Now is the Time to Listen and Learn
June 16, 2018
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me well that I spent much of 2017 “dazed and confused.” The United States as I knew it (or thought I knew – now I question if it ever existed other than in my mind), had ceased to exist. For months I grieved for the Christian values that had been the cornerstone of my belief system – compassion and understanding. I grieved for the loss of our democracy and the principles that are important to me – challenging and spirited, yet collegial debate. And, I grieved for the loss of intelligence and educational pursuits. Honestly, everywhere I looked there just seemed to be hate.
As a means to maintain a modicum of sanity, I stopped watching television. Admittedly, I had binge-watched news programs prior to the November 2016 election. I would watch CNN every night, then text my friends Susan and Amber. We would have long text conversations until one of us finally went to sleep. After the election, those same news programs were a source of pain. So, I basically quit watching any television – cold turkey.
At the suggestion of my friend, Mendy, I also started writing a journal in late 2016 to explore the life experiences that shaped my beliefs. Although I enjoy writing, I was never able to even commit to writing in a diary for more than 2 weeks when I was an adolescent – a time most adolescents are pouring out their angst to “Dear Diary.” Surprisingly though, the words began to flow in 2017, and I found it cathartic to write.
I still don’t watch much television, but occasionally, I will catch a clip on YouTube that catches my eye, and I’ll click on it. Today, I clicked on a link to a program that airs daily. One of the commentators on that program is a conservative. On most days, I get so offended by this person interrupting others on the program in her loud voice that I immediately click off. But today, I caught something that she said, and I actually listened. She said she is so tired of cable news shows featuring “extremist conservatives that bear no resemblance to the Republican Party that she knows and has been part of her life forever.” She was referring to an interview between CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Virginia Senate candidate, Corey Stewart. I had not seen the interview, but immediately found a clip of it. Stewart had attacked Cuomo’s late father and former governor of New York with claims that Governor Cuomo was anti-Semitic (for the record, none of Stewart’s claims have ever been substantiated). In response to the attack on his father, Chris Cuomo became very animated, with both Cuomo and Stewart talking over each other. Also for the record, I like Chris Cuomo and agree with most of his reporting. But, this was chaos, and I cringed.
My undergraduate degree is in journalism, so I am very supportive of journalists and a free press, which I honestly think is under attack these days. But, I actually questioned that interview. Are television ratings driving what is reported as news? Honestly, why was Stewart being interviewed?
I just finished Brene’ Brown’s latest book, Braving the Wilderness. In the book, she talks about anger being a “powerful catalyst, and a life-sucking companion.” On any occasion, I would be infuriated by Stewart’s comments, thinking that all conservatives think as he does. While I do know Republicans who share Stewart’s beliefs, I’m starting to question why the news media features these extremists on their news programs. I don’t think we should bury our heads in the sand (something I may have been doing prior to 2016), but do the extremists really speak for the majority of our country? I hope not.
In her book, Brown says we have fallen into a trap of hating large groups of strangers based on political rhetoric, such as “Democrats are such losers, or Republicans are selfish assholes.” Brown says both Republicans and Democrats may tend to agree with each of the statements, even though they know Republicans and Democrats personally who are neither “losers or selfish assholes.”
While it feels like there has been a “complete collapse of moral judgment and productive communication,” Brown found in her research that people who had the strongest sense of “true belonging” didn’t ignore what was happening, nor did they stop advocating for their beliefs. However, these individuals committed to forming their opinions based on their actual in-person experiences.
As I’ve noted in a previous post, several friends and I established the Texas Leadership Collaborative in 2016 to create innovative training opportunities in leadership and provide an experience for participants to discover leadership values and abilities. The Collaborative has included an Essential Leadership Skills Training (ELST), which is focused on creating safe spaces for discovery and objective inquiry. Participants learn how to recognize when they are making assumptions about a situation and are in a “judging” mode and how to switch to asking questions with the intent of truly learning.
I am by no means a “master” of this skill yet, but it is something that my friends and I have tried to practice for the past two years. Unfortunately, more often than not, my curiosity and attempt to learn more about how others think and feel, has as Brown describes been met with “antagonism rather being valued as learning.” During some of these attempts, I’ve had individuals say to me, “there’s no need to have this conversation because I’m right, and you’re wrong, end of discussion.” I’ve had people question my faith and morality. Admittedly, it is hard to continue trying to have productive communication when those are the responses. But my friends and I are persistent. We will continue to “brave the wilderness.”
As I was looking back at an entry from my journal dated June 1, 2017, I noticed that I was beginning to come out of the haze of the previous six months and regain my resilient spirit. That post read, “I am really trying to actively listen and understand viewpoints different from mine, but it is hard when those viewpoints are laced with hate. But, I will continue. I will continue to spread love. Our humanity and our existence depend on it.”
Ditto!