A New Strategy for a New Government
The host of NPR’s Morning Edition Steve Inskeep writes in this morning’s New York Times, “But to judge by information available today, [Donald J. Trump] has a relatively narrow role in the American story: as the reaction to a game-changing president—Barack Obama.” Turns out that most one-term presidents have no long-term effect on the populace. Who knew?
Mr. Inskeep observes that, in retrospect, much of the Trump presidency refought the issues of the Obama Presidency, and no, that isn’t a typo. Mr. Inskeep is correct. A lot of what passed for executive branch [scare quotes] action was in fact just a rehash of what Mr. Obama and his team worked hard to change.
Opinion Columnist Charles M. Blow quotes that same Mr. Trump in a CNN interview from 1990. “New York City was just coming off the racially divisive Central Park Five case in which five young Black and brown teenagers were wrongly convicted of attacking a white female jogger in Central Park. After the attack, Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for New York State to adopt the death penalty and said of the teens in a CNN interview:
“‘Of course I hate these people. And, let’s all hate these people because maybe hate is what we need if we’re going to get something done.’”
Hate, Beloved, is never, ever what we need. Never.
Years ago, I had a boyfriend who held the same opinion. His, if you will, activist work on hate was to intone a reactive, “Ouch!”, whenever anyone used the word. Believe me, if you were someone who used it often, his activism worked. Conversation peppered by loud Ouches is really, really annoying.
His tactic did, however, cause us all to listen.
The Letters to the Editor in The Times this morning were headlined, “How Joe Biden Can Unify the Country.” You can bet I read every one of them.
David Shine from Armonk, New York writes, “To the Editor: Joe Biden’s greatest challenge will be trying to win the trust of the more than 73 million people who voted for President Trump. This matters if we are ever to have a chance of returning to some form of normalcy.
“Proposal: During his first 100 days he should hold town halls with just Trump voters. He should ask them to share what most worries them. He should listen carefully. After those town halls he should report publicly on what concerns were most prevalent, and what concrete steps his administration will be taking to try to address those concerns in a reasonable and balanced way.”
He should listen carefully.
My favorite peace artist/activist, Brad Heckman, cites playwright Eugene O’Neill, “God gave us mouths that close and ears that don't...that should tell us something.”
It should, but it doesn’t always.
What gets so in the way of our listening, Beloved?
Philosopher and professor Agnes Callard offers one answer in this morning’s Opinion column called The Stone. Her piece is titled, “I Don’t Want You to ‘Believe’ Me. I Want You to Listen.”
Her subtitle takes it deeper, “I fear that the more I tell you, the less you will understand who I am.”
I’ve mentioned hearing a recent conversation between cultural essayist Rebecca Solnit and nature culturalist Terry Tempest Williams in these pages before. Both women are by their own designation liberals. Ms. Williams, on election day, spent her time reaching out to Trump voters amongst her own family and friends for the purpose of listening.
Maureen Dowd’s always biting column this week was actually by her brother, a dyed in the wool Trump supporter. She opened it to him so she could listen.
Professor Callard makes a subtle and paralyzing point on listening. She opens her piece confessing that she holds two secrets—which she doesn’t like holding, but that she must hold. One concerns what she calls The Event (a bad one, of course). The other she calls The Fact—it’s about her neurology. We learn no more than these details.
She writes, “Let me be clear: I am not ashamed of either of these things. Keeping them secret creates, in me, an uncomfortable feeling, as though I were hiding something, as though I were ashamed, and that bugs me all the time, like a scratchy tag in my clothing. But I can’t tell you what The Fact is, because you won’t believe me; and I can't tell you about The Events, because you will.”
Belief systems, Beloved. Belief systems are the greatest hindrance to listening. By belief systems, I mean what we believe, why we believe it, and how it is encoded in our very being.
Professor Callard is imprisoned by her secrets because she can’t get her alleged listeners to get beyond their own belief systems. Even her therapist. We’re so busy assuring, women in particular, that we believe them—especially about Bad Events—that we can’t or don’t or won’t really listen where it’s needed.
President-Elect Joe Biden, despite the hiccup at the onset of the transition to his presidency, has gone merrily on his way choosing and announcing his appointments. This morning, The Times noted that “Mr. Biden on Sunday announced an all-female White House communications staff.”
The persons whom I have cited in this piece, bar the Messrs. Inskeep and Shine, are all women. Does Mr. Biden know something the rest of us don’t? Are women better listeners than men?
Not always, but they can be. As Professor Callard says, “No one can sincerely assert words whose meaning she knows will be garbled by the lexicon of her interlocutor.” The professor knows what she wants. She knows what she needs, and instead of getting these wants and needs met, she is forced into secrecy. Here’s her request, and it, perhaps, sheds some light on how we might break the exclusionary bonds of our belief systems and really listen.
“Solidarity is not my thing, openness is.”
Now before you squawk, I am not saying that solidarity is a bad thing. Solidarity can be good, but not in the decades-old united front parenting sense of the 1950s. Solidarity that’s real is a good thing, but that’s for another essay.
What she’s requesting out loud, in English, with nouns, is openness, Beloved.
You and I both know what it is to want/need openness in talking through some event or issue. We also know what it is to want/need openness and not receive it. And, hopefully, we know what it is to want/need openness and to receive the very grace of it.
So how do we get to openness? We stop, become still. We close our mouths, relax our tongues in the small garages where they belong behind our teeth. We deliberately open our ears. We become silent, by no mistake an anagram for listen. We welcome whatever is said—whether it matches our belief systems or not.
How do you suppose belief systems change and grow, Beloved? As I wrote in my intuitive translation of the Tao Te Ching, Tao for Now, “Two ears. One mouth. The ratio matters.” Belief systems change and grow, Beloved, one conversation at a time.
Are you listening?
Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her website is susancorso.com.