Dear Auntie Mac,

I’m debating whether or not I should remain friends with some old friends I’ve known most of my life whose “politics” differ so greatly from mine on matters of race, gender identity, immigration. I’m all for free speech and diversity of ideas and have prided myself on my wide circle of friends, but I don’t think I can maintain friendships with those whose ideology I find, frankly, inhumane. Am I wrong to do this, and should I tell them why on the way out the door?

No Longer Able to Put Politics Aside

My Dear Neighbor,

The people we have known most of our lives know things about us that no one else ever will. They remember the way your house smelled of cinnamon. They remember that the ratty old armchair that you still have was ratty even when it was in your parents’ living room being used as a pincushion by your grandmother when she visited twice a year. They remember your father’s voice. They’ve seen the little cemetery where you buried your parakeet, and they helped you come up with naughty names for your 7th grade science teacher. Time passed and you acquired more friends, some perhaps more refined, more avante garde, more intellectual. But there are reasons you have clung to these precious people. Try to remember them now. A lifelong friendship is forged in mutual interests, shared experiences, and more than a few trips down memory lane. Experiences along the way pull us in this or that direction. It’s perfectly permissible to ask one of these friends, when a subject comes up on which you disagree, to say, without anger or accusation, “That just doesn’t sound like you. I remember when we both agreed on this. What happened to change your mind?” The response may not be what you had hoped, and in fact, as passions about so many things are running high these days, it could be met with a torrent of semi-intelligible sputtering directed not at you but at the futility of presenting a cogent argument despite a conviction of being in the right. This happens to all of us, dear, and you can assure your friend that you didn’t mean to cause any anxiety but are truly interested in their take on this issue and their personal reasons for this position. If you still reach an impasse, fall back on what has connected you to this person for all these years, and re-explore common interests and activities.

More frequently these days, Auntie Mac and Lars have found themselves quite on opposite sides of a current issue, and as we both peer across the shrubbery at each other wondering who this person is with whom we have shared so much through the years and yet apparently know so little, we wisely revert to the topics at hand, namely, what are we to do with the climbing roses this fall, however did the privet grow so tall this season, and will the cobblestones hold up for another winter under the punishment of a meticulous gardener with a new snow blower. All subjects dear to both our hearts, and about which we find much communal joy discussing. Every so often, apropos of nothing, remind your friends how much you treasure them, and how much they have meant to you over the years.

We are not our politics. We may stray onto unfamiliar paths and try on new belief systems, much as one would try on different hats. We may find ourselves reveling in the feeling that we are now part of an inclusive group and are no longer alone. We may be fearful of any number of things and are comforted by having articulated for us a way to explain that our fears are grounded and that our current reality is unfair and unjust and not our fault. Our fear may make us strident and close-minded. And we need, especially in these times, to be reminded that we are loved, and respected for our many good qualities, and cherished for the long road we’ve walked with our friends that still has many twists and turns left in it. Abandoning the past, dear, because the present is uncomfortable, is a sure way to lose faith in the future.

Your Auntie Mac