:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

If you happen to know someone from New Jersey or perhaps you’re from New Jersey, you may be lucky enough to know about sarcasm. Yesterday I watched a brief interview of a columnist that I used to follow on Twitter that sent my sarcasm meter spiking to dangerous levels of snark.

It was definitely a “time out” moment where I wished I lived somewhere with some steps I could sit on to pout and kick my feet.

The topic of the interview isn’t too important for my purposes here, but I’ll give you a taste of it for some context. The slant of the “news” show was the assault of the food police on the school lunches of our poor children. This time chicken nuggets are the target, and this columnist actually said something like, “My kids are going to say, ‘Eww gross, we don’t want to eat vegetables, we like chicken nuggets.’”

I’m a big fan of local food and vegetables who ate his fair share of chicken nuggets, and believe me, kids who are influenced by food industry marketing should not be allowed to tell us that heavily processed chicken bits are a better lunch than naturally growing vegetables. And even if her kids don’t like cheese tortellini with spinach, that’s no excuse for opposing a healthy menu.

I mean, is childhood obesity something that Michelle Obama made up so that the government can control dinner time?

OK, so there’s the sarcasm kicking in. I’m really passionate about food. I’ve watched how cutting back on meat (without eliminating it) has changed the way my body responds to certain foods. I used to eat steak regularly, but now I usually get ill after eating too much of it, while vegetables make me feel great.

However, this post isn’t about steak or vegetables or even those devilishly tasty chicken nuggets. This post is about what we do when we encounter someone who challenges our beliefs online and leaves us feeling angry and possibly threatened.

Part of me wanted to blast this columnist on twitter, sending replies that challenged her point of view.

I wanted to prove that I’m right.

I wanted her to know that she was advocating things that would do more harm than good for children.

I wanted her to know that she was playing right into the hands of industry groups who don’t give a shit about the health of the kids who eat their process slop.

Then my time out moment happened. I thought of that XKCD cartoon where someone off panel says, “Come to bed!” and the guy on the computer says, “I can’t… someone is wrong on the internet.”

There are people on the internet who believe things that are wrong or at least are different from what I perceive to be what’s right. They’re out there, and that’s OK.

I became so upset that someone would challenge my perspective that I thought my only recourse would be to prove that person wrong. The truth is, whether or not I knew about that interview, the fact remains that chicken nuggets are pretty awful when compared to spinach—especially fresh baby spinach tossed in a salad with maple vinaigrette dressing.

No columnist can take that away from me. The existence of opposing views does not necessarily mean my perspective is under attack or threatened. If I do feel a threat to my perspective and I’m attempted to lash out, then perhaps the bigger problem is my insecurity about my own views.

In the case of nuggets vs. spinach, my issue was some kind of pride—at least I think that’s what you call it. I wanted to be the answer guy who proved himself right. I wanted to be awesome.

The truth is, it’s not about me. Whether or not I’m right and awesome, the fact remains that there are still people who are convinced that it’s somehow wrong to remove unhealthy food-like substances (thank you Michael Pollan) from menus and replace them with real, naturally growing foods. These people are not the enemy—though I have no trouble saying that the processed food industry and the news channel eating out of their hands are.

Whether it’s healthy eating, politics, or religion, I encounter people with different views than my own and I’m often tempted to become combative or defensive. I don’t like having my perspective challenge. Who likes that?

I forget that time and time again, combativeness is not persuasive. I’ve never changed my mind because some combative jerk picked my views apart. I’ve had to repent of being that jerk.

My perspective has been changed over time by reading careful explanations of other points of view. In fact, I haven’t necessarily even read point and counter-point works. I’ve just been presented with the ways other people think and have changed my mind over time. Once I found a coherent alternative to my own views, it became easy to switch.

In other words, if we really want to help people, we need to gracefully embody and present what we believe the truth is. I need to do a better job of making the case for the things I care about, rather than spending my time refuting the things that disgust me.

If I spend my time trying to knock over another person’s home, he/she will fight back because there will be no where else to live if I prevail. However, if I can provide alternative lodgings that make a better home, he/she will be far more likely to check it out.

I’ve spent too much time worrying about how to validate my own beliefs by attacking the views of others, that I’ve forgotten it’s not about me. If I’m not trying to help others, then I’m only serving myself, and that’s no better than a plate of chicken nuggets.

A Constructive Step

If you’re a chicken nugget lover who can’t imagine enjoying a salad, I’d like to suggest something. Here’s a link to a maple dressing recipe that we’ve used before. We like green leaf or baby greens for our salads, but baby spinach is awesome too. Some other fun things to mix in our salads include sliced apples (tart is good), cranberries, radishes, strawberries, walnuts, crumbled cheese such as feta or asiago, and of course croutons.