Making Friends from Another Camp: We All Need to Get Out More
by Kate GawfNovember 16th, 2005 at 23:47:21
Nothing is more instructive than when someone I really like comes up with an opinion that collides with mine. It turns my whole brain inside out because I can’t believe someone I like so much believes that. It prods me to take inventory and make sure I really believe what I thought I believed. Sometimes it’ll even change my mind on some part of an issue.
I used to run people through my internal “politically correct†filter before admitting them as candidates for friendship. I’d find out they had one particle of politics different than mine, and I’d pluck them off my list like wilted primroses. Now I use a different filter: 1. Do I like this person, and 2, does this person like to think?
It started one day in my late twenties when I woke up and realized that every single one of my friends was a gay woman my exact age with my exact same politics. In fact, with my exact same wardrobe. In a panic, I started opening doors like crazy, to the point where now, decades later, I can truthfully say that some of my best friends are straight people.
But I didn’t stop there. I even have one friend who openly admits that he voted for Bush. (“Really?†I gasped. “I never would have guessed!â€) Not only that, he has issues with the gay thing, poor guy. Why does he like me so much? He’s stumped. Why do I like him so much? I’m stumped. We keep on. Our favorite topics are music, languages, and interpersonal relations – which occasionally leads into politics. Sometimes I tell him he’s full of crap. He’s much more polite. Men don’t mind being told they’re full of crap. Women mind. He knows that.
Long after I’d quit trying to protect people from meeting up with their own homophobia, I used to make exceptions for foreigners. They were always last on the coming-out frontier. My Afghani friend wondered why I never called any more. Finally, I just told her. “Look. You know that woman you assume is my roommate? She’s not my roommate, she’s my Significant Other. And it’s too hard to keep pretending. I know you’re really into the Muslim thing and I know what you guys believe.â€
She answered, in her exotic accent, “But when a person is my friend, that person is my friend, and it doesn’t matter. Just because you are gay does not mean that I have to be gay. If you are happy, I am happy. You are still my friend.â€
Dang! I thought she was supposed to be the bigot in this picture. You know, one of those people that go around projecting assumptions onto people based on hackneyed stereotypes? Pogo’s famous words scream out to be quoted for the millionth time in history: “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.â€
November 17th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
For the last several years I have had friends who were not life long Democrats, and it is a very interesting perspective. Also interesting is the reaction of relatives and friends–such as those who know a public figure as someone’s Dad rather than as the famous person.
It is always refreshing to be around/ read the emails of the Bus folks. It is also interesting to know people who have been active for decades in politics on opposite sides of campaigns I have been involved with (like old war buddies from opposite sides comparing notes). I have discovered, for instance, that there were even Republicans who were offended by the tone of the 2004 GOP convention.
One such friend and I believe that if we could ditch the partisanship for inspiration (as I find in the BUS Project) and serious indignation (this is right, this is wrong, here is what I intend to do about it) rather than the
phony blame game of those like Scott, Minnis, Richardson we might actually solve problems in this state. But that requires “here is what I believe, and here is my evidence–and I will be glad to consider your evidence” rather than the juvenile behavior we often see in politics these days.
I truly believe the support for such ideas as non-partisan legislature and One Ballot initiative comes from those who believe politics as currently practiced is broken and needs to be fixed.
The Bus folks are doing a good job of trying to fix politics.
November 18th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
I’m a very conservative person, as are many of my friends and family, but I also have many friends who are liberal. I don’t feel that politics should have such an impact on a person’s life that it limits the people with whom one can associate. I don’t think it’s good for our country for the left and right to spend so much time and energy trying to blast each other out of the water without regard for what’s happening around them.
I believe in stating my opinion and I also believe in letting others do the same. Just because we may not agree on something does not make each of us a bad person.
I used to be uncomfortable around gays until I found out that a good friend of mine was gay, then I realized it didn’t matter. He was still my friend. I’m not too crazy about people who are militant in their beliefs, be they pro- or anti-anything.
I find it surprising that so many people will automatically decide that a person is less intelligent or not worthy of credible attention just because they don’t agree with their own point of view.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and point of view, so why try to change it? I just try to tell my side and how I feel, hopefully without it becoming a yelling match.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Readers Digest:”The best way to lower the level of conversation is to raise the level of volume.”
So there.
November 18th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Liz: I think you’re describing exactly what Onward Oregon is all about. Politics has stooped to unimaginable levels in recent years. Former President Carter has described this in detail in his new book, Our Endangered Values, excerpted here. Also, Morris Fiorina has written about it in Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, reviewed here.
I think you’re absolutely right — it’s gotten too juvenile to believe. I want to say, ‘Let’s quit this idiocy.’ We are perfectly capable of differing in opinion and engaging in intelligent discussion. Nothing good is accomplished by casting people with different views as bitter enemies of each other.
November 29th, 2005 at 12:38 am
What is probably most amazing about the current level and tone of political ‘debate’ is it actually makes one feel nostalgic for the tranquil Reagan and Clinton eras.