The U.S./Israeli attacks on Iran are reminding us once again of the collective failure of public discourse.

Our ability to hold complexity is evaporating. Our willingness to accommodate nuance is vanishing. Our need for all-or-nothing purity stances is becoming insatiable.Our tolerance for tension is expiring.

Over the last few days, several dangerous myths have surfaced; a series of purported truths about the simplicity of the moment, a litany of supposedly straightforward questions people are being asked to respond immediately to:Do you condemn this war, or do you support Iranian women?

In the aftermath of the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, we here in the U.S. awakened with two very different kinds of videos on our timelines. The first were scenes of massive crowds of Iranian woman, uncovered, joyous, and freely dancing in the streets at the elimination of the source of their subjugation and dehumanization. On their own, they would have been glorious sights to behold, but they were not on their own.

The other videos revealed abject terror, as Iranian people bellowed and wept, while frantically digging through the broken rubble that seconds earlier was a school filled with hundreds of Iranian girls, more than 160 whose bodies were ravaged by the authors of the supposed emancipation being celebrated just blocks away.

Many immediately rushed to deliver a forced choice: Do you support Iranian women, or do you oppose the unprovoked military strikes by two world leaders whose resumes of disregard for human life are legendary?

Is it possible that someone can fully rejoice at the at least temporary return of human rights and to completely grieve the waste of dozens of young lives? It is, and it actually should be, for people whose empathy is not conditional or narrow, who are capable of holding two conflicting emotions simultaneously.

Do you condemn this war, or do you oppose anti-Semitism?

The conflating of a nation’s leadership and a nation’s people has never been wise or helpful, and yet when it comes to Israel, many are not only choosing this dangerous intertwining but demanding it of others, as well. Compassionate human beings decrying the annihilation of the Palestinian people have often been met with character assassinations, immediate vitriol, and charges of anti-Semitism.

I believe one can deeply love, respect, and advocate for the Jewish people and fully denounce and abhor all anti-Semitism, while also condemning Netanyahu and the IDF for what one believes to be war crimes. All decent people need to defend innocent humanity whenever it is disregarded and oppose senseless violence, whatever its source. If we don’t see the commonalities in all those who suffer by war’s hateful hand, we have lost what makes us human.

Do you condemn this war, or do you love America?

The Trump regime, whose cultic MAGA empire has been built almost entirely on the blind allegiance of its rank-and-file and on an all-encompassing branding of any opposition as traitorous and unpatriotic, has always trafficked in extremism. And now that they have launched an ill-prepared and unconstitutional act of military aggression against a foreign nation with no quantifiable justification or exit strategy, the propaganda machine has been working overtime to vilify those who rightly protest it all.

Just as so many other times in our nation’s long and extensive history of violent campaigns built on distraction, religion, oil, real estate, and straight-up bloodlust, the American people are being demanded by the warmongers to pledge undying allegiance or be excoriated for having no love for God or country. And as always, it’s a crock. The very essence of true patriotism and the heart of earnest faith is in recognizing that each refuses to abide injustice or stand with brutality, no matter its source; that speaks unflinching truth to corrupt power and names wickedness no matter how close it is.

In these and so many other cases, whether in our political affiliations, our stances on divisive issues, or our emotional response to wide-scale suffering, we are being pushed to opposite poles by an ever more common reductive oversimplification that demands immediate agreement and absolute certainty.

If we are to be people of conscience, of ethics, of morality, we have to be a people of complexity and nuance; human beings who will not avoid study, reflection, and the tensions that we encounter. We have to refuse to pretend that every situation is simple and every side clear, and to resist the temptation to dismiss people out-of-hand when they don’t show up with the conclusions and clarity that we feel we have.You can condemn this war and still not be sure how to resolve everything that it has unearthed. As complicated as this all is, this is the simple truth.

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