Can We Talk? Before the violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I was depressed by a spectacle in our State Capitol, where a group of elected officials raced through legislation without discussion, and a group of citizens raced the Capitol doors without decorum. There was no dialogue, only shouting and name-calling. People who are my friends compared our popularly-elected Governor to a genocidal dictator; other of my friends used despicable terms of body waste to refer to the people who teach our children and build our cars. There was no holiday cheer in Lansing, and very little goodwill in the public exchange of opinion that accompanied the process.
Perhaps it's the speed and shortness of response offered by Facebook and Twitter, but my online reading strongly suggests that people have lost the ability to respect one another. Rather than engage in conversation, or even write a message to a legislator, the favorite form of expression these days is a angry, snide, or rude posting that demeans those who hold a contrary opinion. Anger can be useful to move us toward action, and certainly history shows righteousness to be a motivating force for positive change. However, I fear we are moving to anger not based on the disruption of a truth we hold dear, but because of our failings as a people to talk to one another.
Representative Democracy. I ran for public office, as I believe most people do, because I want to help my fellow citizens, strengthen my community, and serve in what I believe is the best form of government. The idealism contained in the previous sentence has been put to the test in my three years as a City Councilmember. I have been called an anti-constitutionalist, godless, a shill for business interests, a communist, financially self-serving, and a criminal (among other things). Most of it is so ridiculous as to not be worth recounting, and I don't do so to seek sympathy. I know criticism comes with the job, but I worry what such language does to the public dialogue that is necessary for our democracy to work.
We elect people to represent our interests, our point of view, our concerns. We hold public hearings, and enshrine this process with rules and procedures, so that people can share their opinions and expertise with those who must make decisions. We make provisions so that the deliberations and actions of our representatives are open to all and can be easily shared through the media. As an elected official, I value public input and seek it out through both formal and informal means, both at Council meetings and at the supermarket, and in handwritten letters and on my Facebook page. I especially enjoy longer conversations and group meetings where there is a chance for true dialogue.
Good Conversation is hard to have when people are calling one another names, distorting the truth, and attacking the motives of their opponents. I worry that when the State Capitol, or City Hall, or an on-line venue is dominated by extreme points of view, those with more moderate perspectives choose not to participate. And when one side makes an outrageous attack against the other, the emotional response is also one of anger. When I am criticized in extreme terms, I certainly don't hear well what the other person is trying to say. That is not only unfortunate, it also reduces the input I get as a decision-maker.
Democracy depends on getting out the most information as possible; verbal assaults reduce our collective knowledge. Like a nozzled hose, an angry protest may increase the power of the flow of information, but it also limits how widely that knowledge may be shared. If democracy is a garden, wide conversation, not a narrow stream of insults, will make it grow.A House Divided Cannot Stand. I worry that extreme voices, harsh language, and a lack of respect will paralyze local, state, and federal government. Perhaps it already has. If there was anything that could bring us together, one would think it would be the death of innocent children. "This is our first task--caring for our children," said the President of the United States. "It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right." Yet, even during this speech, people were criticizing the President, with racial epithets, for interrupting a football game.
Constitutional rights and civil rights are all serious topics where one might expect emotions to be high. But I now hear outrage, and read the "F" word online, when the City Council discusses water fees, building codes, or snow shoveling. These are all important issues, to me at least, but are they so visceral that only strong emotion is the only viable form of expression?
So What to Do? Maybe the issues that face us, such as the inexplicable use of assault weapons by those with a history of mental illness, are too difficult for government to address. I don't think so, but the answers are not easy. I think people feel disenfranchised from, and distrustful of, government, even at the local level. Those of us involved in government, especially those who are elected to represent the public, need to work harder to welcome people into the process, to value their presence, to truly hear them, and to engage in conversation. We need to work harder to find a common language, to speak the truth, and to listen boldly. We need to stop the shouting, so we can hear.
For all of us involved in our democracy, at any level, whatever in our role as citizen or official, here are five things we can do to begin to restore meaningful dialogue (and I need to remind myself frequently of these goals):
- Take a deep breath, stay calm, think before we speak, and don't overreact.
- Value all voices; start with the assumption that the other guy has good intentions, even if they are mistaken in their position; show respect.
- Listen first, speak second; ask questions; or as Stephen Covey said "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
- Be truthful in all that you say and do; rely on data; base your argument on facts, not insults.
- Be comfortable with ambiguity; there may be more than one right answer, and you probably don't have it.
I am fortunate to be part of a City Council where the men and women who serve on it seriously strive to reach these standards.
What I have (re)learned in the past week is that we cannot control everything, we cannot prevent bad things from happening. We need each other to get through the tough times. And as much as we may want to, we can't solve every problem; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We need each other to find the best solution. None of us alone is as smart as all of us together. But for us to rely on one another, to help one another, we need to be able to talk to one another.
