Four years ago, I was sure.
Well, as sure as I have ever been about anything. I thought I knew which were the correct platforms and the best policies, what specific actions our elected leaders should take, whose values were valid — and anyone who disagreed was ignorant, unenlightened, or else driven by some form of fundamentalism or crass self-interest. And they didn’t even have to be my ideological opposites, i.e. conservatives. So-called “moderates” were bad enough. I was proud to be identified with the Green-est progressives, the Out-of-Iraq-Now, Universal-Single-Payer-Health-Care, Repeal-NAFTA, Department-of-Peace-niks, the “far left,” the Labor liberals, the socialists in spirit or in word. I went as far as the state convention as a delegate for Dennis Kucinich.
I sympathized with the Naderites, who made sense when they voted to demonstrate that they were sick of a corrupt and mercenary two-party system. Nader was not the “spoiler.” The Democratic Party, they said, was the “spoiler,” since the party couldn’t or wouldn’t break the stranglehold of the corporations and represent the real concerns of the people. Why not vote for what you really want? If enough people did it, so the argument went, it would (if not effect significant change) at least “send a message.”
Still, after the debacle of 2000, I wasn’t sure what message could have been more important than choosing a vocal environmentalist over a John Wayne wannabee looking for an excuse to draw the national pistol. I had to disagree with Nader’s third-party fundamentalism when he insisted that there was “no difference” between the two parties’ candidates. Even the fraction of a difference (as another argument goes) could easily have made the difference between life and death to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention 4000 American soldiers. (In the immortal words of the Talking Heads, this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no foolin’ around.)
Of course if we had a more democratic election system that utilized something like Instant Runoff Voting, voting would cease to be a zero-sum game, and there could be no such thing as a spoiler.
Maybe Ralph could be pouring some more money and time into election reform.
But I digress. When I run into my former political cohorts now, I am aware of a certain stuck quality in many of their well-intentioned but absolutist positions. As if it were a total capitulation to give any opponent the benefit of a doubt, or to forgive even somewhat sympathetic pols for any ideological transgression whatsoever. I recognize that rejecting rigidity that digs in its heels and generally gets nowhere (beyond the smallest picture), and I remember how I identifed with it completely. As if continually stoked resentment could change the world. Maybe it has in the past, but not without significant bloodletting. Is that what we really want? Almost everyone I know in these circles claims to “love peace!”
It seems to me that the peaceful resisters who effected real change — Gandhi, King, Mandela — didn’t whip up the people into a righteously angry mob, even if righteous anger was warranted. They recognized on a deep level (like the Dalai Lama regarding the Chinese in Tibet) that “them” was “us.” There is only we.
In the wonderful book “The Art of Possibility,” Ben Zander talks about telling the WE story, and what is required of us in order to be able to tell it. Here I will quote liberally and directly from that chapter, simply because I can’t imagine being able to paraphrase it better.
The WE story defines a human being in a specific way: it says we are our central selves seeking to contribute, naturally engaged, forever in a dance with each other. It points to relationship rather than to individuals, to communication patterns, gestures, and movement rather than to discrete objects and identities. It attests to the in-between. Like the particle-and-wave nature of light, the WE is both a living entity and a long line of development unfolding. This new being, the WE of us, comes into view as we look for it — the vital entity of our company, or community, or group of two. Then the protagonist of our story, the entity called WE, steps forward and takes on a life of its own…
Usually what we mean by the pronoun “we” is “you-plus-I,” and so the questions “What shall we do?” or “What will work for us?” generally refer to a compromise between what you want and what I want. The assumption is that people are singular, constant beings whose stated desires are for all time. So it follows that some will win and some will lose, and neither are likely to get all they want. The resulting competition structures us in two ways: it encourages us to exaggerate our positions and keep back some of the truth, and it pushes us into offensive and defensive positions, so that we are all too soon handling out ultimatums and guarding our turf. (emphasis mine)
The practice of the WE offers an approach to conflict based on a different premise. It assumes there are no fixed wants nor static desires, while everything each of us thinks and feels has a place in the dialogue.
Don’t you feel more expansive and optimistic already? Zander somehow opens a window in the stuffy room of our minds. Note the italicized part. Can you acknowledge the truth of it? He’s saying be honest. Are we static, or dynamic?
Which would you rather be?
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