The truth is in the relationship.
The greatest obstacle to finding common ground is what we believe about the other that isn't true.
Our beliefs are, at best, approximations of what is true. Physicists and other scientists know this better than anyone. So they compensate for the inherent uncertainty in their work through rigorous testing. They know that what they think is true matters little if it doesn’t find repeated confirmation in controlled experiments.
In our everyday life, however — and this includes scientists, once they hang up their white coat and leave the lab — we don’t necessarily hold ourselves to the same standard. Especially when it comes to our beliefs about people we’ve decided are ‘the enemy’ or ‘the problem.’ Those beliefs we often hold in front of us like the blades of a snow plow — they push to the side any contrary evidence in our path.
Insisting on the rightness of our beliefs means, of course, that we’re unlikely to discover when we’re not right — or at least, not completely right — which can lead to misguided actions that make situations worse rather than better. The obvious corrective for this is to test our beliefs, and to do so in relationship with those who believe differently.
Simply put, relationships are the lab in which we discover more completely what is true. That’s where our ideas, beliefs, theories and suppositions — which by their nature float mostly in the groundless world of mental imaginings — meet the concrete reality of the person in front of us. The person who will, by dint of their own perspective, tell us whether or not we’ve got the whole picture.
A dramatic illustration of this — useful for its clarity — is the experience of Randy Furniss, a neo-Nazi who came to the University of Florida to listen to a speech by the white nationalist Richard Spencer. As he walks through a crowd of protesters to get to the venue, Furniss is variously spat on, shoved, and even punched. But when he crosses the path of a young African American man named Aaron Courtney, a different kind of confrontation occurs. Rather than abuse Furniss, Courtney asks him a question:
“Why don’t you like me, dog? Why do you hate me? What is it about me? Is it my skin color? My history? My dreadlocks?”
Though pressed repeatedly, Furniss doesn’t answer. He just stares at Courtney blankly.
Frustrated by Furniss’ lack of response, Courtney does the unexpected: He asks Furniss for a hug. He asks three times before Furniss relents and embraces him.
Holding Furniss tightly, Courtney asks one last time: “Why do you hate me?”
Finally Furniss answers.
“I don’t know,” he says, numbly.
As I said, it’s a dramatic example. What Courtney did is not something one would do in just any circumstance. He acted on an intuition, sensing that in this particular situation a hug might have a creative impact. He was right, giving us a powerful example of what can happen when one’s subjective beliefs confront their objective reality. Reflecting on this example, three important takeaways for me stand out.
The first and perhaps most humbling is that dogged attachment to our beliefs is not just the purview of white nationalists. I’ve certainly experienced being as entrenched in my views as Furniss was in his, and like him I haven’t always been entirely clear as to why I hung on to those beliefs so strongly. Simply believing we’re right can be a powerful form of hypnosis — an infinite positive feedback loop that leaves little room for sincere questioning and reflection.
Second, it wasn’t only Furniss who got the reality check. Courtney no doubt started that conversation with projections of his own. Discovering that Furniss was far more confused than convinced, and that he even could be persuaded to hug a person he demonized, no doubt altered some of Courtney’s projections in a profound way.
The last — and to me most significant — takeaway has to do with Courtney’s question. He didn’t ask Furniss why he was a white nationalist, or try to engage him in a debate over the specifics of his beliefs. Courtney got below the headlines, below the sensationalized labels, and asked Furniss something far more personal. He asked him why he hated him, the person right in front of his face. In that instant, Furniss’ beliefs left the world of the abstract and entered the tangible reality of the moment — an inescapable confrontation with a single, penetrating question that cracked open his worldview: Why do you hate me?
I don’t know.
It might be tempting to dismiss Furniss’ answer as merely laughable evidence of his ignorance. But I think that would be a mistake. More accurate would be to see it as a moment of authenticity and even vulnerability, a letting down of one’s defenses to confront a hard truth about oneself.
It was also the moment when the humanity of both men became real to each other. And at a time when people are at odds on almost every issue — and when fear of ‘the other’ has become the source material for our worst imaginings — becoming real to one another is of the utmost urgency.
So how to begin? One place to start, it seems to me, is to reflect on our beliefs that meet two criteria:
They’re beliefs we’re absolutely convinced are correct;
They’re beliefs with which a noticeable number of other people don’t agree.
Such beliefs are likely ones in which there’s room to gain a fuller picture. Can we entertain what we might be missing? Can we imagine how having a fuller picture, rather than negating our view, expands it — giving us some common ground from which we can move forward?
If we can imagine those things, then perhaps we’re ready to have a productive conversation with someone who holds an opposing view — allowing us to discover more completely what is true, and to make each other real.
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.