Tag: compromise

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Inside Out

If anyone is feeling a little confused these days, you have my complete sympathy.

On the one hand, coronavirus news has flooded the airwaves, the front pages, and the social media outlets from here to the asteroid belt. (I’m happy to say that Ceres has yet to report its first case.) In among the unceasing reminders on how to wash our hands – our kindergarten teachers must be so disappointed – we’re constantly told to do our bit to make sure the virus doesn’t spread. “Stay home if you’re sick.” “Isolate.” “Quarantine in place.”

Introverts everywhere, our hour has come.

On the other hand, this is also an election year. And so we’re also being bombarded with images of campaign rallies on every side, urging people to let the nation hear our voice. “Get up.” “Get out.” “Show your support.”

So we desperately need to engage … and we desperately need to separate.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of a first-rate intelligence – the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in the mind simultaneously and still function – is making more and more sense.

I know, we’ll work through it. Not just because both elections and public health are necessary. But because frankly, this kind of chaos and tension is nothing new for us.

We’ve been dealing with this for generations.

It’s a phenomenon that Bill Bishop addressed 16 years ago in a book called “The Big Sort.” Given the ability to live where they want, he noted, people mostly choose to live near people like themselves. By itself, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing. After all, who doesn’t want to get along with the neighbors?

But politics in a democracy depends on multiple voices engaging and finding common ground. That’s one thing when you may be constantly brushing against friends and neighbors who hold different perspectives and maybe challenge your views. But if more and more of the people you encounter are ones like you, where your beliefs and assumptions are taken for granted, that skill of engagement and compromise has less opportunity to be used.

What doesn’t get used, withers.

The process had already been accelerating with the increased mobility in the decades since World War II, when the internet and social media came along and sent it into hyperdrive. People had more power than ever to choose their “neighbors,” to choose their news sources … in a way, to choose their reality.

And when that reality finally collides against another, when the bubbles burst, the result becomes not compromise but conflict.

I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture of American democracy or too dark a picture of the online world. There’s always been a certain amount of conflict within the process, and even outright violence. (You could ask Alexander Hamilton, for example … but better do it quick, he’s got a duel at dawn.) And the same internet that can isolate has also introduced friends that would have never met, opened up experiences that would have been unreachable for many, and allowed outright explosions of imagination and creativity. It can and does allow for increased connection, even when isolated by disability, circumstance, or, yes, illness.

Politics and the internet are tools. They can be used for good or ill. And right now, they’re throwing one of our most basic conflicts into stark relief.

The need to engage. The desire to separate.

Long after the coronavirus has been dealt with, that clash will still be there. And it’ll still be the real challenge. These days, even under a quarantine, one can stay within the walls of their home and still be connected to the world.

But the quarantines of our minds – now THAT’S a barrier. And one we’ll have to resolve for as long as we’re living together on this planet.

Though I hear Ceres is very nice this time of year.

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Doing It “My Way”

“If I had my way …”

Just writing those five words takes me back to my second hometown of Emporia, Kansas. It’s a nine-hour drive by car, but an instant flight in imagination. It just takes one thought to walk the acres of Peter Pan Park, or to race to my (cluttered) desk at The Emporia Gazette, or to taste a Braum’s sundae yet again.

And somewhere in that weave of images lives John Peterson.

Mr. Peterson, who died recently at the age of 96, was a man of many parts: professor and dean at Emporia State University, world traveler and biologist, passionate about conservation and the arts. But the open door through which most of Emporia knew him was his regular column in the Gazette, called “If I Had My Way.”

The title sounds didactic. It wasn’t. This was not a command, but an invitation. John’s column walked through his thoughts and his beloved community like a man on an evening stroll – noticing, commenting, passing the time. It was rarely earth-shaking. It never had to be. It was a chance to visit with a neighbor, to listen and muse and ponder.

His readers often mused right back. More then once, a passerby would greet him with his perennial catchphrase. He remembered one who would call out “If I had my way, the weather would be lots better today,” or another mentioning “If I had my way, you would keep writing those columns.”

“See how my title works for me?” he teased in print once. “Makes me feel good. That is fun.”

Those five words could have been the grumbling of a cranky old man. In John’s hands, they were closer to the late Andy Rooney’s “Did you ever wonder …?” It was a chance to consider what life could be, or at least a small corner of it. Like Hawaii’s “aloha,” it was a greeting, a farewell, and an expression of love.

We could use a little more of these days.

Oh, we’re good at expressing what we want the world to be like. Boy, are we! Whether it’s a sharp-tongued Facebook commenter or a president who finds it “disgusting” that the press can write what it wants, it’s easy to take offense, take a stand, and take on all comers. Right or wrong matters less than “My way or the highway.”

I don’t mean taking a principled stand. There are times to fight for something you believe in strongly, or against a wrong that will not let you remain silent. This isn’t that. This is taking umbrage that someone dare disagree with the rightness that lives in your own head. Other voices become threats to be walled out, lest they undermine you.

After all, what if they were right?

