather than getting stuck in it.
So, I ask again: What type of community do you want to live in?
It’s my responsibility, and yours, to act in a way that preserves the interconnected loveliness of our community.
Let’s take a stand and insist on civility toward each other.