Meeting of the Minds

I want to look at the big, broken political picture again this week, but I promise that there are definite actions you can take, here and now, to help fix it. As you are probably aware, some of us see a climate crisis while others see too much regulation, some of us see an insufficient safety net while others see a spoiled populace, some see insufficient taxation while others see excessive spending.  We agree that there is a refugee crisis that is the worst since WWII, an immigrant crisis, crumbling infrastructure, a need for jobs here at home, and that the whole Middle East is up for grabs.  We just don’t agree on how to address them.  To face these crises, we have a government that is completely dysfunctional. The absolute and total opposition between Republicans and Democrats is irrational and puts our very survival in danger. Human beings all have the same needs and wants: why is it that we can’t seem to work toward common ground?

I think the basic driver of this impasse for most of us as individuals and groups is fear.

While there are real reasons to be afraid, there is also a fascination with and almost an obsession with fearful events. If the media reports what we want to see and hear, it is clear that the negative is more attractive to us than the positive. Look at any TV newscast, and you will see that the first stories are natural disaster, fire, crime, and scandal. No wonder we are fearful and seriously suspect the motives of those that think differently than us. Now we are not only fearing situations but fearing and mistrusting each other. This fear and mistrust is fundamentally tribal, which means that we attribute all sorts of characteristics and motives to those not in our tribe, and these attributions are fundamentally irrational.

What we all need to understand is that none of us are going to go away. We will never arrive at a point where everybody that disagrees with us will see the light and abandon their position in favor of ours. The recent agreement with Iran is a case in point. To the extent that we see ourselves as the unrivalled power in the world, we can’t understand why we can’t make the Iranians do everything we want them to do. We are told again and again that we have bargained for several years and this is the best we can get, but some of us just can’t accept that, as if we could bluster even more and intimidate them into meeting our ultimatums. What makes that even more ridiculous is that our record for muscling our way around the Middle East has been well short of our expectations.

Those of us who can see what is going on here need to sit down with our counterparts in the other tribe and establish a basis of trust and communication. We trust people that we know and have some commonality with. It doesn’t mean we agree on everything. In fact, that would neither be likely, nor  good for society in the long run. If we all have the same opinion about everything, we’re sure to be missing something. Trust needs to be earned through sincere and compassionate communication. Once we have trust, we can deconstruct our differences and find common ground. We can also gain an appreciation for the different ways that each of us approach problems and allow some compromise in finding a course that we can all live with.

There are also grounds for some conspiracy. While we are at each other’s throats and our government is unable to function, some others are taking advantage of the chaos. It is undeniable that major corporations are, in fact, the decisive players in government policy in the US and that they are working hard to pass trade agreements that will supersede government authority entirely. They are asking us to see government as basically unable to deal with our problems and offering to come in to solve these problems for us.

Our only recourse is to cut through the general dysfunction of society and prove that we can rule ourselves. This, after all, was the grand experiment upon which our country was founded: that we the people had the wisdom to rule ourselves.

I mentioned a month ago that I would like to start a local Coffee Party chapter here. The Coffee Party is made up of conservative and progressive individuals who are sick and tired of the bickering and want to find common ground through orderly and mutually respectful discussion. I hoped that some of you would step up to this challenge, but only one fellow progressive answered, and we have nothing to gain from talking to each other! Listen folks. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by initiating some real dialogue. It won’t be easy, but there really is no other way out of our national dilemma. I’m not sure any conservatives read my column, but if you are one, please consider this invitation. We should keep the sides even so that nobody gets browbeaten. Of course, the discussion will need to proceed along mutually agreed upon rules.

Please respond with ideas.
terry@vashonloop.com, 463 2812