No, this is not a piece about Rodney King, the person I’m paraphrasing. But sadly, it is about someone who’s taking a beating and is in dire need of a more constructive approach: our nation.
Why is it that time and again over the past couple of years, the inability of elected leaders in Washington to work together to forge sensible compromises, real solutions, and major changes has pushed the country closer and closer towards paralysis and decline?
If you’re interested in politics you likely watch and read the news. And as you witness the spokespeople of the two parties, including the President and the Speaker of the House, relentlessly argue over every major issue – from healthcare reform to the debt ceiling crisis – it appears that they are not really dialoguing or conversing but rather engaging in obstinate and ineffective intersecting monologues.
Have you ever been in one of those crowded rooms with your family over a tension-filled holiday where everybody is talking but no one is communicating? Everyone has his or her own story to tell and nobody is listening? I have found myself in those interesting and often amusing situations. And in those moments, I’ve smiled and remarked, “This isn’t a conversation; it’s a set of intersecting monologues.” Ironically, nobody has ever really picked up on my comment so I just add to the cognitive dissonance.
Well, maybe it’s manageable to survive such a communication conundrum for a long weekend stuffed with turkey and apple pie or a monotonous yearend week disrupted only by furtive escapes to linger beneath the mistletoe. But in the world of American politics and the economy, it seems that remaining in such a discombobulated state for perpetuity is unsustainable. If we continue along this path of polarized intransigence, our nation’s persistent decline as a global leader in economic might and social right will be as certain as the inevitable indigestion and headache following that dysfunctional holiday feast.
As our leaders engage on these difficult and complex issues that face our nation – from the massive debt to how to care for our aging and increasingly sick population, from our lack of competitiveness in manufacturing products for exportation and the failure of our educational system to compensate by churning out more highly skilled generations of thinkers and workers to drive our new economy – they must commit to practicing a more honest and earnest brand of civil discourse in order to arrive at actionable and impactful solutions palatable to a majority of our overall population, not to a majority of each representative’s own narrow base of constituents.
What is civil discourse, some might ask given it’s marked absence from our world today? Well, it’s basically talking and listening to each other in a civilized manner with the shared goal of achieving a better understanding of each other’s views and, perhaps in the best of all worlds, come to an agreement or compromise that allows us to move forward together.
That’s not the Webster’s definition; I’m sure you can look that up too. That’s just how I see it.
All it takes is three things: listening with an open mind, speaking up respectfully of the opposing perspective and its conveyor, and being willing to change one’s mind in light of new information.
Blogger Rob Mars offered up Seven Rules for Civil Discourse at OpenSalon.com that seem right on the money. I’ve abridged them here:
Rule 1: Shun name-calling and personal attacks.
Rule 2: Avoid ad hominem arguments, instead focus on evidence and fact.
Rule 3: Listen. By which is not meant simply giving “ear time” to the other person, but paying enough attention that you actually understand his or her point.
Rule 4: Avoid common fallacies. We’ve talked about ad hominem already. Some other common fallacies: begging the question, appeal to emotion, false dilemma, and argument by authority; but there are more.
Rule 5: Appreciate nuance.
Rule 6: Use reason but shun scientism and hyper-rationality.
Rule 7: Respect. The other person is just that, a person. He or she is your brother or sister, no matter how much you may differ in your views.
The rules seem simple and straightforward enough, elementary even. But perhaps if more people used them our society would benefit from fewer intersecting monologues and more constructive conversations.
It’s hard to live, think, write, and comment in a world where you sometimes feel all too lonely in striving to elevate that conversation. Or, if not alone, at least greatly outnumbered and underappreciated. In fact, I stopped writing over a year ago because I felt I was engaged in one of those intersecting monologues, one of those where there’s no one sitting at the other end of the line. So all this time, instead of yelling at the talking heads on TV and writing out loud via machine gun-fire computer keyboard abuse, I’ve been quietly listening. And I’m committed to continue listening.
But now, it’s also time to speak up again. Please join me. But this time, let’s connect. If more and more people start doing that, then little by little we all might just learn how to get along.
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Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
