Points of View (a Prologue)

Photo credit: Photo by QwirkSilver on Flickr

After the 2004 US presidential election, I was shocked and depressed. (Now, whether you agree with my politics or not, stay with me. As with so many things with me, it will all come back around.) I couldn't believe that after all of George W. Bush's dumbassery, after the way he'd frittered away the goodwill of the world and gotten us enmeshed in an endless, costly and pointless war in Iraq, after all his lies, that Americans were duped into handing the country over to him for another four years. The 2000 election I could discount -- after all, he hadn't even won the popular vote -- but this? Ok, John Kerry, not the greatest choice, but really, a monkey could do a better job than Bush. Why were so many Americans so freaking stupid? Why were they so blind to the facts? (At this point, my few conservative readers should be burning to tell me why I am wrong and my liberal readers will be saying, "Yeah, sing it, sister!")

In a desperate effort to understand how to get through to those boneheaded conservatives, I read Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff, and (as sometimes happens) things far beyond the realm of politics became clear. Lakoff describes the difference between conservatives and progressives as a difference in how they see the world. Conservatives' core belief, Lakoff posits, is that people are essentially bad and only behave themselves out of fear of negative consequences. Liberals' core belief is that people are essentially good and will behave that way if they have proper love, nourishment and support.

Now, whatever you may think of that theory, it finally helped clarify for me why it was so hard to talk to my conservative friends and relatives. There we were going on at each other trying to marshal facts or shoot down the details of each other's arguments, trying to painstakingly explain what it was that was wrong about our opponents' positions, when the problem was that we were standing on two different (unexamined) foundations all along. We were starting from different places and were never going to understand each other until we stopped talking about the details of weapons of mass destruction and started talking about our beliefs at a much deeper level.

Conservatives weren't stupid or boneheadly unable to understand the facts, they were making decisions in a way that was completely in line with their values and beliefs, just as I was. What I saw as a fact, they saw as speculation and lies and vice versa, because each of us had different ways of arriving at our truth and different sources we trusted (or saw as suspect). And all of this came down to deeply held, unchangeable (at least by other people) core beliefs about life, the universe and everything. So, that initial "you're wrong" or "sing it, sister" you experienced away back in the first paragraph didn't come from an agreement about the specifics of George W. Bush's actual dumbassery (or lack thereof), but rather from the resonance (or lack thereof) of your core beliefs with mine.

Since this revelation, when I've disagreed with other people I try (not always successfully) to stop and remind myself that there is some the core belief on which we differ. (This was one of the things that inspired me to write my Views into my Room post.) And if I have built, or am building, a relationship with the person with whom I disagree, I'll work with them to figure out what that problematic core belief is. Of course, it's not always easy to find, because those beliefs are so woven into the fabric of our being that we forget they're there and get lost arguing over the specifics of a situation instead. At times I can see where I differ from someone else quite easily, and at others, it takes quite a bit of stumbling around and digging here and there to figure it out. (Unfortunately, that stumbling and digging can be a dangerous, and sometimes inadvertently hurtful, process.)

On my recent post on Silda Spitzer, several people (Vicarious Rising and Mantra on this blog and blue milk on my other) commented that they wondered if Silda Spitzer was doing what was right for her or what she felt she should do. And I thought, "Ah, but of course she was doing what was right for her. Even if she was bullied into it, it was right for her!"

Now if you feel the stirrings within you (as I suspect some of you will) of "what?! that's wrong!" then rest assured you and I see the world a different way, and there's no point in arguing over Silda Spitzer, because what is really at issue is the heart of what we believe about God and free will and human nature and the nature of reality and how the universe works. And maybe it is time to tell you (pulling threads together) what my God is (rather than what my God is not) and how I see myself (and Silda Spitzer and everyone else) fitting in to the scheme of the universe. I'll see what I can do for you tomorrow, with a minimum of stumbling and digging if I can.