Talking it Through

Understanding requires effort -- and empathy

It’s no secret that our nation is divided — on so many things. As just one example, think about the eternal battle between hunting and anti-hunting forces, an issue I’ve been involved with for decades. The more recent fight over public lands is another example. But our national disease has metastasized into something far larger. And yet… the events of last month have given me some small hope for us all.

I live in St. Paul, the Twin Cities. A few weeks ago, I wrote in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good. Since then, Alex Pretti, another US citizen, has been shot dead by federal agents. This may or may not have turned the tide here. We shall see.

I don’t want to rehash that particular debate. What I want to talk about is what happened after I posted on Instagram something about what I am doing to help my community. This is what I posted:

Four things happened almost immediately: First, a flood of “attaboys” in various tones. Those were nice, validating, easy to absorb. Second, a quiet rush of “unfollows,” although far fewer than I had expected; less than 50 out of my 95,000 followers. Third, a handful of ragey direct messages, including a guy who said he was throwing my books into the fire right now. Sigh. Nothing I can do about that I guess.

It was the fourth thing that gave me pause, and gave me hope.

Around a dozen Instagram readers sent me direct messages taking issue with my positions, but respectfully. Sure, they might have led in with “you’re wrong…” but it was clear they weren’t frothing at the mouth. So I decided to engage.

Without diving into the weeds of the immigration debate — this is not the place for that — each conversation went something like this: Assertion of truth. Counterpoint. Discussion of evidence. Acknowledgement of unknowns. Discovery of an area of agreement, of common ground. Calm recognition of each other’s points of view where they are clear but very different. Temperature lowered, in every case we then began talking about wild game cooking or football or how the ice fishing has been.

Keep in mind I personally knew only two of the dozen or so people I had these conversations with. But as a quasi-public figure, especially one whose entire ethos is understanding and balance, I felt I needed to get in there and talk it out.

I am so glad I did.

In every case, we acknowledged parts of the other’s argument — and where agreement wasn’t possible, understanding was.

I came away from these conversations exhausted. They are hard talks. Talks where you have to swallow your snark, any feelings of superiority, rage even. Because that’s not how humans should talk with each other. In many cases, these conversations took close to an hour of messaging back and forth.

But it was worth it. It is the work we all must do. While you cannot convince an ideologically entrenched anti-hunter to support hunting, you can convince an anti-leaning non-hunter that what we do isn’t monstrous. Same with someone who feels that public land isn’t ours, that it’s “government land” we are barred from and so is useless to us. And same with what we are all going through now.

These are tough times. I challenge you to find someone you know, someone who fits into that fourth category — opposing yet respectful — and have that conversation. About any of the big topics we all face. I can almost guarantee you’ll knock the sharpest edges off each other’s viewpoints.

It’s too easy is to surround yourself with yourself — to bubble up, to drag the other side endlessly. Let’s face it: there a perverse fun in trolling the other side. But doing that is how we got here. Conversation by conversation, with people willing to stay present even in disagreement, is how we can make things better.

Pick one person. Maybe two. Set a time boundary. Go in curious, not armed with snark and memes. And leave while you still recognize each other as human. If we’re going to heal, this is the way.