Day 5 Leave the Bubble!

In ‘Braving the Wilderness’ Bréne Brown talks about ideological sorting. How in the US but also across the globe, people are increasingly politically divided. We live within these echo chambers both physically and digitally, have attitudes like you’re either with us or against us and feel more lonely than ever.

I was reflecting back on my own experience and I think I may very well be an exception of the rule. I grew up in circles that were quite homogeneous when it came to education, political attitudes and economics but I felt misunderstood, lost and lonely. Then I left, moved across the globe to somewhere people had completely different attitudes and found a way to be myself. Actually being a foreigner made it easier for me to be at peace in being different. Listening to people from different cultures gave me the context I needed to find my own perspective on all things from politics to art. So yes, I have to agree with Bréne that those diverse encounters have enriched my life and created a greater sense of belonging.

Yet, when I go home and I am confronted with those who make no effort to expand their perspective, I am just as lost in how to talk to them. I don’t have the words to explain, at least not in a way that I feel would actually reach them.

What I can see is a group of people who have a very awkward position in the global economy. On one hand we have been so lucky and privileged to be born in the time and place that we were. German upper middle class, that is quite a catch. But simultaneously, there is a fear of loosing the privileges, a knowledge of global inequality and that we truly don’t deserve to have that much more than others. We can quickly order things that were made abroad in labour conditions we would never accept. So how is a group under economic pressure, during the rise of AI and with most of the world earning less going to open up?

Stepping out of the bunker is an admission of privilege and luck, of how we have passively and actively bought into an oppressive system. We know there are much richer people than us but on the whole this messed up hierarchy has been in the favour of those I grew up around, of me too.

I don’t have a grand answer, just vulnerability and accountability. We have to acknowledge that we would need to give up some of that material privilege if we truly want a more equal world.

I hope you’re doing well wherever you are

Celine