In June 2021, when governments were hoping the worst days of the pandemic were behind us, B.C.’s chief medical officer Dr. Bonnie Henry came up with an idea to celebrate a provincial “Hug Day.”
“It’s one of the things that I’m missing most in this pandemic,” Dr. Henry told reporters. “I’ve been trying to pitch to the premier that we should have ‘B.C. Hug Day’ in July when we get to that point where we can take our masks off and have those closer social interactions.”
Covid had other ideas, of course, as it clobbered us with a third wave. But Dr. Henry had hit on a universal ache felt by humans everywhere coping with physical distancing: the need to interact with others in a personal and tactile manner.
The pandemic fast-tracked many changes that were already happening, including online shopping and working from home.The Metaverse could further transform our lives, leading us to spend more and more time in online communities.
But I am first and foremost a champion of the good old, see-you-at-the-meeting-tonight community. There I can shake your hand and, if you’re up for it, give you a hug. There we are not just sharing ideas but sharing the same physical space.
Perhaps we are meeting for the first time. Perhaps we don’t share the same views and have come to the meeting with different perspectives. There is an importance to that, a weight, a value that you simply cannot find online where people tend to exist in silos with only like-minded people.
That’s why community is so important. I mean real communities where people live and connect with people who are not like us, who don’t think like us and who we’d likely never meet if we remained glued to our computer screens.
Real communities are where liberals and conservatives still say hello to each other, have barbeques together and are there to support each other in times of crisis. Real communities are where neighbours shovel each other’s sidewalks, where they watch to see the neighbourhood kids get on the bus safely and drop off chicken soup when someone has a cold.
Real communities are where we help each other become better. That is a keyword: better.
Too often we opt for another word: blame.
It is easy to point the finger of blame, especially if we do it online where we don’t have to look our targets in the eyes. Being online is like being part of a mob where members can hide behind anonymity. I call this blaming not bettering.
We are experiencing a social shift that is threatening not only our communities’ viability, but is extending all the way to the national level. It’s a mindset shift that comes down to how we are approaching the problems and challenges we face.
No matter what we or our governments do, there will always be problems that arise that need to be addressed. The issue is not that we have problems. The issue is how we respond. Do we take on the challenge and try to make things better, or do we blame others?
In 2022, the Harvard Business Review published an article entitled Blame Culture is Toxic. Here’s How to Stop It. In it, the author pointed out “we are all naturally wired to blame other people or circumstances when things go wrong. These propensities are partially psychological, driven by something called the fundamental attribution bias. We tend to believe that what people do is a reflection of who they are, rather than considering there may be other factors (social or environmental) influencing their behavior.”
The article’s conclusion: “No good comes from blaming and shaming each other for our imperfect nature. You benefited from learning from your mistakes, so allow others to do the same. Use problems and mistakes as teaching moments, not shaming moments… This is how you teach others to approach problems from a place of kindness and compassion.”
We need to take a step back and look at our own behaviours. When we see a new challenge or injustice, we all have a sense that it should be made right and addressed properly. At that point we need to avoid the blame game and find ways to make the situation better. And step up.
And we need to take personal responsibility. Perhaps we volunteer our time or money or offer words of encouragement to those who are stepping up. Not every betterment action must start with a life-changing commitment. For instance, when we learn seniors are desperately lonely, we can visit them or provide a ride to those who go visit. Just a few moments out of our day to make our community better. The big things are naturally important, but the little things matter, too.
Online communities are shared interests and causes, but they aren’t real communities that are there to support you through life. They can give you a thumbs up on a job well done but where are they when you need to move a couch up a flight of stairs? Or, more seriously, when your community is facing a crisis?
And that is an issue because the more “communities” we dive into on the internet, the more we isolate ourselves from our neighbourhood communities. There is a real loneliness pandemic that is hurting us all. That disconnection from community leads us to feel powerless to do anything when an issue arises.
Our move to online communities over our own neighbourhoods has pushed us to focus on blaming rather than bettering. It has left us to put more responsibility on others, usually governments, to fix things. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but governments can’t do nearly as much as we expect them to do.
We need to reconnect with our real local community and start bettering it instead of looking for others to blame.
