There are bound to be casualties on both sides in the culture wars.  Try as we might to be considerate to those whose feelings and opinions matter to us, we are bound to run into some difficulty that either hurts them or us. If we speak our minds to persons close to us whose position radically differs from ours, we risk making them feel diminishing and alienating them. If we keep our mouths shut and keep our ideas private, we risk feeling passively diminished and alienated.

Ideally, we’d like to be able to be who we are and know that those close to us will accept us. This is especially the wish where family members are concerned. It’s also the type of relationship most likely to expose us to one of the most unfortunate sides of the culture wars. It is the place in our lives where we will probably have to draw strictly defined lines in order to save ourselves and those we care about from long-lasting wounds.

Of course it’s not the only place we will find ourselves drawing such lines. Other relationships (professional or casual) will require us to do so for the sake of civility. But I am mostly concerned here with close interpersonal relationships, especially familial ones, because these are really thorny and fraught with danger.

What got me to thinking about this whole issue was reading the atheist blogs I usually do (Pharyngula, Unreasonable Faith, and Daylight Atheism) and contemplating the rather heated arguments that can erupt in the comments. That and, tied to my own reading pursuits, what I write here and on Facebook and elsewhere.

Where I feel free to say what I want, there are no lines. But introduce the proximity (virtual or real) of family, and I suddenly feel more cautious, more reserved, less prone to speak my mind in no uncertain terms. I have drawn lines, or accepted the de facto lines I perceive or that are/were imposed on me by my society or upbringing. And so I wonder how some of the more outspoken people would handle their own families. My guess is that familial respect would cause some quite outspoken people to rein in their tongues. Let’s note that it would not because of shame or a sudden sense of doubt in their opinions, but simply because our respect for others is a powerful force even when we wish it wasn’t.

But is there something that would make us cross those lines? If even a beloved family member kept going on and on at length about, let’s say for example, how ridiculous and foolish atheism is, how long would we be expected to take it? My own thought is that I would take it indefinitely… with the caveat that by indefinitely I mean “as long as I could, however long that turned out to be”.

What I’m getting at here is that there is a matter of (typically unspoken, often subliminal) valuation in play. Love and/or respect for a family member, say, can trump the value of expressing one’s thoughts, at least for the nonce. This is also true for good friends, and it is certainly so for spouses or other psychologically intimate partners.

When we enter the realm of the less personal, however, the lines become blurrier or are done away with altogether. Generally speaking, we give no quarter to strangers whose positions are antithetical to ours, even when such strangers share nationality, political affiliation or some other erstwhile uniting quality. In fact, on an impersonal level it may be more of an incentive to promote one’s different point of view precisely because one shares some other important—and otherwise uniting—quality with a stranger. Let me hasten to note that this is something of an oversimplification on my part, but I will stick with the general statement it makes. There are of course going to be a great many qualifiers in play, from the mundane and immediate (e.g., the stranger is attractive to you) to the more subtle and complex (which buggers an easy e.g., but think diplomacy and politics). The main thrust here, however, is this: we will sooner allow love, respect and manners to make deceivers out of us than to hurt someone we truly care about, while we will gladly go—all truth and honesty—for the jugular of a perceived opponent with whom we share little or no intimate acquaintanceship.

Society is not so strong a bond that it can overcome our personal desire to speak our minds. Or, rather, society is the type of bond that excites our desire to speak our minds. In democracy-based societies, we are especially encouraged to hold forth both as individuals and as members of a united political body. Were there not an aggressive exchange of antipodean ideas from time to time, we would only evince a latent tendency toward stagnation as a society. The current culture wars are evidence that we are healthy enough to be experiencing growing pains. Uncomfortable as they may be, we need to deal with them. But we also need to remember how to draw lines when we ought to. We have to acknowledge that there will be times when we have to suck it up and be dishonest in the name of respect or love. Not that any of us would ever be happy about it.

If I was to be present when some religious fanatic was drawing his last breaths, and if his eye fell upon me and he asked me to kneel beside him and pray for his deliverance, I would do it. It harms me not at all to give comfort to the dying, even if I know the person is deluded and ignorant. But I should never forgive myself if in that moment I chose to inflict the truth on the dying man. The moment he was dead, I would know he was no more. He would have lost the only thing that made him real as a person: his life. But I would not say this to his family or intimate survivors. There are lines. Even without “God”, there are lines.