“WHY do we need economic growth?” a young self-styled democratic socialist (i.e., Sanderista) asked me, the former self-styled scientific socialist (i.e., Marxist). I mentioned the CNMI government’s many obligations to voters who include government employees — and retirees. “Why,” asked the Bernie Bro, “do we need to pay them anyway?” “You should run for office,” I replied, sincerely. I felt that there was no need to argue about politics — especially about politics. Most, if not almost all, political debates involve people with opposing viewpoints who talk pass each other about different subjects. It’s like a “conversation” between a dog and a cat.
There is, however, a better way to debate, said San Francisco philosophy professor Jacob Needleman in his thought-provoking book, “Why Can’t We Be Good?”:
“Two people face each other who passionately hold diametrically opposed views about a given issue or idea, and they proceed to argue back and forth for their point of view. Let us call these people ‘Mary’ and ‘John.’ ”
Here are the rules:
“[W]hen Mary speaks, John may reply only after he has clearly repeated the essentials of what Mary has said. And it is entirely up to Mary to decide if John has given a fair and accurate statement of what she has just said. Only when this condition is fulfilled is John permitted to present his response and his point of view. And then, before Mary can answer John, she in turn is also obliged to summarize what he has said, to the point that he accepts her summary as fair and accurate. And this goes on, each answering the other under this rule that no one can express his or her own views until he or she has accurately summarized what the other person has just said.”
Needleman recounted how two of his female students engaged in a debate about abortion under his rules. It ended amicably.
“It’s a very powerful exercise,” said one of the students. “If you have to repeat precisely what the other person has said it means you have to listen very carefully…. It demands that I focus…. It means I have to really understand what the other person is saying…. And it really changes my perspective…. I really can’t hold on so tightly to what I believe if I’m constantly releasing it in order to listen to what she’s saying.”
The other student said, “I found myself listening to a person not to an argument.”
At this point, Professor Needleham said he turned to his class and said, “You can go on disagreeing forever with another person. You can have a point of view that is 180 degrees different. You can be as passionate about your opinion as you want. But as long as you recognize and feel that you are listening to a person, there will be no violence, no war.”
For many of us, however, politics is a blood sport, and the point of a political debate is to “own” or, better yet, “destroy” our political opponents.
To quote libertarian scholar Jeffrey A. Tucker, politics is poison to the human spirit. In a 2016 article for the Foundation for Economic Education, he wrote about the “spaces…all around us” where “politics don’t exist, mercifully” — where “[n]o one will scream at you or threaten you for failing to back the right candidate or for holding the wrong ideology or being part of the wrong demographic or religion.”
He noted that the American Psychological Association “has released an early report on its annual survey and found that more than half the population reports being seriously stressed, anxious, alarmed, depressed, and even frightened by the election. Essentially, the constant coverage, dominating the news every minute of every day, is freaking people out.”
“Look at these angry rallies,” he added; “the screaming for destruction of the enemy. And this has spilled over to social media. We are all losing friends. People we used to hang out with we no longer speak to….
“The shrillest voices, the meanest temperaments, and the most amoral plotters are the ones who dominate, while virtues such as wisdom, charity, and justice are blotted out.”
According to Tucker, “The message that politics beats into our heads hourly is that your neighbor might be your enemy, and that the realization of your values requires the crushing of someone else’s.”
“That’s a terrible model of human engagement to accept as the only reality,” he added. “It is demoralizing….”
The personal is the political? “That sounds like hell on earth. The slogan should be flipped and serve as a warning to all of us: whatever you politicize will eventually invade your personal life. We should not allow this to happen.”
Too late?
Send feedback to editor@mvariety.com
