If I want to feel close to people, I’ve learned to listen for the essence of what they’re trying to express, which may or may not be directly conveyed by their words, the topic under discussion, or the position taken.
Since the 2016 election, and more acutely since the January 20, 2017 inauguration of President Donald Trump, I have been listening through the news, social media, and personal interactions, trying to hear what Trump’s supporters are expressing. I listened to several supporters on February 1, 2017, when NPR reporter Susan Davis interviewed Republicans on their views about Trump’s executive orders on immigration policies.
When I’m listening to adults, I assume they have reasons for what they’re saying that make sense to them. I assume they’ve learned through bitter experience to protect their feelings and to state reasons for feelings rather than the feelings themselves. I assume humanity, i.e. people will feel better or worse on some days, express themselves more or less clearly at some times, and simply make mistakes. I assume thinking fluctuates, evolves and regresses. I assume good intentions.
What I think I’m hearing is that Trump’s supporters want to feel safe geographically (immigration), financially (jobs), and morally (religion, abortion). They don’t feel safe – in fact, they feel threatened – they’ve tried individually and collectively to do something about it (Republicans vs. Democrats), that hasn’t worked, so now they want someone in power to make it happen. Regrettable means may be necessary, but they’re justified by the end in mind, i.e. safety and security.
I’ve learned that, if I want to have a working or close relationship with someone else – and I’ve discerned that the person is capable of it – after I listen, I need to try to understand. Internally, I discover and acknowledge my own position which may differ significantly from the other’s – in this case, until the election, I felt geographically, financially and morally safe in America – but I try to use my mind and heart to think and feel as the other person might. So, wanting and needing safety makes sense to me. Feeling threatened triggers my own survival instinct, the fight-flight-freeze response, an acute and destabilizing state of stress. I understand how alarm leaves no room for nuance and negotiation and any-means-necessary can kick in as an imperative.
Then I ask the person, Have I understood what you’re thinking? Is that what you’re feeling? I listen to the answers and refine until I receive confirmation that I do understand.
Then I seek common ground.
In her report for NPR, Susan Davis states, “[W]hen it comes to Trump, Democrats and Republicans are often living in parallel universes.”
In his article on how Chavez came to power in Venezuela, Andrés Miguel Rondón writes, “Don’t feed polarization, disarm it.”
In seeking common ground with adults, I assume at 58 something I could not fathom at 28: Opposing sides may both be true. Or truth may exist on a continuum. Or we may be in the wrong universe not even talking about what’s really the problem. And I, individually, never know enough or understand enough to make a perfect choice. I am limited to making the best choice I can with what I know at the time. Similarly limited are my paradoxically tough and fragile fellow human beings.
Fear may be the mind-killer. But judgment is the killer of connection.
To seek common ground, here is the question I ask:
How might we work together on this?
Asking the question requires vulnerability. Asking the question requires risk because the response may evoke shaming, rejecting, belittling. Asking the question asks all parties to suspend connection-killing judgment, at least for a moment. The answer may not be one we want to hear. The answer may alarm us, triggering a fight-flight-freeze reaction, or the more weighty, strategic decision to go to battle.
But not asking the question keeps us polarized, separated, disconnected.
What we want, we don’t have. We are not safe when we are not together.
How might we work together on this?
. . . . .
Photo by Zane Queijo
