Genuine encounters (19)

Trapped in these two modes of engagement—the smooth politeness of the in-group, in which a set of moral/political judgments are assumed and perpetually reaffirmed (though sometimes half-feigned), and the belligerent moral/political outrage that is perfectly calibrated never to change anyone’s mind, never to risk a meaningful encounter between opposing points of view—our public discourse has become stultifying. If, in our private lives we are not always quite so trapped; if, at times we can float ideas we are unsure of or disagree productively with others, it is nearly always because we are in a group of people whose experiences, whose background, whose world-view are already close to our own.

 

Under these circumstances, a genuine encounter between people who are not alike, in which real differences of opinion and outlook can be explored, generates a lot of energy. This is not only the energy of stimulation and interest; it is also the energy of glimmering hope and relief at the lifting, however slight, of despair, because for a moment the political-cultural stalemates don’t seem quite so stale, the other not quite so other. Such encounters are not impossible to have, but they do require a lot of faith, good will, and readiness to try to understand one another, to search for common ground. Not everyone has these things to spare. Many are too frightened, too desperate, too angry-- but they are so by circumstance, not by nature. For not only do all our news outlets work perpetually to stir up exactly these emotions in their viewers, but the stupid wicked voice that chants out of the computer screen tells us that these are righteous emotions, that anger and outrage are the appropriate response. As if these were not already the warp and woof of our public discourse, like standing in a room full of people trying to shout over each other and telling your friends: we must shout louder, louder!

 

But some do have faith and good will to spare, some are or could be ready to try to understand the people they disagree with. These people must find each other and begin to talk. This is an idea someone suggested to me many years ago, as I was leaving Occupy; I think it’s as right and as good an idea now as it was then. Among its several merits is the fact that it’s perfectly plausible: it really could be made to happen. This is in part a result of another of its merits: if it began to happen, it would be a pleasure to those involved. They would want to keep doing it.