Feb 7, 22

Division and conflict.

Who is gaining from all that has been happening to our society for the past few years? Certainly not the people caught up in the hate and the fear.

I wrote a story about Barrman and his friends skiing Big White. I made two references to the outside world. I mentioned that our friends felt freedom on the slopes. 

Then I shared it with Big White Community News facebook group with the caption “What does freedom mean to you?”

It didn’t take long to get a vitriolic response. 

I shouldn’t be surprised.

With our country in turbulence and revolt around all the covid restrictions that have been placed upon our lives – emotions are raw. I may have made a mistake, but it was an experiment in reactions. Two years ago if I’d made the same comment and the same story but it referred to the life restrictions that have been put upon minorities in our country I wonder what the comments would have been? 

No one in our society is completely free. We haven’t been free for thousands of years. There have been rules and laws in place to protect people from harm since the Romans and Greeks first began writing laws in ancient times.

But now we have faced a viral foe that has changed the way we have had to deal with each other for the last two years.

Nobody likes it.

But it is real and people have died. Others have suffered the long term side effects from the virus. So the people we hired to protect us came up with a way to slow the spread of the disease. It is not just in Canada but it is all over the world. Governments haven’t been able to agree on anything in our history, but on this they have agreed. 

It is not a global conspiracy to control us.

At the same time the way the health care professionals have reacted may have gone too far. But we will never know. If they had done nothing would there be more dead? In my very first blog post I said that if we did nothing and people died then they would be wrong as well. 

We will never know.

Now as the end seems to be in sight people are getting impatient. People are frustrated and a very vocal minority is making themselves heard. Most people that are tired of the conflict and argument have left social media to escape it.

Social media has perpetuated the divide. There is money to be made in engagement and the algorithms are there to keep people addicted to the exchange.

I hope to get more skiing in and less time on social media. I hope that the world can find a way to end the divide.

Before it’s too late.