Schismogenesis (1/17/2022)

First a note, writing has been a bit more difficult these past few weeks. I broke my wrist, and typing is difficult (my way of breaking in the New Year). Even reading with one hand is tiring. So, I’ll be slowing down these two months but not stopping.

In all my reading, I learned a new word: “Schismogenesis.” The definition of schismogenesis is the creation of division. Interestingly, it was mentioned in a book I am reading where the authors are talking about things that went on in the 1700 and 1800s. But let me get back to the word. In sociolinguistics, a field I know absolutely nothing about, schismogenesis is defined as creating a split in a mutually aggravating way. Wow, isn’t that than the word that encapsule everything that the past year, maybe two, if not the past five years were all about?

How to explain schismogenesis. Let’s assume we are neighbors, and we compare our like and dislike of certain colors. I like blue and you like red. After a friendly discussion of our color preference the discussion gets that heated that we start accusing each other by the political parties that these colors represent, although the discussion was never started out that way, neither did we ever shared our political believe before. It got that bad that it eventually got to communist vs. fascist. The next day you paint the side of your house that faces me red and guess what? I paint my house blue. That is schismogenesis, a simple disagreement gone bad. 

In essence this is the story of our current political climate. We have gotten so polarized that no middle ground is possible. It is democrat against republican, red against blue, liberal against conservative. No compromise is possible any longer. It is disgusting and distressing. We can discuss who is to blame; and I am sure there we go again. In my liberal view it is the red-haired wannabe dictator/loser of the last elections. However, on his side, it is probably us the election stealers. Get the message? We need to ger back to civility and compromise and recognize schismogenisis when it is staring us in the face.

The proof is in the green cast.  I purposely choose a green one in solidarity with the environment and enxpress my concern about climate warming and the future direction that my state (Virginia) seems to be going in.