Judgment and Curiosity. And Also What the F*ck Is Going On With Our Government?

There’s a collective project being undertaken in our movement that is asking how to connect with and understand people who voted for DJT. I’m excited to see this emerging. I have felt very frustrated by the initial urge to brand all DJT-voters as stupid, misguided, uneducated, racist. It feels very diminishing of the real struggles people face out there in the world. 

Of course, some Trump voters may be those things and more. But we really don’t know yet what tipped the scale for many people. In my own circles, I have talked to people who just felt they couldn’t vote for Hillary for a variety of reasons (some understandable and some maybe less so). I have talked to people for whom DJT’s messages about the economy really resonated with them – and they should. It is true that our economy has left too many working people behind, has created a handful of winners and millions of losers. We have an economy with greater inequality than at almost any time in our history. Working people feel the twin frustrations of navigating an economy that doesn’t work for them, and seeing so few leaders willing to speak out and take a stand on their behalf. That explains, in part, why we saw movements for Bernie Sanders and DJT arise at the same time.

So of course this passage from the Bhagavad Gita really spoke to me.

When you know who you are, you are enlightened. In that realization, the darkness of ignorance disappears in the light of true knowledge that shines like the sun, revealing the Supreme. Those who continuously think about That (Self), merge with it and settle into it. Whoever holds this as their goal will no longer be subject to rebirth because Self-realization dispels any remaining flaws. Those who have realized that Self see the same Self equally in a humble scholar, a cow, a dog or a dog eater. (BG 5.16-5.18)

The commentary includes an extended discussion of the parallels to the biblical command to love thy neighbor as thyself [I love seeing the commonalities among world religions – it is another way of understanding ways that we are the same, at heart; our human strivings to find the good life, to be better people, share so many elements]. The argument is that first you know yourself. When you know yourself, you are able to see yourself in all the people around you. From recognizing that shared humanity, the possibility of unity and understanding comes.

So we have to see ourselves in DJT’s supporters and understand how much we are alike. That feels like a lot to take on, no? But where is the possibility for transformation of our country if we don’t start from the common ground, which might only be the very essential humanity at the core of us all.

Is the common ground that we, too, have felt anger and reacted to it, sometimes unskillfully? Is it that we can see the pain and loss people have experienced? For so-called liberal white people, is it that we haven’t fully inventoried our own racism and are a little too high and mighty about how non-racist we are compared to DJT supporters? Is it that we see our own laziness and complacency before this time, and can relate to people who want easy answers to hard questions, even if they are obvious lies?

I don’t like thinking about myself this way. But I find this reflection both reassuring and challenging. Reassuring because I think it is possible. Because I’ve seen it in my own life.

In the leadership retreats I help lead, we ask people to be ready to talk about hard issues that divide the progressive movement. Like how racism functions in our world, how other forms of injustice take shape and how our movement could better respond to or attack them. People have to grapple with their own experiences of race and racism. They often struggle with accepting our culpability in creating or being complicit with racist systems. When things are hard, I ask our participants to recognize the impulse to judgment and respond by being curious.

That’s what we are called to do now with DJT voters. Recognize our impulse to judge – to think we know their story, to label their views, to condemn their actions. But respond with curiosity – to wonder why they think these things, what has happened in their lives that hasn’t been resolved, to try to understand what beliefs and actions arise before we label and condemn.

I have had some small success with this in my personal relationships. Some of the people around me are republicans. They didn’t necessarily vote for DJT (or they won’t tell me that), but they didn’t vote for Hillary either. I find that equally distressing, only because we sounded the alarm so much, we proclaimed the sky would fall if DJT were elected and worked to get more support for Hillary even if only as a bulwark against him. And it didn’t work. So what made those 3^rd party republican voters allow for the possibility of DJT to ascend to office? It feels just as important a question to me as why people voted for him in the first place.

Anyway, a few things about how I’ve tried to approach these conversations. First, remember that I’m only doing this with people I love, care about, value. Holding that love and care at the core helps me avoid going ballistic. Second, ask more questions. Why do people think what they think? What evidence have they seen? What counts as evidence to them? What would they need to see to change their minds? What could happen that would shift their views, what do they think is a step too far? Third, refrain from trying to persuade. Persuasion comes from a place of certainty and knowing I’m right. Curiosity and seeking to understand comes from a place of not knowing and accepting that there’s more to the story than I have seen.

I don’t think we can get to persuasion until we actually listen. And we can’t find common ground with other people unless we are willing to acknowledge some core validity to how they see and understand their own lives.

I’m really committed to doing this. It is not easy for me. I have always avoided talking politics with family and even friends because my views tend to be much more radical than even the kindred spirits in my personal life, and it hasn’t seemed worth it to go there. But now I’m stepping out of my comfort zone. It is not a selfless act – I feel the threat to our future of not doing this. Our very survival depends on it.

I know I don’t fully understand this part of the Bhagavad Gita because I’m still arguing against it on some level. Like – how is the unarmed African-American man killed by the police the same as the police? How is Philando Castille the same as the officer who shot and killed him? I have a really hard time accepting that. I may be able to relate to it on a philosophical level, but here in this world, where I live, in this body, with this community, I have to deny that. Or at a minimum, I have to deny the outcome. It is not acceptable to me that this happened and keeps happening. It is not acceptable to me that one family grieves while another sees its son live to a ripe old age. That one family loses and another wins. We can’t call that the same.

I accept the deep wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita so I’m going to keep struggling with this, and find the interpretation that allows for opposition to the systems that shape us, even while we work to see and know the common humanity we share. 

* * * * *

This week really rocked me, after feeling equilibrium last week. The wikileaks stuff, the complete opacity of what is going on in our government. It is a very scary time. The very foundation of our shared humanity is at risk – we have to acknowledge that we have no shared understandings in our society at this moment. What counts as leadership, as good leadership, what are the practices of credibility and truth-telling that we expect from leaders, what are facts. It is all up for grabs right now. I can’t see the future ahead. It is good time to stick with foundational truths, to remind yourself every day that you know what you know. To not let our leaders gaslight us. We can’t afford to go even a little crazy – we need our full collective wisdom to steer us forward. I’m counting on all of you, and trying to do my part.

With love, gratitude and solidarity.