What ever happened to political dialogue?

August 18, 2008 by dave

My wife Grace and I are part of a very small book club (right now it is 2 couples, but we're hoping to grow) and we met this weekend to discuss the two books we read. The books were Them by Jon Ronson and Orson Scott Card's Empire.

Both books deal with political polarization. Them has fun with extremists and Empire describes a fictional modern day civil war in the United States. What was interesting to me is that our discussion quickly shifted from the books themselves to the extreme political polarization in our country. We've come a long way from the days when the vice-president was going to be the loser of the presidential election from the other party who would put aside differences to do what was best for the country.

It concerns me that we've reached a point in our country where there is no room for political dialogue between people of opposing views. In our world, each side is so convinced of their "rightness" that anyone who disagrees with them must be "evil" because there is no way that anyone could honestly hold that position. To a liberal, you can't be a conservative without being a tool of big business. To a conservative, you can't be a liberal without being a communist.

While we almost universally believe ourselves to be "moderates", for some reason we believe that everyone who doesn't agree with our position is an extremist. Of course as with most things in the life, the reality is somewhere closer to the center. There are extreme conservatives who are tools of big business and there are extreme liberals who are communists. The majority of people of each political affiliation fall somewhere closer to middle, neither tool or communist.

My sister Michelle and I disagree on almost every political issue, yet we still can have a polite conversation, eat at the same table and even enjoy each other's company. I don't think she's evil, just wrong. OK, I suspect she actually does think I'm evil but that's based on the fact that she's my little sister, not because of my political views and besides she overlooks it. We can talk about political issues without it becoming personal.

My fear is that Orson Scott Card is right. When your enemies, real or political, are evil, then you're justified in any action, after all, they're evil. That's the view taken by Islamic extremists. If we as Americans take that view about our fellow citizens, where will this end? I think we need to get back to our political roots, when people of intellect could have differing political opinions and yet work toward common goals as Americans.

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