The Real Questions

Once again I asked my children what I should post.  My oldest suggested I post something on goals.  That is a worthy subject and will likely be the musings of a future scribble, but when I sat down and put fingers to keyboard it wasn’t what sparked my passion.  Two things seemed to weigh on me.  I have said before that a person who does not understand multiple sides of an issue does not have a right to an opinion, or at least no claim to a reasoned opinion based on more than mimicry or emotionality.  If you combine that with previous claims that I feel an excessive, almost dogmatic, partisanship is bringing our country and society to a standstill, you come to the ideas I want to put forth.  In summary, I’m suggesting that we must get beyond our emotionally charged positions and come to know the interests of all sides so that we can begin to arrive at workable solutions to the quagmires that beset us.

In order to achieve this reasoned approach, I would put forth that we need to get to the root of the questions we face.  Further, I state that the roots we are looking for are seldom found in the arguments of either side, but lie in a deeper understanding of the fundamental differences in those arguments.  I could try and explain this concept further, but for the sake of brevity and easier understanding I will use some examples of key issues facing our society today and what I think is the missing profundity in the approaches to those issues.

Let us start off with a hot topic, gay marriage and whether it should be legally recognized by society.  For this discussion, my opinion on the matter isn’t of much interest; rather, let’s look at the opinion of the two sides and the supporting arguments.  Those against legalized gay marriage state that expanding the definition of marriage beyond that between a man and woman will weaken the sanctity of the union.  Further, it will undermine and disrupt the concept of family and its place in society.   They feel that a society that allows and sanctions marriages outside of the traditional nuclear view of the family will lead to the collapse of social order and bring children up without a clear definition of who they are and how they fit into an ordered and successful culture.  In summation, marriage between individuals of the same gender is not good for society and not a legally viable option and therefore should not be recognized or encouraged.

On the other side of the issue, proponents of gay marriage state that it is matter of equality and anti-discrimination.  Without a legally recognized union, their partnerships will always be either ignored, or worse, deprecated by society as a whole and in particular when it comes to benefits, ability to secure financial loans and housing, being recognized as heirs, and sanctioned in the legitimate parenting of children.  They see any attempts at limiting the ability to form legal unions as discriminator, barbarous, and backward thinking, if not outright persecution.  They see it as a matter of freedom and equality under law.

Opinions on both sides are deeply held and freely exchanged—to little or no affect upon the opinions of the other side.  Neither side, with the exception of some who come across as extremists, are willing to openly state the core difference, that being whether homosexual behavior is a moral choice.  If I believe that a gay lifestyle is contrary the laws put forth by my belief in divinity, then arguments around freedom and equity under law carry no weight.  No legal code of man can supersede or negate a commandment of God.  On the other hand, if I don’t believe that there is such a divine condemnation of the gay lifestyle and that God, if I believe in such a concept, sees my choice as valid and acceptable, then no argument about the affect on society is going to make any sense.  And so, rather than debate all the other stuff, we should confess the true issue.  If we think homosexuality is a sin, then we are against gay marriage.  If we see homosexuality as a moral lifestyle choice, then we are in favor of its legal recognition.  And there is little either side can do to influence the other without first influencing that fundamental question, is homosexuality a sin?

Let’s take another example, the role of race in our society.  We’ve come a long way from the 60’s when many still openly admitted that they thought that one race was superior to the other.  I’m not saying that there aren’t still those that feel that way, but few would dare openly express it.  Now the debate flows about the need for forced integration, or whether races long discriminated against should now be given preferential treatment or other similar programs to try and reverse the long term effects of discrimination and somehow equalize the playing field.  The reports and committees try and determine to what affect stereotyping and race profiling continue to affect hiring practices, the judicial system, and the ability to escape generational poverty, gang involvement, and inner city blight.  All of these discussions are based on very real problems and represent serious concerns to our society in both the short and long term.  While we may claim to be a melting pot, we are a long way from universal assimilation and equality.  Nor have we yet even been able to define what equality would look like as many suggest there is a need to maintain and utilize a certain level of diversity in society.

