Depolarization, Connections and My Numerous Sins

As author of The Reluctant CEO, I became a reluctant guest on our area’s most influential radio talk show, Connections hosted by Evan Dawson, presented by our local NPR affiliate WXXI.  Why was I reluctant?  Well, the topic was climate change and I knew I would be out of my depth both on the science and on public policy. Perhaps, I wondered aloud, we could talk about climate change in the context of political polarization.  He thought that a terrific idea.  So, I accepted his invitation. 

He also promised not to throw me into the deep end of the pool without a life preserver, a promise he lived up to.  He proved, along with his producer Megan Mack, to be a most gracious host.  I can’t recall ever feeling so comfortable in front of the media. (If you missed it, you can listen to the podcast by clicking here.)

Dawson cast me as some sort of anomalous creature, one who educates himself and changes his point of view if the evidence points in a direction different from the path on which I start – a thinking person interested more in principle than polarizing politics and behaving heroically in the face of a constant barrage of vitriol.

“Who are you?” he asked laughingly, both cracking me up and appealing to my ego. 

After the buzz wore off, I began to think about what a heinous hypocrite I am.  After all, just last year, I found myself in a contentious social media melee with someone promoting socialism as a preferred economic system (a conversation I can’t believe we’re having in the most prosperous nation on Earth).  I may have lost a friend over that.  At a dinner party a few years ago, my debating effectiveness caused one of the guests to get up and walk out.  He accepted my apology but things haven’t been the same since.

Truth is: it has been a difficult journey to this imperfect place at which I behave imperfectly.  It is especially difficult in an era like this one, where what is true in one moment may become untrue, or at least irrelevant, in the next.

My journey started eight years ago when I swore in writing that I would no longer watch cable news (STOP WATCHING CABLE NEWS NOW!).  It’s an oath to which I have been faithful with the few exceptions where a video is worth a million words – earthquakes, tsunamis, forest fires, etc.

I used the time saved (about an hour and a half per day) to read more.  As a result, I have become more conservative.  (Turn off mainstream TV media and it may happen to you.)  My reading has helped me to formulate opinions outside the mainstream.  This blog began to hit its stride a few months after I stopped watching cable news when I wrote about a Gainesville, FL pastor threatening to burn a Koran (Is That What Jesus Would Do?  Really?).  There were other high points as when I wrote about my son’s hopes that the nation would legalize gay marriage (It’s Not Religion… It’s Not Politics…It’s Personal).  Or, my post expressing great hope for society (Hope, Love, Forgiveness… Can society achieve it?).  I began with a quote from Reinhold Niebuhr, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope…” and ended by expressing my “hope that civil society will prevail in accordance with humanist tradition.”

But, there were low points as well.  Listening to Connections in late 2015, my blood was boiling over the assertion that there was only one person, the current resident of the White House, that would elicit the response, “I would vote for anyone else if __________ is nominated.”  I would fill in the blank with Bernie Sanders and so I wrote, “Let’s Understand Just What Socialism Means to Us” in which I described Sanders supporters as “either ignorant or stupid.”  I have since met many Sanders supporters who are neither; but that’s not what turned me around. 

It was David Blankenhorn who wrote an article in The American Interest from which I quoted liberally in “Lessons in Depolarization:  Let’s Start Now!” Blankenhorn has since started an organization called “Better Angels,” taking the term from Lincoln’s first inaugural.   The organization has recently had its first convention attended by an equal number of “Red” and “Blue” delegates.  They have asked for volunteers to host red/blue events.  I have volunteered to host one if they ever make it to Rochester. 

I haven’t forgotten my sins of the past.  I am simply trying to make amends.

WHO WILL LEAD?

Pittsford should care and here's why

Note: An edited version of this post was published in the June 17, 2018 edition of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

The problem?  We’ve all heard it before.  One of the nation’s worst performing public school districts (Rochester) coexists a mere five miles from one of the best in Pittsford.  

It’s a sound bite, one that is meant to call our attention to a social justice argument.  How can the wealthy residents of Pittsford and other suburbs tolerate such injustice?  It seems unconscionable to some.  There is certainly a social justice argument to be made.  But, that term – “social justice” – has become a linguistic marker for liberals and that leads us down a dark road into divisive politics.

I’d like to take a different approach. 

For a century, Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb attracted talent to our community.  While it could be argued that there are still talented executives and scientists moving to our area, it can’t be said that the number is sufficient to drive our local economy as it once did.  As our children grow up and go to college, some will settle here and some will not.  For our community to continue to thrive, we need a profile that will attract companies to move their operations here. 

Today, inner city poverty and our broken school system may be the biggest deficiency in that profile.  I am not alone in this opinion nor is it uninformed.  Last month, the American Enterprise Institute released the results of a study that concluded in part that (1) a key element of any successful economy is the quality of its workforce and (2) simply increasing funding for schools is unlikely to improve results.  The study goes on to suggest structural reforms and changes to incentives for teachers and education leaders.

It may be appealing to business leaders and conservatives to embrace this study.  But, those of us who live in our comfortable suburbs can be subject to what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton called “psychic numbing,” the tendency to withdraw from issues that are too overwhelming to envision a solution or to participate in it.  And, yet, we must participate because failing to do so will undoubtedly lead to a steady decline in our fortunes as a community.  Our renovated airport, economic development initiatives and downtown redevelopment will all be for naught if we don’t have a workforce to attract new businesses.

Rochester has a proud heritage; a culture formed by the legacy of visionary leaders Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and George Eastman.  Each had a vision the impact of which outlived them.  Now is the time for community leaders, from both inside and outside the city, to develop a new vision, one that will create the momentum to overcome our biggest challenge.  Our future depends upon it.