From “We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence” by David Dark
“That was weird, right?” is one helpful variation of Is this thing on? The commonplaceness of these expressions reminds us that in moments of debrief, morally serious people everywhere entertain questions like these. They do so after meetings, parties, classes, visits with family, weddings, funerals, transactions in public places, or watching a knucklehead speed away in shame after sitting at a four-way stop a few seconds too long. The questions appear, signaling, conjuring comment and further inquiry: Is this thing on? “That was weird right?”
If even one other person has the will and wits to affirm in response, “Yes, that was weird,” a small school of thought forms, an opening occurs, and a perhaps debilitating silence ends. Fascism has been broken, and a tiny bit of ground has been won against something big or small that seemed off. Depending on the context, the space afforded by such observational candor can serve as a sign of life, a small step toward something more dramatic and consequential: “That wasn’t appropriate…Something is wrong…Time to stand up.”
Is this thing on? I’m trying to describe the very small but enormously consequential moves with which a person makes their witness in the world, standing in integrity and holding the doors of perception open. Deciding to bear witness may begin with a resolve to hold in true tension what occurred and is occurring. Remembering rightly is a little decision. But when multiplied, it adds up to the very big and beautiful decisions that come into view with words like freedom and civilization and justice and culture,
Beautiful decisions are all around us. They add up, despite the catastrophically ugly, evasive, and reactionary decisions that – we know feelingly – also add up. Decisions create culture.
That’s not my line. I borrowed “Decisions create culture” from a friend, Nashville-based psychologist Christina Edmondson. Owning small, unworthy choices as actual, deliberate decisions can feel draining and exhilarating all at one when they affect everyone, as they do.