Don’t Let Dialogue Die

As I witnessed the ugly and inflexible discourse surrounding the recent federal debt crisis, I wondered if dialogue was dead. Legislators, commentators, and agitators were screaming at each other but no one was listening. No one had any interest in “finding common ground” or “moving toward the center.” It was a publicity game and the one who yelled the loudest longest was going to win.

So the rest of us lost. Since our representatives were so intransigent and inflexible, their game of brinksmanship took all of us off the brink. More and more, that is the tone of political rhetoric: we won’t back down! We won’t back down means we’re unconditionally right. We won’t back down means that my view is the only view worth discussing. We won’t back down means we won’t even entertain the possibility that we might be even a little bit wrong. We won’t back down means that the views of those who disagree with me, democracy be damned, should be disregarded.

There are things about which we do not compromise. But they are very few and they should be extremely clear. Every issue cannot be the line in the sand. If the non-negotiable list is too long, then the real message is that if you don’t play the game my way, I won’t let the game be played.

We all have encountered bullies and prima donnas who must have their way on even the finest points. This point of view seems to have infected our political process and is in danger of destroying one of the most important features of our representative democracy: the crucible of debate and discussion.

If I don’t get my way, says the two year old, I am going to kick and scream and raise such a ruckus that you will do anything to make me quiet. I will cause you so much pain that you will give in to my unreasonable views. We’ve all witnessed this: the panicked parent with the tantrum throwing two year old in the check out line. Perhaps we have all given in to that but we know what happens when giving in to tantrums becomes the primary parenting strategy. Our job as a parent is to get our children to use their words and listen to us. Perhaps we need to parent our politicians.

But this was THE issue. This was the issue worth throwing a tantrum. This was the BIG one! Baloney! That is a politician’s (or toddler’s) excuse for saying what I really wanted was to get as much attention as possible and thus get my way. If you ask your friends, family, and neighbors what are the areas that, if under attack, they would yell and scream, it would not be the debt ceiling or the budget. It might be free speech, the right to vote (which too many people neglect) or issues of choice and self-determination. Maybe it would be taxes, but even there I doubt it. Ask them when they have called or written their representatives.

When the person at my door says, “ You are going to hell if you don’t practice religion my way,” or the salesman on TV says, “The only way to be healthy (or popular) is to use my product,” we should be suspicious. When we are threatened with doom and gloom because people are so sure of themselves, it is a warning of small minded thinking and a lack of listening. There are always multiple solutions. There are always multiple “right” points of view. To dismiss that reality is to see the world through a narrow tunnel and miss the more important and larger view.

Doubt is a good thing. It indicates that the thought, “I might be wrong” has checked ego and arrogance. Compromise isn’t capitulation; it is collaboration and the creation of community. It is coming together through listening. Those who will not listen, those who insist they are right without reservation, are more dangerous than any polarizing issue. Because if dialogue dies, democracy goes with it.