The Benefits of Being Odd

When I was home in Belfast recently a friend asked how I remained so immersed in networks made up of people who broadly believe very different things than I do. In asking this question she was referring to both my social circles and working relations in the US. While I had to admit that this situation wasn’t one I actively choose, it had turned out to be deeply enriching.

Back in Northern Ireland I’m much more closely aligned with the political and social outlook of my friends, partly because we have shared a similar journey and influenced each other over the years. But in America I found myself thrown into a very different political and religious environment.

This has turned out to be a great experience, not least because it challenges my tendency to draw lines of solidarity in relation to shared belief. Something that likely reflects a natural tendency in individuals to seek out those who hold broadly the same religious, political and social outlook as themselves.

When nestled in such enclosures our views are largely reinforced and reflected back to us in various ways. What’s more, we can be tempted to take a rose-colored view of these enclosures, while adopting a more cynical view of those occupying different intellectual territories. We can find ourselves inclined to attribute good motives to the former and more insidious motives to the latter.

Being immersed in friendship circles where my theoretical outlook is broadly at odds with my friends and colleagues has acted as a type of short-circuit to those tendencies in my life. I’ve been confronted time and again with gracious, courageous and authentic individuals whose views are ones I disagree with, or even find problematic. It’s also shown me the nasty ways that some intellectuals operating within my theoretical camp have treated these friends. In addition to this it’s given me an opportunity to view some of my beliefs from another person’s perspective, an uncanny experience that can expose the peculiarity of my own cultural position.

I’m not sure how possible it is to choose to immerse ourselves in communities with radically different beliefs and practices to our own. I know individuals who’ve directly attempted this, and the results have generally been poor (the move has seemed heavy handed, patronizing or just plain naïve). Perhaps it is most successful when you don’t directly choose to do it, but rather make other choices that indirectly result in it.

All this to say that my time in America has reminded me that there are revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries within various political and religious/nonreligious camps and that, instead of just building communities of shared belief, we should spend time building solidarity with revolutionary forces wherever we find them.