President Joe Biden takes the Oath of Office (cropped)
(Image by Sgt. Charlotte Carulli official photo via Wikipedia) Details DMCA
The resolution of opposing views, through a synthesis that satisfies the needs of both parties in a dispute and incorporates some of the best of both views, is an outlook I have been advocating for a long time. It comes out of my own ability to see both sides clearly, and my difficulty understanding why two friends can't catch the sensibility in each other's view. This does not keep me from getting into arguments, because I am rather opinionated and stubborn myself. However; I have often been put in a position to resolve other people's disputes over various matters. There is always some common ground, regarding both the needs and capabilities of opposing parties. But unless they are willing to accept a win-win solution as a viable option, and unless the failure to examine that option might be a spoiler, little progress can be made to create a condition where these people can live or work together. Only if more people want to live and work together harmoniously, can we resolve the divisive rift in American politics today. It is as though otherwise kind people are more into demonizing their fellow humans than treating all others like human beings. And I think it is largely a power grab by our prevailing political parties, where we see that Republicans and Democrats remain locked in an ideological dispute at the expense of fair governance and civility. The search for common ground is often discarded in the name of ideological purity, but this kills the chances for many of the aims and ideals of both parties.
What we need to acknowledge instead is that both sides have valid concerns and valuable assets to bring to the table. This usually offers room for a compromise or mutual gain instead of losses on both sides. To work for the benefit of both parties, one needs to be more adult or mature than the combatants. Of course, there are always those who stand to gain more by keeping every dispute alive, and we must guard against their influence to obtain or maintain our personal freedoms. The threats to our freedom are many, so the danger is real. While folks in our military serve to protect our personal freedoms from incursions or hostile forces abroad; we must depend on civil authorities to safeguard our well-being otherwise. However, the main way to create or keep the peace remains the resolution of disputes. This alone allows the full expression of our personal freedoms. Maintaining the rift puts everyone in peril, not just the warring parties. It remains a huge challenge to be a peacemaker, or to give a little to get a little, but it seems to be our only hope.
The problem and the solution are in the human brain. We have a capacity to reason beyond other creatures, but we must use the flexible circuitry of the cerebral cortex to do that, because the hindbrain or so-called lizard brain is almost completely inflexible once people reach the adult phase of neurological development. Only by keeping the discussion civil and avoiding the knee-jerk or 'lizard-brained' responses that occur once we take offense or say offensive things can we use brain power to resolve our differences. This requires compassion and a willingness to understand. So people need to have a lot of heart, and the willingness to forgive or apologize, as well as open minds and more understanding. And we need to play more with ideas, rather than let our opinions harden into beliefs that force us to act in unkind ways. Almost everyone is more welcoming to folks they think are like themselves. So while secular humanists claim to be for everybody, they are decidedly more friendly and welcoming toward folks who would reject religion to embrace reason. So like people of a religious faith, they mainly advocate for those who believe as they do, and have a lighter concern for good will and amity toward people of faith. But this means a lot of people who claim to be free thinkers adhere instead to the dogma of the group of people they identify with and cling to their beliefs, while rejecting other possible viewpoints.
But social issues in general arise from a similar failure to use the full power of our brains to solve the problems at hand, because we are too wrapped up in the emotional issues involved with defending a particular point of view. We must rise above such issues. When we take offense at the words and actions of others, or say and do things we know they think are offensive; this creates barriers to communication by moving our and their brain activity toward the hindbrain and away from the neocortex. But only the higher brain is fully capable of rational thinking. So our capacity for reasoning is easily impaired or hijacked by strong emotions that trigger a response in the lower part of the brain that is inflexible, and incapable of being swayed by reason. That is why it is difficult or impossible to completely resolve differences between people, once their tempers have flared. This does not make it impossible for any one of us to rise above those differences, however.
That is why I am arguing our leaders need to be for everyone, to the greatest degree possible. But I know it is tough. It is not easy to look past the differences between ourselves and others, or to abandon our cherished beliefs to examine other points of view. It should be a mandate for all our leaders to look out for all of the people in their care. But not everyone in charge of something is committed to that kind of excellence. We should be able to expect conscientious regard in America from leaders in government, business, finance, and the military, but looking out for everyone is not the norm for all people at all times. We look to our top leaders first and foremost, to keep things fair and workable for all. Unless they can assist us to work together, despite our differences, we are all equally doomed. Warfare and climate change will not fix themselves, so unless we can learn to understand each other and cooperate, what would be left to folks who actually won the ideological battle (if such battles can be won) is a burned-out world. Even the winners would lose everything. This is not an acceptable outcome in my mind. So I would rather grapple with what people say are irreconcilable differences, and say we must reconcile them or else. The sitting President of the United States declared he would be a leader for all Americans, but Mr. Biden has failed to grasp the needs or win the hearts of a large sector of the populace. We must acknowledge that it's a tough job to be for everyone, but still make him keep his word.
To remain free of the coercion to pull things further toward the right or left, our top leaders need to be clear in their mandate, and remember that it is their job to be for everyone affected by their leadership. This requires top leaders to be a little more principled than the rest of us, in addition to being cleverer or more successful. It is decidedly the role of a sitting president to be in charge and get the job done. This requires leadership skills many people do not have. But it is important to the people's well-being that our top leaders be more virtuous than we need them to be, or at least more conscientious about the welfare of the people. They must learn to see a harmony among elements, providing an opportunity for reconciliation, even where others see only reasons for greater division. This remains the only hope to save humanity from its demise, to make America as great as it once was, and to free the world from oppression. If we recognize we need two legs to walk and two wings to fly, and know we must use both sides of a coin in order to spend it, we might better understand just how divided the human race has become. This has happened in part because some seek to drive us further apart, in order to benefit from the conflict and chaos. But this does not benefit the larger populace, which includes most of the people reading this. If we want to secure our future, we had better get people talking and keep working together.
 © 2022 Jonathan J. Dickau - all rights reserved
