By Nathan Olver, Vice President of OSI | Oct. 23, 2024

Have you ever built a bridge? I’m no civil engineer, but growing up in the North Georgia mountains, I had my fair share of bridge building endeavors to cross streams and creeks. While my early attempts often faltered or ended up getting washed away when the creek swelled after heavy summer rains, over the years, my brother and I improved our craft and ended up constructing a solid bridge across our creek. We found that the best bridges had a few things in common such as a good foundation, a good crossing point along the creek, and a willingness to build the bridge (as opposed to the alternative of sloshing through the creek bed to the other side). Our society today is desperately in need of better bridge builders. Of course I do not refer to physical bridges designed to cross creeks, but rather social bridges that cross the social divides which seemingly deepen daily. 

Allow me to illustrate this point through a real world example of two coworkers I know who became unlikely friends. One is a midwestern woman, a self proclaimed ideological communist (she of course opposes how communism has played out practically in Russia, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere) and an agnostic. In quite the contrast, the other is a relatively politically conservative, God-fearing, southern guy. If we stopped there you wouldn’t be able to come up with a more different set of individuals. And yet I can tell you that they became friends and colleagues who share regular conversations about politics, beliefs, and day-to-day life in a civil manner, though they have their fair share disagreements. How is this possible? While I listed key identifiers that typically make up lines of division between groups, there is far more to a group of people than the monikers that are their social identifiers. Below the surface of those identifiers, both of these coworkers also happen to share a love of trivia, sports, helping people in need, and a distaste for what is happening in the current political climate. Their beliefs about the world, humanity, God, and politics couldn’t be more different, but their values are remarkable similar in many ways. They have built a social bridge between their represented groups that typically would never interact with or speak to one another aside from a potential social media sparring match. How did they do this? The recipe for success was simple, and it goes right back to my bridge building projects in the creeks of North Georgia.

The same principles which applied to successful bridge building when I was growing up, are highly transferrable to our social and political divides today. The best social bridges start with a solid foundation. A solid foundation for groups that are typically “at odds” with one another may be found in different ways depending on the groups. Some of the most typical social divides are socio-economic, racial, rural-urban, and religious-secular. If you only look at the differences between yourself and another social group you will automatically be disinclined to associate with them or speak with them. First and foremost regardless of our differences, all people, no matter how seemingly crazy their beliefs and opinions are, they are human beings. The traditional rural conservative who cares very deeply about his right to own a firearm values protecting his culture, his autonomy, and his ability to protect his family. The traditional urban liberal who is passionate about restrictions on gun ownership also values protecting his autonomy, and his ability to protect his family. Their diverging experiences and cultures result in similar values that are expressed in very different ways. Pausing to recognize one another’s humanity and rational values which underly beliefs is essential to building social bridges. 

This leads to the next key element to any bridge, a good crossing point. As with any relationship, if you look for common ground—a shared interest, a shared underlying value, or a shared experience—then you will have more success in engaging with one another. When those two coworkers first met, they both realized pretty quickly that they were a part of different groups. They also discovered common ground in similar values, such as an interest in de-polarizing discourse, promoting civic engagement, and a concern for the welfare of the local community. Rather than focusing on their differences, the coworkers both chose to lean into areas where they found similarity—good crossing points.

Finally, none of this will be successful unless we find people who have a willingness to build. Most people would look at a creek that they didn’t have to cross and decide not to bother at all if no convenient options were presented to them. Others might choose a one-time slosh through the creek to the other side but plan never to venture that way again. Still others may throw up a temporary bridge that would get washed away by the next big rain. All of these approaches are understandable. They value the ease of an accessible temporary option over the investment of a long-term solution. Building a bridge that has the potential to last involves real work, and it’s typically more than a one man job. Building bridges that cross social and political divides is uncommon because it takes effort, and it’s easier to settle in to our comfortable echo chambers than to put forth the energy needed to build social bridges. Decades of this short-term thinking have left us with one of the most polarized and divided moments in the history of our nation. Everyone recognizes this ill fate, and everyone is ready to point a finger of blame, but too few are willing to build better bridges. 

The goal of bridge building is a change in temperament. To build social bridges we need not dilute our beliefs, values, or convictions—these are essential materials to bring to the building ground. Our posture in presenting these materials must be tempered with humility, understanding, and empathy. We will never see eye to eye with everyone, but if we don’t reestablish a social ethic that encourages cooperation between disparate groups, our social fabric will continue to deteriorate. Our society has plenty of creeks to be crossed, and it’s time to build the bridges necessary to traverse them.