Our Spaces of Difference

There is much discussion about the polarising nature of social media, the increasingly partisan nature of?politics, and the seemingly endless spaces of our difference and dissent. And it is true that we live in noisy times, where often the first reaction is rejection. But there may be value in considering the structural nature of difference, in that we inhabit three spaces, not simply two.

When we talk about agreement or argument, about belonging or exclusion, about love and hate, we are inclined to see a binary state, but it can be useful to consider a third space. A space of tolerated difference. Which may also be a space of potential.

On some things we are clear: there is ‘us’ and ‘other’, but for many topics, there are spaces of overlap, or gaps between the systems. Spaces were we are not unified, and yet not fully opposed. Potentially we could describe the polarisation of many of our systems as a collapsing of that space – a narrowing of the gap, but not necessarily an entire closure.

I find that this thought is useful as a matter of our individual practice in?Social Leadership: we see that in many cases our expenditure of our Social Currencies, like kindness, trust, and pride, happens within existing social structures, and within systems of unity. But we may choose to consciously identify not only difference, but the spaces between. And these may be tangental to our opposition.

These are spaces in parallel, or surrounding, our difference, but which may be explored to test ideas of commonality, or to negotiate shared understanding.

The opposition of disagreement does not have to be full agreement: it may lie in a narrated difference, where we can at least articulate what holds us apart.

This may sound idealistic, and yet our differences, for all their emotion, are rarely intractable, if we can find the gap, the lever, and the understanding.

There is an irony that many modern Organisations describe ‘difference’ as a strength, and yet ‘difference’ is where our conflict is held.

Perhaps one way to consider it is that ‘difference’ is a landscape that can be mapped, and in doing so we may discover new pathways.