Where Does That Leave Us?
Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Founding Director
This work is hard.
I’m thinking about a text exchange I had last week with a friend who’s much younger than me. I’ve known this young man for most of his life. We end all of our calls with, “I love you.” And we know we have different perspectives on social change, politics, and policy. Occasionally I see a post on his feed that raises my eyebrows. I respond, “hmmmmmm.” He sends back a heart emoji.
Our latest exchange was different. He told me he might need to move because of tax rates where he is, and I said I was sorry for that, wished that wealthy folks could shoulder more load. He responded that he blamed liberal politicians, who had, he said, “ruined everything I love, including equality”
I wrote back carefully, knowing that such messages can easily be misunderstood. I said that I wanted to hear more about what he’d lost, to understand what that was like for them. I said that in my view neither party was getting things quite right. I said I too was afraid of losing things I love. He didn’t respond.
Because I care for this young man, I’ll reach out to reconnect, and because I know he cares about me, I trust we will. But he and I aside, his words stay with me, “. . . ruined everything I love, including equality.”
What if I heard those words from someone I didn’t care so much about? Would I respond cynically, think to myself, "Really? Ruined everything you love? Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”
Would I be tempted to trot out my take on the difference between equality and equity? To lecture on history, generational trauma and poverty? Policies worsening uneven distribution of wealth? Would I point out gross generalizations about political positions? Would I generalize myself?
And would any of that do any good?
What if instead, I take statements like that on their face, very true for the people who make them? What if I tend to the grief that must come with feeling so much of worth has been ruined? What if I meet loss with compassion instead of cynicism? What if I meet concern for equality with curiosity, instead of correction?
I am not the first by any means to suggest that the answer to these questions is this: It may very well not lead to agreement, but it It could soften our hearts. It could open a path to peace between us, and to the possibility of ever more peace in the communities we inhabit.
I'm not talking about peace defined by niceness, setting aside differences or tolerating bigoted behavior. I mean disagreement without punishment, violence or threat of either. I mean a shared desire that others not suffer, and willingness to compromise so that is so. In that kind of peace, it's possible to behave in ways that ensure more of all people can thrive.
But still, even with that possibility so clear to me, because I often believe that the people with whom I disagree threaten to ruin all that I love, the pull is strong to try to make them change.
The thing is, they feel the same about me. Where does that leave us?
Some argue it leaves us to go at each other with words, power or violence until one of us is forced against their will to change, or just to disappear. Some argue that right will win out in the end. But winning that way turns right into wrong, in the interest of ever more thriving and peace.
When my conviction is muddied by fear, when despair threatens my hope for peace, I can easily fall into line with dynamics I know need to change so that more people can thrive. The hard work, for me, is in choosing, again and again, to resist the temptation to overpower or dismiss, and to begin with compassion and curiosity instead. I don't always succeed, but I try, and with practice I'm failing less often.
That seems to me to be the least -- and sometimes the most -- I can do.