During the latest First Amendment brouhaha, my mind went to another president. Thomas Jefferson was no stranger to the partisan press. He often turned it loose on his enemies from behind the scenes as a rising politician, and often caught holy hell from it in return.

It’s said that when Alexander von Humboldt visited the White House, he found a copy of a newspaper that viciously attacked Jefferson. Shocked, he had to ask: Why are these libels permitted? Why isn’t the newspaper closed or the editor fined or jailed?

Jefferson asked Humboldt to take the newspaper with him. “Should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of the press, questioned,” he said, “show this paper and tell him where you found it.”

Other voices matter. Listening matters. Seeing the visions of others matters, even as we ask them to share our own. Even if we don’t always like what’s shared in return.

Conversations make communities. That’s true in a great nation, or a small town. Remembering that can make life better for everyone.

And you would remember that … if I had my way.

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Ooh! Tasty!

When you come to know Big Blake, our muscular English Lab, you quickly learn three things.

First, that he is enthusiastic, as befits a dog who is 11 years old going on 2. He never descends stairs when he can charge them. He neve lets out one bark when 75 will do. And why simply greet someone when you can knock them right off their feet?

Second, that he is a coward about water. I don’t mean the baths that every dog dreads. I mean that he won’t go outside when rain is falling, and that even dashing through a sprinkler is a traumatic event that has to be worked up to.

Finally, and most importantly, he eats. Anything.

Big deal, I hear you see, he’s a Lab. Let me repeat: AN-Y-THING.

Entire bag of chocolate chips? Check.

Enough crayons to decorate the yard? Double-check.

So many baby wipes that he turned into a canine Kleenex box at the other end? Check and mate.

So when my wife Heather called me at work and told me that Blake might need a vet run, I was anything but surprised.

“I think he ate a bunch of aluminum foil while I was in the bathroom,” she told me.

Mind you, aluminum is not a Typical Dietary Supplement(tm) in this house, even for our canine trash compactor o’doom. But Heather had been making no-bake cookies and disposed of a fair amount of aluminum wrap afterward. When she came out of the bathroom, she saw that there was no longer any wrap in the bin … and that Blake was enthusiastically licking the last piece of thin metal on the floor until it gleamed.

And thus did Blake resume his starring role at the veterinarian, induced to bring up what had been down.

In retrospect, this should not have been a surprise. Blake smelled cookies. Blake had the physique and opportunity to pursue the wonderful smell. And given that his first impulse is to turn anything remotely edible into Blake fuel, he wasn’t going to care that the remnants of sweet-smelling goop still had thin metal attached.

At least, not until he was made to care. Rather abruptly. And then spent the afternoon woozy and sulking.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I don’t mean that any of us are in the habit of eating aluminum. (Though if you find the cans to be the best part of a refreshing Dr Pepper, the Weekly World News is on line two.) But as a species, we do have a habit of jumping to decisions that seem oh-so-good at the time, only to discover that there’s stuff attached that doesn’t feel so good later.

It might be the attractive face that (poorly) hides the toxic personality. The anti-terrorist laws that say “Quick, be safe! And don’t worry about that silly Fourth Amendment.” And the ever-familiar candidate who has your best interests at heart, really, and then does a mile-long swath of damage that anyone with a newspaper subscription and a fourth-grade reading ability could have anticipated.

I’m not saying that we should never compromise on anything, that nothing less than perfect is acceptable. That way lies paralysis, and possibly a career in Congress. What I am saying is that too often, many of us don’t even think about whether compromise is necessary at all or consider what’s being traded off. We simply act, and then deal with unpleasant consequences later.

And “later” has a way of arriving sooner than we think.

Forethought isn’t as fun, I know. Especially in a world where everything demands to be done now-now-now. But it’s worth taking the time to consider, to weigh, to discuss. When you articulate what you want, you force yourself to think about what you’re getting. And what comes with it. And whether it’s worth it at all.

That’s valuable, no matter what you’re doing in life.

After all, no one wants to be foiled again.

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Drawing the Poison

I’ve been walking the yard with the dogs lately. I’m sure most of you can guess why.

If you can’t, I envy you.

Our two dogs, you see, have eating habits that only a canine could love. Our senior citizen, Duchess the Wonder Dog (“I wonder where she’s gone to?”) tries to chew backyard grass and sometimes the … um … stuff that dogs leave behind in backyard grass. Big Blake, meanwhile, has the instincts of a burglar, the stomach of a billy goat and the common sense of Roger Rabbit, leading him to grab any semi-edible opportunity within his considerable reach.

In short, if they see something lying on the ground that looks intriguing, they’re likely to give it a try.

And well … that’s just not safe anymore.

You’re probably sick of reading about poisoned meatballs. I know I’m sick of writing about them. It nauseates me to think that someone could decide that stuffing a meatball full of rat poison and throwing it in the grass could be a solution to anything.

If my neighbor’s been revving his engine, I don’t attach a car bomb to the ignition.

If his weeds are out of control, I don’t spread gasoline and light a match.

And if his dog is making more noise than a Jack London wolf pack, the answer lies in the cell phone, not the d-Con.

