In his column a couple of
days ago, Nicholas Kristof prescribed "A 12-Step Program for Responding to President-Elect Trump."
Overlooking for the moment the liberties he takes with the original
12-step program, I am grateful to Mr. Kristof for calling us to action and
warning us against curling up in our "echo chambers," licking our
wounds, and nursing our grievances.
I am particularly struck
by his Step #8, here in its entirety:
8. I WILL resist dwelling in an echo
chamber. I will follow smart people on Twitter or Facebook with whom I
disagree. I will also try to enlarge my social circle to include people with
different views, recognizing that diversity is a wonderful thing — and that if
I know only Clinton supporters, then I don’t have a clue about America.
Guilty, as charged: I fear
I don’t have a clue about America.
Possibly, I could identify family, friends, and acquaintances who did
not support Hillary Clinton, but I can’t be sure as to their beliefs, their
reactions to the election, their dreams about the future, and I am at fault for
not knowing. In fact, if ever I
suspected someone of holding political beliefs contradictory or hostile to my
own, I worked hard to avoid engaging them on controversial topics.
My neighbor, for example,
almost certainly didn’t vote for Hillary, and suggested, to my hearing, as she
puttered about her flower beds, that she has hope for the coming administration,
with a smattering of relief at the expiration of the current one. I can’t say for certain, however, because I
didn’t probe any further than my tender nerves would tolerate. I mumbled and grumbled something depressive,
and shambled off behind my dogs to whom politics have little relevance. No wonder we envy the dog’s life.
I don’t trust myself,
frankly, to interact cordially, should the conversation turn to politics and
the current condition of our society and our world. I am too quick to judge, too quick to repudiate
and ridicule. I don’t trust myself to
maintain calm in the face of what seems to me so obvious, and, what’s more,
supported by empirical data (sometimes known as “facts”). I so admire media personalities such as Ira
Glass of This American Life: in
an episode entitled “Seriously?” he interviews his uncle Lenny, who believes wholeheartedly in a variety of
conspiracy myths that have been repeatedly debunked (“fact-checked,” a process
that Rush Limbaugh says is “designed … to fool you.”). In the course of his conversation with Uncle
Lenny, Ira manages to stay cordial, to offer alternative viewpoints supported
by documentation and evidence, all summarily dismissed. Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to proceed if
faced with that kind of entrenched myopia.
I admit to my own
myopia. I trust in the facts that
support my beliefs, and I’m reluctant and even resistant when confronted by
contradictory evidence. I need to get
over that, to learn to listen to the other side, but even more, to learn how to
respond constructively to arguments that seem misinformed, misguided, or even
dangerous.
Kristof advises that I
“follow smart people … with whom I disagree.”
That’s a start, I guess. But it
doesn’t help, really, with the engagement required. “Follow”: social media has changed the word
itself. To follow someone once meant to
swear fealty to, to be guided by; now, it implies a kind of electronic
voyeurism. Sure, social media, in most
cases, allow for “comments,” but do posted comments amount to
conversation? Even eavesdropping,
Kristof suggests, may be a good place to start, since “[d]iversity is a
wonderful thing.” But if we all just
stay firm on our diverse positions, how
is diversity wonderful? Can we grow, can
we alter our views, can we become more understanding, more tolerant, more
cooperative, and more constructive just by listening? I’m not sure.
But I accept Kristof’s
challenge, and I believe I may have found someone to help me start my own
transformative process. Both The
New Yorker and The
New York Times Magazine recently ran pieces that might make it possible
for me to learn more about Glenn Beck.
Previously, I have only
known Beck from the reports of the “liberal media,” my own echo chambers, that
have portrayed him for years as a frothing madman spouting accusations about
any number of hideous conspiracies, including several derived from Barack
Obama’s “deep-seated hatred for white people.”
That was the old Beck, he insists: “I did a
lot of freaking out about Barack Obama.” But he claims to have recently undergone a
transformation, effected primarily by Michele Obama’s New
Hampshire speech: “Obama made me a better man.”
He regrets calling the President a racist and
counts himself a Black Lives Matter supporter. “There are things unique to the
African-American experience that I cannot relate to,” he said. “I had to listen
to them.”
“Please be better than I
was,” Beck says to the liberal audience of the Times. “What we need now is
for reasonable people to sit down with each other and say: O.K., your guy
wasn’t the end of the world. My guy wasn’t the end of the world. How can we
talk to each other?”
I no longer have the
luxury of being able to dismiss the gesture.
It is no longer an option to refuse Beck’s offer to talk. I will subscribe to his email newsletter, I may even listen to his radio show, and
I will try to keep an open mind. I only hope
that I am a good enough person to follow through.
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