If you accept my “festering sore” metaphor for the state of our national consciousness, then what can be done to either heal or excise the wound?

Consider that, no matter what’s going on, it is all just a conversation.

In my experience, this is the most observable, present, and accessible interpretation of what’s happening in any situation, at any time, or in any context. We are—as individuals, organizations, and nations—continuously in conversations about our past, our present, and our future. As I suggest in my essay about complacency, it’s necessary to distinguish between conversations about change and conversations that actually change something.

Some conversations, but not all, have the possibility of altering what others are thinking, saying, and doing. This is primarily, but not exclusively, a matter of the intent, commitment, and linguistic skill of the speaker.

In all human language, there are two kinds of verbs: those that describe action and those that are actions. For example, saying “Not enough people are voting…” is different than saying “I promise to vote on November 5, 2024.” The first statement describes or makes a claim about something for which evidence can be found. The second statement doesn’t describe, predict or claim anything: it is a promise. It is my commitment to act. Specifically, to vote on a particular date.

(FYI, there is a whole taxonomy of other action verbs—including requesting, offering, and declaring—as well as other language for rigorously expressing our commitments and grounding particular judgments or claims about how we are viewing the world. For anyone interested in understanding how conversations are the medium in which the future is created in language, I recommend reading Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design by Fernando Flores.)

I don’t believe there is a grand strategy for getting our country out of its current political quagmire. I don’t believe that members of the MAGA cult can be swayed by reason or even by facts. The nature of a cult is that its members will always turn any view that challenges its own narrative and that of its leaders into more evidence that their view is right and unassailable.

When worldviews collide, the one that will ultimately prevail is the one that can include the other.

In the long term, a generally open, inclusive, liberal and progressive worldview can include—and someday will eventually contain—a closed, exclusionary, adversarial and divisive movement. In an “open” system, those that are “closed” may be outliers, even regulated, but they will not be excluded. The opposite is not true. There is no space in a closed system for people who are open and free.

All that being said, in the short term, which worldview governs our democracy will be a function of power and numbers.

As a practical matter, our nation’s future will depend on how many people vote in the November election and who they vote for. You can influence this.

How many substantial or potentially substantial politically oriented conversations do you have now? Conservatively, let’s say between 2 and 4 a day. That’s 14 to 28 a week, around 50 to 120 a month.

1. What if your intention in every one of those conversations was to express your values and commitments?
2. What if you were also to explicitly request (another of those action verbs) that the person you are speaking with vote for President Biden and other Democrats on the ballot?
3. What if that person were to likewise commit to adopting a similar intent in their conversations and to making the same request of others?

In your political conversations, a long-proven strategy of non-resistance can eventually carry the day. Don’t argue with someone who is not willing to consider the rationale behind your thinking or the value of someone else’s perspective. Don’t try to change or control someone who is ‘dug in’ on their point of view. Simply accept that you and they live in different worlds—and continue to strongly express your values and commitments, including what you stand for as a human being.

Our nation has been built through the millions upon millions of conversations Americans have had in the past. Those conversations occurred one at a time—and they were, at one moment or another, started or influenced by individuals just like me and you.

Of course, like our predecessors, there is no way you and I can plan for or even be sure if a conversation we have with someone will matter. But we can be sure of one thing: the future is going to be a product of the millions upon millions of conversations individuals like us are having right now.

I promise to speak the next time politics come up in conversation.

Will you?

_____

Originally published June 25, 2024 on Jim Selman’s Substack “At the Crossroads“