“If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
~Desmond Tutu
It was a painful, emotional discussion, tears and all. A close loved one and I had a very different point of view on an issue and on what we needed to do about it. At a point she said, let’s just not talk about it any further. It is just too difficult. And then we tried again to find a way to proceed. At the height of our stuck-ness, she said, “but we are aligned on so many things, have so many mutual experiences and shared values – we can’t allow this single issue to dominate our relationship.” Like that, looking for what we had in common, shifted the discussion.
It is such a common trap these days to let one issue define and then destroy key relationships. You know what I am talking about: that family member you love but whose politics drive you nuts. That person at work who is such a contributor but whose religious take is just so offensive. That otherwise beloved neighbor or church member whose views on abortion, sexual identity, the border, fossil fuels, climate, social justice, criminal justice or some other issue riles-you-up and causes you to dash for the exits when you see them.
And the contentious issues just keep coming. The recent awful violence between Hamas and the Israelis has re-surfaced and amplified a world-wide schism around Jews, Palestinians, Muslims and various other groups adding new fuel to a world already on fire.
Whether global geo-political issues or family squabbles, too often we draw a line in the sand and mentally file for a “relational divorce” based on a single-narrow-issue. It is a war on wholeness, diversity and healing when we allow one issue to undo or undermine all of the things we share in common. It is not a matter of us needing to magically change or reconcile our views. It is a matter of choosing to retain a “dissonant relationship” – one where there is tension and stress.
Major Christian denominations like the Methodists and Presbyterians provide an unfortunate example. Their splits meant they ultimately decided they could not tolerate those who have a different point of view on gay marriage and ordination of gay ministers. Think of all the doctrine and beliefs that they agree on or at least agree to disagree but this one issue required divorce.
What if this next year we were to inventory our most challenging relationships and set a goal to retain or even add to the number of tension-packed relationships that stretch us? And, in examining our relationships in a more intentional way, we may also identify one or two that are just too costly or abusive – and we may decide to exit them.
What Is Driving This Hyper Polarization?
It is helpful to step back and ask what is driving this next-level polarization? There are many reasons but there are two shifts in recent times that have, in my opinion, accelerated our growing estrangement. First, technology and social media enables, encourages and enlarges our reach to share with the world our values, beliefs and partisan opinions. Further, it helps us join tribes who share our beliefs and, in the process build communities. Unfortunately, too often these become communities of intolerance that encourage name-calling, stereotyping, exclusion and fighting.
We have always had differing views, but now we have them more loudly. And, increasingly we use tech to signal the accompanying conflict as virtue and strength. Technical capabilities develop rapidly, relational habits and skills develop slowly. Just as we have adopted new ways of using Zoom, email, text, and social media, we need new relational capabilities to deal with this growing polarization.
Second, it seems that in a world that struggles to find meaningful purpose, we increasingly mistake false certitude and belligerent exchange as forms of noble purpose. The value of “taking a stand” against an enemy has trumped the value of listening, understanding, forgiving, compromising and extending grace. These virtues have often come to be seen as weakness. Don’t give an inch, don’t compromise, don’t admit mistakes – in both our politics and in organized religion these tactics have gained greater traction. It has been stunning to see how a number of women’s groups and elite university presidents (Harvard, Penn, MIT) have struggled to condemn rape, murder and torture to civilian Israeli women in the October 7 attack, regardless of where you stand on Israeli-Palestinian issues. Awful behavior toward civilians cannot be excused by an ideological or political side.
Unfortunately, our certitude coupled with engagement in less tolerant communities often serve to further distort our vision. According to a More in Common study cited by The New York Times, those who follow the news “most of the time” were roughly three times as wrong about their opponents as those who follow the news “hardly at all.” Worse, they are wrong in a particular way: they believe their political opponents to be more extreme than they really are. Learned blindness.
All of this feeds distrust and the urge to fight. It moves the focus from trying to find the best solution for all the stakeholders to defeating the other side. I worry that we are seeing the emergence of more authoritarian leaders around the world. I worry we are seeing an exodus of Presidential candidates, U.S. and state legislators, and leaders of religious organizations and our institutions who find collaboration and seeking compromise ever harder. They are tired of butting their heads against a wall. Further, I worry they are being replaced by more extreme, “fighters” self-selected and then selected by their partisan electors, to do battle on narrow, single issues — seeking to impose their version of purity.
The momentum of a leadership and electorate class that embraces a growing certitude of its own rightness coupled with a militant mindset will be hard to counter. It is particularly troubling given a growing number of really big, controversial new choices that scientific breakthroughs now present: artificial intelligence, privacy, medical break throughs that can affect every aspect of biological life including when it begins, ends and how it can be altered – to name just a few. It portends a global culture that is increasingly bent on warfare and the power of might as the go-to mechanism for dealing with our ever-expanding choices, which will only feed our growing divide.
My Wish for 2024
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the polarization we face. Yet we all play a role. My hope for 2024 is that rather than being overwhelmed by all of this, that we do this one thing: in all of our scratchy, tension-filled relationships – at home, work, in politics and faith – that we prioritize building relationship by increasing our focus on what we share in common. It doesn’t mean changing our beliefs, but it does mean changing our behavior. Let me give you three reasons why this makes sense:
1. Our enemies are our greatest teachers: The quote attributed to the Dalai Lama, resonates because there are certain lessons only someone on the other side – be it a personal argument, athletic competition, a policy debate – can provide us. When we opt out of difficult relationships, we are also often cutting ourselves off from key learnings we need and that they need. A planet that is unwilling to engage with differences is one that will be less wise.
2. Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. Borrowing from Voltaire, much of our certitude is just false. Certitude is a commitment to learn less. The arrogance that goes with unbridled certitude leaves no room for humility, admitting we are wrong, seeking/offering forgiveness and grace. Such a world is very small, cold and rigid. The very essence of faith is rooted in some level of uncertainty or doubt – or it wouldn’t require faith. Whether we believe in God or not, surely, we can agree that we are not God. The mystery that exists beyond our understanding is not to be denied, it is to be embraced.
3. Grace offered is grace that comes back to us. Simply stated, grace is gain that we ourselves could not create. When we offer others grace, when we see the goodness in them in spite of whatever brokenness they have, it opens us up to our own brokenness and the possibility of forgiveness and grace – and peace.
I ran into my good friend Herb – a retired senior executive and gifted artist – at church. I thanked him for the exquisite custom-drawn birthday card he recently sent me that hearkened back to my college days as a baseball pitcher. I commented that in the picture he drew of a pitcher releasing a pitch, he even accurately depicted me as a left-handed thrower. He smiled and said, “being right-handed, I had trouble getting the left-handed release just right. I had to draw it as a right-handed picture and then transpose it to get it to fit your left-handed release. That struck me. The word transpose means to “cause to change places.” To draw the picture, Herb visualized changing from his right-handed mind-set into my position as a left-hander.
In 2024, if we want peace, do this one thing: look for the things we share in common, even in and especially in those most challenging relationships. Sounds simple, but it is hard. How do we do that? Maybe we do like Herb. Literally draw their world from our point of view and then transpose it – change positions and draw it from theirs.
Robert’s latest book, “This Land of Strangers: The Relationship Crisis That Imperils Home, Work, Politics and Faith,” is now in paperback. A “recovering CEO,” he has authored 200 published articles and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The CEO Magazine. His website: www.robertehall.com