One characteristic of the recent elections is that there seemed to be very little listening going on. We hear a lot about a divided country. But what divides us? ...do we care enough to find out? Or, are we just increasingly committed to maintaining only what we think. What keeps us from listening to each other? Much of the subsequent 'discussion' regarding the election seems to be more about who 'won' than anything else.
This interview with Parker Palmer (by the way, thanks to Jerry McCoy for introducing me to Palmer years ago), therefore, seems relevant:
We need to change our calculus about what makes an action worth taking and get past our obsession with results. Being effective is important, of course. I write books because I want to have an impact. But if the only way we judge an action is by its effectiveness, we will take on smaller and smaller tasks, because they’re the only kind with which we are sure we can get results. I’m not giving up on effectiveness, but it has to be secondary.
If I cling to effectiveness, though, I’m going to die an unhappy man. I’m committed to educational goals more ambitious than getting kids to pass tests, and to political goals a lot bigger than getting people to “tolerate” each other. Teaching a kid to pass a test is a piece of cake compared to educating a child. And tolerating people is a long way from understanding how profoundly interdependent we are. As I say in the new book, the civility we need in politics will not come from watching our tongues but from valuing our differences. Somehow my heart doesn’t beat faster when someone says they’re willing to “tolerate” me!
But when I’m talking with people whose views I regard as wrong but not evil, I need to ask myself: Am I here to win this argument, or am I here to create a relationship? Research shows that when you throw facts at people to refute what they believe, it only hardens their convictions. But if you create a relational container that can hold an ongoing dialogue, it’s more likely that someone will change — and that someone may be you! Failing that, we usually just walk away and revert to talking to people who agree with us. What good is that?
-- Parker Palmer, If Only We Would Listen Interview
Continue Reading -- lots of good things to think about here.
