(A note, faithful reader: if this column feels...familiar, it's because I retell a story I told last November. That column didn't make it into the print version of the Darien Times, so I figured, what's the harm?)
Dear
Philip,
My wife has forbidden me from talking
politics when we are out to dinner with friends. She doesn’t let me discuss anything political
with her father. She got upset with me
for joining a conversation about the Second Amendment at a Memorial Day
barbecue we went to, even though everyone was civil.
I am generally able to keep my cool when talking
about politics, but my wife insists that it is not only impolite to do in
public, but also what she refers to as “just a bad idea.” I don’t really see the harm, and I’m very
interested in what’s going on in the world.
Is my wife right? Am I not allowed to talk about the things that
interest me, anymore?
Sick of Red vs. Blue
Dear Sick,
Your wife’s
overabundance of caution, while not completely fair to you, is certainly
understandable: turn on cable news for about ten minutes if you’re not yet
convinced that political conversation seems to be dominated by folks who show
physical signs of advanced rabies.
In fact, Sick,
turn on cable news in a public place: if
you choose one channel, you’ll be instantly labeled an America-hating
socialist, and if you choose another, you’ll be tagged a mouth-breathing fascist. It seems a lot of us now love labels almost
as much as we hate being disagreed with.
The problem is, we
don’t just apply those labels to strangers, anymore. Your wife is fearful when you publically
discuss affairs of state for a very good reason: it used to take quite awhile
for political passions to boil over; now (to mix my cooking metaphors) we seem
to be living in a giant microwave, where things heat up in a fraction of the
time.
I’ve told this
story before, but it seems appropriate, here:
I had the pleasure of speaking at our library’s annual meeting a few
years back, and because of the timing (October of an election year), I decided
to play a little prank on the crowd. At
the conclusion of a perfectly warmly-received speech, I told the audience that
I felt it was important – even if they were not the popular choice in town –
that I publicly support “my guys.” Just
as the temperature in the room plummeted to 32ยบ, I whipped out a Red Sox cap
and put it on. The relief was palpable; the
crowd laughed heartily.
You know what
wasn’t funny? At least three people let
on to my folks during the reception afterward that if I had actually been
talking about the Democratic candidates for president and vice president,
they’d have gotten up and walked out on my speech.
Hence your wife’s
apprehension.
That’s not to say
that all of us have to give in and stop talking about things that we feel
passionate about, Sick. The trick is to
apply three simple guidelines: The Rose
Protocol, the Corleone Proposition, and the Yeager Rule.
Like talk-show
veteran Charlie Rose, realize that asking questions and listening to the
answers accomplishes more than talking over people or bullying them. (That’s known as the O’Reilly Gambit.) When someone disagrees with you, make sure to
respectfully ask them about their views, rather than just denigrating
them. That leads to conversation, and
away from bloviating.
Has any film ever
been more chock full of brilliant advice than The Godfather? Keep in mind
that what Don Corleone said about business is also true of politics: it isn’t personal. Talk about subjects, not the people involved
in them. If you find a conversation
devolving into personal attacks or name-calling, it’s time to employ…
…the Yeager
Rule: Know when to bail out. Like the great test pilot who managed to not
end up in an aeronautic fireball by pushing the eject button at just the right
moment, you need to recognize the signs of an impending crash and extricate
yourself from the conversation.
Follow these three
simple guidelines, and your wife will get over her fear of your involvement in
political debate. As long as you listen
to her about everything else.
Yours in purple,
Philip
