Why Are We Shouting at the Other Side?

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

I have often heard over the past two years that the reason we are so polarized in this country is that we are not listening to the other side.  We simply brand each other as one thing or another, and shout across the distance.  Even when we get together with family or friends, we focus on harmless topics, lest we end up throwing cake at each other, the way our Commander-in-Chief did when he was a little tyke attending birthday parties that were not for him.

There is even a popular theory going about that if we were just civil long enough to hear the other side, we would alter our position in light of truth told by those who disagree with us.  I am a great believer in civility, in respecting the dignity of others.  But it is a natural law of the human eardrum, as immutable as any law of physics, that an unwelcome truth, regardless of how soft the whisper, is always heard as a shout.   And this is the source of our acrimony today.

Imagine what life would be like if the evils of prejudice, oppression, injustice, slavery, or greed could be defeated simply by politely introducing the truth about the harm these evils were causing.  Imagine the slave traders who, upon hearing the awful truth about the vicious harm caused by their enterprise, would have anchored their vessels, unshackled their cargo, and given these traumatized victims their freedom with a heartfelt apology.  Actually, there were hundreds of polite and civil voices raised against the slave trade.  But it took a civil war to loosen the iron grip of believers from the throats of those they had enslaved.

Imagine if the followers of Hitler had been confronted courteously by kind purveyors of truth about what was really happening when Jews were being branded with yellow stars and their stores were being smashed.  Wouldn’t the masses of people who shouted assent to Jewish persecution have been humbled by knowing the real harm they were causing innocent people?  In fact, there were hundreds of voices warning of the terrible path leadership was taking, but Hitler’s followers were in no way diverted.  It was only the shedding of blood by Allied troops that finally brought an end to the horror.

We are all humans, so we are all vulnerable to false gods.  We invest ourselves in their vision until it becomes our operable truth.  It’s like a dream that seems so real, a dream in which we feel so right, so strong, that we never want to wake up.  So the theory being touted now is that all it takes to wake people up is to state rationally and thoughtfully the opposing reality that is so unlike the dream.  As if we could simply say, “You believe this way.  But here’s this fact you might not have considered.”  All of a sudden, the person who embraced a vision that brought pain and suffering to innocent people would dissipate like a vapor carried away on the winds.  It would just be a matter of showing people that what they thought was true probably was only part of the story or was not true at all.

But that has not worked in our country, Dear Ohio.  For reasons we can only surmise as humans, the followers of the despot’s dream are impermeable to adverse reality, no matter how nicely it is expressed.  They see opposing truth as a creeping vine that can grab them by the ankles and upend them.  Instinctively, they fight it, just as unwelcome truth has been fought in every era by humans across the millennia of history.  We have disparaged our neighbors, destroyed our communities, banished our adversaries, broken our free presses, killed our children and forsaken the source of our goodness, all in the service of another human who has conquered our will by promising us we will always be right if we follow him.

So people great and small, rich and poor, schooled or not, cling to him, thumbs in their ears, fingers flapping, tongues lolling side to side, chanting loudly, eyes squenched tight, to block out even the most courteously imparted contrary fact.  They already possess the truth; therefore they do not seek it.  They only want information that confirms that the ship of state, leaking and listing from abuse and neglect, will be saved by a helmsman who has only one life preserver on board.

We are shouting at them, Dear Ohio, because we see the water in the bottom of the boat growing deeper all the time.  It will not be just the helmsman’s followers who go down with the ship.  It will be all of us.  What is at stake if we capsize?  Our free press, our right to make our own peace with conscience, our efforts to save our planet, our progress in clean air and water, our struggle for equality in a country of diversity, our attempts to care for each other, the salvation of our national parks, our oceans, and resources, a public education system that once was the envy of the world, the legacy of our Constitution, the bequest of a free country for our children, our place as a leader in the free world.  The painful reality of these losses will dwarf the false visions of the helmsman.

The time of soft voices is passing, Dear Ohio.  Everyone shouts when they feel they are drowning.