Note: This article has nothing to do with cycling. It’s about life, and the fact that today is election day in the United States. I say some purposely provocative things in it. Proceed at your own risk.
Consider these two statements:
Pro-choice people only want to murder babies
Pro-life people only want to control women’s bodies
They are both absolutely, 100% false. But the fact that many people will completely agree with one statement, and vehemently disagree with the other, points out what I believe is one of the biggest problems in current U.S. society.
Our empathy has largely gone missing. When we disagree with someone’s opinion, we don’t leave it at that. We now see disagreement as a threat, and those who disagree as enemies—since they’ve threatened us, that’s the natural reaction.
It’s also wrong. Just like the two statements on abortion are wrong. But we’re so entrenched in our positions that we won’t even consider that our perception of the “other side” could be false.
Men of Straw
That blindness keeps us from any attempt to understand those with whom we disagree. We assume—without having asked them—that we know their position, and proceed to tell them why they’re wrong and we’re right. This is the classic “straw man” argument.
This utterly fails the Golden Rule Test. Here’s why: if you’re pro-choice, you know that you don’t want to murder babies. If you’re pro-life, you know that you don’t want to control women’s bodies.
And you’re angry that those on the other side mischaracterize your position so terribly. But you do it to them, too. Rather than assume charitable motives for their opinions, you assume the most negative motives.
Trench Warfare
Then we dig in. We shovel madly, digging our trenches ever deeper. The deeper we go, the less we can see of any other perspective. We’re left looking at walls of muck, talking only with the others digging next to us, folks staring at the same walls.
Everything looks the same in our trench, and we forget that things look differently anywhere else. We know our trench is the best one, the only one worth digging. The people digging trenches over there, across enemy lines, are cretins unworthy of anything except the grenades we toss into their holes. If only they could see what I see, we say to ourselves. If only they weren’t so blind to what’s right in front of their faces.
And they say the same thing, wondering why we can’t see what’s so obvious to them.
So the digging goes on, but it’s a bottomless pit. Before long you’re in utter darkness, lost in the trench, unable to see anything. Finally, you forget that there ever was light.
It doesn’t have to be that way. How about a truce on election day? Let’s stop digging and fighting. Let’s extend a hand down and ask an opponent to come up and chat. Let’s practice civility. This would go a long way toward bridging the trenches before they become uncrossable chasms.
Talk Instead of Tweet
Whatever the issue—no matter how sensitive or emotional it is, whether gun control or immigration or crime or student debt forgiveness—see if you can’t widen your perspective and have friendly dialogue, an actual attempt to understand another’s position, instead of lobbing accusatory Tweets. You’ll be surprised at how fast your enemies can become your friends again.
Happy voting.
(I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. But please do not engage in the type of behavior I describe here. I’ll overdose on the irony.)
Ironically, passages in The Art Of War by Sun Tzu also describe knowing/ understanding your enemy. As always, the intent is the key in this discussion. If you are looking to be offended, you will be, if your looking to be angry/combative/disagreeable, that is what you’ll receive. Excellent point of being open to peoples INTENT in a discussion! Open honest communication requires listening as well as talking, sometimes it seems this is becoming one of the lost arts. Great article!
Exactly!!!! You hit the nail on the head!!!!