Learning, Listening, Doing

Yesterday’s post was on listening. Giving other people a chance to be heard. That makes them feel respected and valued. It also gives you and I the opportunity to learn what they think and feel. With a little patience we will also learn why they feel this way. That process will likely help us see how much they are like us.

We may hold different opinions and beliefs but we are mostly alike. In so many ways.

Realizing that alone is a major step toward understanding our differences; also our similarities AND what we can do about these three elements. Identifying our differences and similarities leads to doing something about them. The doing ought not be focused on changing anyone’s mind. It should be aimed at changing outcomes we both would like to see.

Currently Americans realize how uncivil our public life is. That public environment is the very surroundings of our public discussions, Tweets, Facebook mentions and email traffic. It is not all about the news or elected officials and their political discourse. It is about all of us.

Some of our discourse is blasé and flippant. We intend it to be a joke or light hearted attempt to ease past a disagreeable topic. It is sort of our way of calmly acknowledging disagreeable things without going into details.

In many instances, however, the discourse gets a bit rowdy and heated. That’s the uncivil part, mainly because it calls forth a response. And then the fight is on. No winning is possible in such a setting. Best to let it go and find another way to combat the impasse.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We see and feel the impasse and it is frustrating. But what do we do about the impasse? Will we always be at odds with the other persons in this debate? Must there always be a debate? Must there always be an unpleasant battle associated with public discourse?

It seems to me we need to find a more constructive manner in which to be in disagreement. And I don’t mean TV comedy shows embracing political humor; those shows may be entertaining when they agree with your point of view, but they also strengthen the walls between mindsets all the more. I’m thinking of Steven Colbert and Trevor Noah here. Both of them are hilarious. Both of them support my viewpoint. Of course I’d think they are hilarious.

But the humor only salves the hurt, or eases the tensions. It doesn’t solve anything.

Yes; I’m a problem solver person. I want to fix things. I want people to feel better about things they can’t control, but then take practical steps to maybe solve the problem eventually.

Incivility run rampant does not allow us to solve anything. It only nettles us the more and makes the problem more difficult to solve.

I think most of us think we have a solid grasp on the issues; we likely think the ‘other side’ doesn’t get it very well. This is the crux of the problem, however; judging the others as not getting it is like saying they are stupid or something. They are not stupid. They just haven’t experienced the issue in the same manner as you and I have. And we have not experienced their reality either. It works both ways.

We need to give each other room to live our own experience. The trick is to learn how we are alike. What connects us? What builds understanding among us? From there we can tackle defining what it is we both support, like desired outcomes. What are those? Do we know? Or are we too caught up in the argument about other things?

We can argue the role of government endlessly, but what is it we hope for as an outcome? Do we want our community life – local, regional or national – to be calm, collaborative and successful? How do we measure that? Those are the outcomes I’m talking about. And both are possible with a small government or a large one. That is an issue of ‘how,’ not what.

And that may be the essence of our problem. We fight over the how so much we lose sight of the what.

I wish a good life for everyone. I recognize this is a fight for some to achieve on their own, so I allow some charity, church and government to help them. What’s the best manner to deliver the help? Best, I suppose without massive organization, just people to people helping each other. Too many get lost and forgotten in that process, I think, so I’d rather have a more efficient process. But there are other ways to achieve the same outcome. The main thing is knowing what the outcome is we all are struggling for.

Listening, learning and doing I think are the three elements needed to make this happen. It may be that we are muddling about so much with details that we have missed the answer entirely. Worth a try?

June 22, 2017