Friends, Those of us who have "something to say", and I include myself, have lots of outlets for our ideas these days. Besides the usual magazines and books, by which means we can publish, we can construct websites, create or join online forums, etc. There are many ways for us to express ourselves, and get "the word out" to significant audiences. What we tend to do, and again I include myself, is to "hone our message", become more persuasive, more educated, and proclaim our insights to audiences that more or less agree with us. I happened to ask myself, in an idle moment, regarding these traits of ours, "What game are we playing?". We must admit, at least I admit it to myself, that we are playing the game of "faction building". That is, we are trying to "spread the word" to a hopefully increasing circle of readers, and eventually we hope that everyone will "see things clearly", wake up, and things will change. But the reality, perhaps sad, is that people in a pluralistic society never settle on one viewpoint. They always divide themselves into factions. Partly this is due to upbringing, partly religion, partly psychology and personality types, partly government propaganda - but whatever it is, history shows us that people are never going to wake up, en mass, to a particular perspective on the truth. The only times this has happened have been under coercive theocratic regimes, and I don't think that's what any of us are after. In today's world, it is the fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, who are winning the game of "faction building", if anyone is - certainly it isn't liberals and progressives. The thought I would like to share - and I'm not sure how many ears this will be useful to - is that we consider a different approach. And again I admit that for me this advice will be as difficult to act on as for anyone. The approach I am referring to is this: instead of "giving out" (a colorful Irish expression for "expressing") our viewpoints to "the choir", why don't we seek out people we disagree with and listen to them? Shouting hasn't converted them; they don't subscribe to your email list, and they aren't going to agree with your "giving out". You know; you've tried. Why not try to find out where they're really coming from? Why not try to understand why what they believe makes sense to them? I don't mean this as prying, to better argue against them, but rather as a means to understand why everyone doesn't think the way you do. The answer is not that they are stupid, or that they don't care about humanity. The answer is not even that they have different deep values. In most cases the answer is that they perceive things differently, or have had different life experiences. Such things are not character defects. To the extent we pursue faction building, we are playing into the game of adversarial politics. What are our chances of victory, realistically, in that rigged game? Look at the other players at the table: not only the mainstream parties, totally corrupt, but the mass media, the voting machines, etc. To the extent we learn to listen to and understand our brothers and sisters who don't agree with us, we are undermining the game of adversarial politics. What I am suggesting is an approach to our "audience" based on listening rather than giving out. If we start by giving out, our audience is limited to those who already agree with us. If we start by listening, our audience, in some sense, is limited only by our ability to communicate. for whomever these words are meaningful, rkm http://cyberjournal.org
