Battling Otherizing

Elizabeth Lesser, author and the co-founder of a lifelong learning center, gave a talk at the TED Women event in December. The video was released recently and contains an actionable item that supports the core philosophies behind my dissertation:

In the talk, Lesser laments the “otherizing” of people in different political camps. When our goals are to persuade, or failing that cripple the beliefs of others, frustration tends to surface in the form of hyperbole and presumption about the motivations and expectations of others. Too much of that leads polarization, a deep rut of ineffective conversation in which semantic labels squawk at each other.

To combat this, Lesser suggests lunch.

She invites each of us to find a person we might consider an Other, someone who’s politics are what motivates you to scream into the wind, and meet with them over good food. In that public discussion, forget about being defensive or lining up your logic for debate. Don’t interrupt. Instead, be curious, conversational, and authentic. Listen.

“[U]buntu work is slow, and it’s difficult. It’s two people dropping the pretense of being know-it-alls. It’s two people, two warriors, dropping their weapons and reaching toward each other. Here’s how the great Persian poet Rumi put it: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet your there.'”

For me, lunch may have to be splitting a package of Pop-Tarts—or perhaps in between sessions at TEDxBloomington on May 14—but I would love to have this kind of discussion with my Other. Who will it be?