To a sensible person, it would be obvious.

But as I’ve said before, there seems to be a shortage of sensible people these days.

In my worst moments, I sometimes think friendly discussion itself is a lost art. Listen? Reason? Compromise? Please. This is the age of planting your flag and venting your spleen, whether it’s in the halls of Congress or the photons of Facebook. Because by jingo, you’re right, and if you can’t carry the day by facts, it’s time to do it by volume.

The old legal maxim goes “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table.”

There’s a lot of table-pounding lately.

In a scary way, this is simply the next step. If debate is unnecessary and the rightness of your cause is assured, why not take whatever measures are needed to end the problem, regardless of its impact on anyone else? At a certain stage of self-righteousness, others don’t matter. At a certain stage, others don’t even exist.

Nothing exists to them but the anger.

I don’t want to overstate the case. There have been and will be people who make selfish choices, even deadly ones. But at a time with so much selfishness on the march, it’s time for the rest of us to draw a line.

We will not be bullied.

We will not be intimidated.

And we will find our way to a better place again.

We’re watchful now, because we’ve been taught to be. It’s a terrible lesson to need to learn. We will watch those we love to keep them from harm, and we will watch for the agents of harm so that they may be stopped.

But our duty goes farther.

On a smaller scale, we must create a place for courtesy and understanding to be. We must be ready to remind people that listening is more than an option, it’s a prerequisite. Yes, the ones who need it most will be the ones who are lest receptive. But the rest of us must keep the conversation open.

It will not be easy. Sometimes I’m not even sure if it will be possible. But I know it won’t be if we let the bullies and the screamers and the brawlers have everything their way.

Only in trying do we have a chance.

I’m aware of the paradox here: to be uncompromisingly for compromise, firmly for gentleness. But it can be done. Any good teacher or parent has done it. They’ve found ways – sometimes through much difficulty – to head off the rude and the hateful so that civility and respect can continue.

We have to find that way again. All of us. Together.

Let’s make a world where it’s safe to feed the dog.

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Take Me Out of the Ballgame

The best thing about the late winter may be the promise that baseball is just around the corner.

Think of it. The crack of the bat. The roar of the crowd. The crowds and the teams, divided in loyalty, yet united in a love of the game and a conviction that the umpire is always wrong …

Whoops. Wait a second. Hold that thought about unity.

At least, until after you see this bit out of Reuters.

“A baseball game between Cuba’s national team and a South Korean professional club had to be called off when they could not agree on which ball to use …”

That’s right. They argued over the baseballs.

Sometimes I wonder about humanity.

If you wonder what the big deal is, join the club. Apparently, it’s common practice for each team in an international game to supply its own baseballs for pitching and fielding, so that no one gets hurt handling a ball they’re not used to. Odd, but reasonable.

But this time, the Cubans put their foot down. Our spheroids or none at all. And when the Koreans said “no thanks,” the Cubans canceled the game.

Why does this sound familiar?

Oh, yeah. That’s right. Our other great American pastime. The one that spends money by the bale and fills television with images guaranteed to generate exasperation and anger.

No, I don’t mean football.

Let me start by saying that anyone looking for peace and harmony in American politics is either doomed to a long and fruitless search, or destined to write fiction. We have been, from the beginning, a nation of arguers. One historian, studying the colonial period, was struck by how many petty lawsuits were clogging the courts. Ours may be a nation of the people, by the people, for the people, but it’s also one where a lot can stand between the people.

All right. Fair enough. A free country’s about debate, right?

Well, yes. Absolutely. Just like baseball, having competition is part of the game. If you have a stadium where one team offers no opposition to the other … well, you have last year’s Colorado Rockies. But back to my point.

In the end, a game is about resolution: someone wins, loses or gets rained out. Political debates don’t have to be that cut-and-dried, but it’s still supposed to be about getting somewhere, reaching a decision, coming to a compromise, getting something done – or sometimes, not done, if that’s the best thing for everyone concerned.

But that only works if everyone wants it to. If you take your ball and go home, there’s no game. If you say ‘My way or no way’ to everything, there’s no debate.

There’s just noise.

Admittedly, we’re overcoming a lot here. There’s a recent theory among social scientists that we didn’t develop reason to find truth, but to better insist on our version of it. We may actually be hardwired to insist on what we want in the face of all evidence, a tendency that only gets reinforced when our social networks, both real and virtual, start filling up with people who agree with us.

But the wiring isn’t unbeatable. We have made it work. We have played the game. Often with great acrimony, but we’ve played it.

Is it so unthinkable that we could do it again?

There are over 400 friends on my Facebook page. Some go about as far left or right as a person can without insisting on totalitarianism. But even when we’ve argued, I haven’t dropped them.

They make me think. Sometimes what they make me think is “You’re crazy.” But if I have to examine my own preconceptions, even for a second, it’s worthwhile.

That’s how I beat the circuits. Or at least give them a fight.

If enough of us do the same, maybe even Washington can become useful again.

Hey. It’s a season for dreams.

Play ball.