In order to demonstrate what I think is the real question here, let me harbor back to a training I had many years ago as part of my employment.  It was on diversity and how to manage it.  I was a supervisor then and would later go on to serve for a time in upper management.  The trainers, in order to raise awareness, provided videos and discussions to emphasize the racially involved problems that still plague our society.  The presentation was very effective in explaining how individuals of different races viewed society and what they thought the true nature of the problems were.  During the training I sat next to an African American lady.  We had been supervisors in the same area for a time and while we weren’t close, I did know her.  At one point in the discussion she was asked for her perspective.  While she didn’t claim that anybody had persecuted her or overtly mistreated her, I was a little shocked to here her say that she often didn’t know how she fit in and felt alienated.  I had thought she was well liked and for the most part respected.  As I pondered further I asked myself what it was that separated the two of us and I came to a bit of an epiphany.  When asked what I thought, I admitted that I must be prejudice.  It wasn’t that I felt superior or inferior to her race, or any other race.  What made me prejudice what my lack of understanding of what it was like to be a black person in our society.  The same might be said about being a person of another gender, religion, or ethnic background.  Indeed what separates most of us from each other, regardless of characteristic or circumstance is our inability and often lack of desire to understand the other person’s experiences and feelings.  A failure to walk a mile in the other person’s shoes and experience life as they experience it leaves us to fall back on intellectual arguments and endless analysis of socio-economic factors and historical predispositions.  At its core, it isn’t race or other characteristics that separates us, it is the difference of our experience.

I like threes so let me illustrate one last example.  I read an opinion lately that said Abraham Lincoln was one of our most disastrous presidents because he started us down the road of big government that has lead to the major problems facing us today.  Being a big fan of Mr. Lincoln, I had a hard time coming to terms with that opinion.  Nevertheless, having studied the man and the history of his times, it is undeniable that he took upon himself presidential powers that were unthinkable to previous administrations and which many of his day labeled tyrannical.  Further, his justification for the preservation of the union by emphasizing the supremacy of the federal government over the rights of individual states, while justified in my opinion, can logically be extrapolated to contribute to the rise in federal power exhibited after his death.  So it begs the question of whether our society needs and should depend on as much federal power and oversight as we now have, or whether our freedoms are better served by a decentralization of power, a decreasing in regulation, less economic aid, and an increased emphasis on the rights of individuals and other entities such as businesses to operate as they see fit with little governmental involvement.

Here again, the usual arguments often skirt around or miss the deeper questions.  The real question is whether individual rights are going to take supremacy over the rights of society to govern itself.  On the one hand, a complete granting of individuals to do what they want and how they want to do it would easily be defined as anarchy.  Without limits, I could do what I wanted regardless of its effect upon other citizens or the environment.  On the other extreme is the idea that people are insufficient to govern themselves and societal interests can only be served by giving oversight and regulatory powers to a governing body such as a supreme council, congress, soviet, etc., or even a king or other despot.  I think most in our American society would find either extreme unacceptable, so it comes down to where we want to draw the balancing line between societal interest and individual freedom.  Even more fundamentally, it asks to what degree mankind or his organizations such as cities and businesses are able act in his or their own interest without acting contrary to the interest of the rest of society or the environment.  It might even be tied to our individual philosophy about whether or to what degree we are inherently good and cooperative in nature, or whether we are basically selfish and destructive in nature.  How different the debate would be if we conducted it around these questions rather than endless debates about government spending, the need for certain laws, or the excesses of anecdotal situations.

So, what would it mean if we debated the more fundamental issues?  On gay rights, for instance, as a larger part of the society sees homosexual behavior as morally acceptable, then arguments around the sanctity of traditional marriage will fall away and arguments about equality will gain ground.  Only the most extreme opponents will dare talk about morality and proponents of gay rights will not care to discuss it in those terms at all, unless it is to decry the backwardness of organized religion.  As for the race issue, we’ll continue to debate immigration, inner city crime, and economic inequality rather than get at the differences of experience that divide us and leave us unable to relate to each other.  Finally, we’ll debate regulation policy, government economic intervention, and the need for phone monitoring rather than make decisions about where we want to draw that balancing line in the sand between individual freedom and the good of society, or whether we as a people can make choices in our own interest while still taking responsibility for the effects upon society and the environment.

In wrapping this up, how does this relate to my two introductory themes of having an informed and reasoned opinion and in defeating the excessive partisanship that I feel is tearing our society apart?  It really comes down to two things—or maybe two aspects of the same thing.  First, we must be willing to dig down to the fundamental questions and courageously bring them out into the open and make them the focus of our discussions and debates.  Second, there must be a willingness by all sides involved to, as a popular author suggested, seek first to understand, and only then be understood.  Applied to our three examples, when we as a society decide where we stand on the morality of homosexuality, we can best decide what legal protections, if any, we give to gay couples.  When we seek to understand the experience of those diverse portions of society, then we can better know how we can change hearts, minds, and laws to support a healthy diversity and equal opportunity for all.  Finally, when we frame policy and legal debates about the role of government in terms of what personal freedoms we are willing to subject to the good of society or the environment, and vice verses, then we can really see the reason behind whether a governing policy or power is healthy or detrimental.  Thus we can put in proper check the unhealthy partisanship that is so destructive to our search for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.