Discord Echoes

Life and society develop over time to become more complex and complicated. Fire, the wheel, writing, electricity, the computer, the internets... The complexity makes more opportunities available for humans to survive as a species. We went from hunter gatherers to farmers to shoppers at Walmart. All of those expansion events have ripple effects in other places. All of the progress has come from monumental efforts from the labor of workers. They break their backs so that their children might work with their brains behind desks. Not all of the children of workers can make it to the next rung of the ladder though. Some are fine as workers, some try the arts, some try to climb but fail. When whole families of three generations look at each other and realize no one made it out resentment grows. When whole communities of families of several generations make this realization again and again, hate and resentment and violence erupts.

The disappointment of separated sub-groups of our society has been in an echo chamber of call and response for decades. One group in utter dismay and decrying the injustices the system subjects them to then another group wailing in shrill refrain until an engineer equalizes the song a bit in their favor. There are voices in the center of the chorus, at the outer edges and grumbles from the passive congregation that provide a low discordant buzz that reminds us of the imperfection that soul music relies on. 

Now we see the discontent and hear the wailing that is closest to us. We always heard the grumbles in the reverb. We thought the song was ours to sing as long as we drowned out the other sections. Our choir was so huge that the tenors and the sopranos seemed to never meet. They never believed there was harmony in their discord. Like folks clapping on the 1 and 3 when the emphasis is on the 2 and 4, the polyrhythms sound like chaos when you're in your groove. When the groove is disturbed and funk is overlaid with misinterpreted corniness it can be hard to stay in it and sing along. When all you can hear are the lyrics of the song that you can't stand and this is not your jam it might seem like it's time to step out and find another party.

The reality of the situation has not changed though. The discontent that both groups are shouting about is still very real. Generations of people on both sides feel they are being wronged. They feel they are struggling in vain. That jobs are harder to find. That their safety is threatened. That their values are being dismissed. No matter how we feel about the validity of each other's positions and frustrations we are set in a chorus of discontent that is becoming louder and harsher and more discordant. And while we get snarkier and ruder as we troll and launch meme missiles from behind the wall of computer screens at enemies we only know by profile pics and sound bites, the discord whips us into a chaotic fury that fuels an unseen engine. All because we can't imagine ourselves to ever, ever, ever be so vile. Because we can't imagine.