I take you back to grade school when you first learned the most basic of sciences. Somewhere during that time, your teacher pulled out two magnets, laid them on the table, and, with a second magnet, hurled the first one away. Magic. Then the teacher flipped one of the magnets to the other end and pulled the other magnet to itself with a snap. You got your first demonstration of polarity (and magnetism). Polarity refers to the fact that one pole, or end, attracts and the other repels – but it’s the same magnet.
Many years later, you’re on your career ladder, but that hasn’t gone well in a while. The person that seems to hold the key to your future doesn’t like you. You don’t know why. He/she won’t say. In fact, this person doesn’t really entertain any time with you even though that was how it was supposed to be when you got the job. You looked forward to it. That person smiled at you big, shook your hand, spoke a few kind words, and left the room. The day you actually started at the company, the exact opposite took place. Your greeting fell flat, your first couple emails received three word replies, and most others were simply ignored. You’ve never had a single one-on-one either, but you’ve requested two or three. There’s no reason why he/she should hate you, but maybe it’s so. One day, you’re tapped to help the boss in the next division on a project. It’ll require you to interact with your own division, but now you secretly dread that prospect because of how you’ve been treated all along. A week later, when you’re giving an update to a workgroup and your key person comes in to participate, you’re suddenly treated by him/her with respect. Why? You don’t know, you hardly care, but the whole room and outlook changed in an instant. The polarity changed.
The lesson, or really, mystery, of inter-personal polarity is very helpful to keep in mind if only because it provides some natural analog to any confusing relationship we have in our life. Gladly, it’s not all of them, but one is one too many. It’s no fun banging your head against the wall and getting nothing in return for it. The same thing applies to groups, parties, factions, allies, and any other social form or entity that you’re engaged with. We need to understand that just trying to do the same things repetitively and getting nowhere with our groups and other movements may not always be the best course.
When it comes to the macro dynamics of conservatism, there is a lot we can apply from the lessons of polarity. The biggest macro-cause for many conservatives (and almost any social group) is the quest to get your enemy to understand you and to also love your values. No matter how hard we try, how much logic we employ – or even how much we demonstrate the benefits our detractors would enjoy if they stopped being such stupid socialist – no matter what we do, they harden themselves and go away even more self-destructive than before. We chide ourselves for not trying hard enough, for not beating our head against the wall enough, when, in fact, we need to either wait for the polarity to change – or understand how to change it ourselves.
A good example is what’s happened in many police departments in the past year. A year ago, city councils in numerous cities (and even some states) were voting to make deep cuts in their own police departments. This was clearly self-destructive. Seasoned political players were cast aside as old fossils as newly radicalized interests dictated how police must go. As budget and staff were severely cut and governments sat idle month after month while they watched murder, rape, and other violent crimes skyrocket for months; epidemics of addiction increase, and mentally ill felons walk in and out of booking stations; they tolerated it, until suddenly they no longer did or could. Some have started to change back. What changed? The trajectory was obvious to everyone else long before cuts were made; the consequences were manifestly obvious after the changes while they yet did nothing. What voodoo magic made them suddenly see the light? A polarity changed for sure.
In a large social equation especially, it may very well be impossible to tell exactly what messaging push or personal interventions might have been the one thing that would change the course of an intractable trend or movement. Many of them don’t change at all in any meaningful time frame, but there are enough examples that do create hope for change.
Here are just a few trends that could use a change of polarity:
A younger generational infatuation with socialism without any understanding of its modern track record.
The left’s embrace of fascist methods all the while thinking they’re not the fascist.
White guilt embracing CRT (mass neurosis embracing socialism).
Never-Trumpers masquerading as conservatives (they’d feel so much more ‘whole’ if they’d just ‘come out’ as progressives).
Average people trusting big media.
Cancel culture revolutionary fervor (until the day their own heads are in the proverbial guillotine).
Globalism swallowing American values and freedoms.
There is no conservative who isn’t faced with the drama of either facing, avoiding, or fighting family, peers, social media acquaintances, or chains of authority that embrace those self-destructive progressive beliefs and agendas. Maybe it isn’t our place to convince them otherwise. As with the example of the police cut movement, sometimes the best medicine is to stand aside and watch the acceleration and imposition of their desired remedy, but also if possible, to isolate it to their truest believers. Some cities should burn, some ivory towers should be locked from the outside, some people or institutions should be taxed into bankruptcy. To someone in a cult, the best way out is to truly live with what goes on in the innermost sanctum. This is a gross simplification of a lot of very powerful movements, but let’s begin with the conceptual at least. It’s better than the prospect of using brute force to change entire brainwashed people groups. Magic.