Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Lessons from the Other Side

People who hold different views of the world can help make us better people, if only we are willing to make room for them in our lives.

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Last week, we had the opportunity to visit some friends in the US. Before we landed, my partner turned to me and said, “Can we not talk about politics while we’re here?” To which I responded with a whole-hearted, “YES PLEASE!”

I will be the first to say that I’ve responded quite poorly to the recent American election, and it’s consumed more mental space than I care to admit. I became angry, righteously indignant, and couldn’t comprehend how decent humans could possibly support the ideologies of Trump.

The friends we were visiting are republican voters, hence the reason why we did not want to bring up politics. As it turns out, politics did come up, and it was totally fine. We respectfully shared our opinions and had honest and thoughtful conversations about hot-button issues. And at the end, we each still held our beliefs and still managed to remain friends.

I realized that over the past few months, I had begun to substitute ideologies and ideas in the place of human beings. While consuming endless soundbites of news and attending rallies, marches, and vigils here in Canada, I was subconsciously writing off an entire group of people simply because I disagreed with their political ideologies. This is wrong.

I was convicted of this during our time the US. Our friends are thoughtful people, exceptional parents, and incredibly active and generous members of their local community. They contradicted every stereotype I had built up in my mind about a republican voter. This forced me to wrestle with my criticisms, because now there was a human being—a friend—behind the voter.

In politics, life, and work, we are always going to encounter people with different opinions and belief systems than us. This gives us the incredible opportunity to expand our horizons, add to our knowledge, and look for the ways in which opposing ideas can enhance our own, rather than becoming immediately defensive. People who are different than us, who believe different things, or hold different views of the world, can help make us better people, if only we are willing to make room for them in our lives.

As a union we encounter this on a daily basis with our employers. Often the positions we take oppose those of our employer; but this is where the true challenge of cooperative labour relations is. Can we make space for opposing ideas? Can those ideas make our own ideas better? Is there a third way forward, rather than simply, “we are right, and they are wrong?”

My time in the US taught me that it is good to have my convictions, but I have to hold them with an open hand, putting human beings before ideologies and beliefs. To write off those who do not share them only perpetuates the divisive ideology that I claim to oppose. I will probably continue to participate in marches and rallies, and stand up for the things I believe in, but it’s important that I do so in the spirit of unity, and not to perpetuate the harmful language of, “we are right and they are wrong.”

There is always more room at the table for those who think differently than us. Can we challenge ourselves to make space for them?

Lessons from the Other Side

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