Learning Over Lunch

We were meeting with some friends from Cleveland over the 4th. We have different political viewpoints, quite different. We chewed on some of them over lunch like jalapeno poppers. I discovered two things:

1) it is better to talk politics in small groups, the best being one-on-one, and

2) I discovered that no matter how intense the disagreement, the positive emotions can always serve to counteract the negative ones, forcing us - in a sense - to agree to disagree, yet remain friends. And this  is the nature of human intelligence: complexity implies differing opinions.
(If we all had the same opinion, we would be like beings with less complex mentality. In fact, if you think about it, Democracy is exactly a system to "smooth" out the many differing mental states of a community of men and women.)
Even more, the positive emotions affect the way we regard other people's opinions. The opinions may not suddenly seem true to us, but they take on a humanity we had denied them earlier, and when we go out into the streets to look for warm bodies to fill the tables at our wedding feast, some of those opinions may end up eating some "city chicken" with us.
My friend told me a story of how he and an old fraternity pal got into a poltical argument and they have not spoken to each other since 2008. Then I told of some people we knew and their friends of long duration, and how within the past few years our pals had to tell their friends to lay off the nasty right-wing emails... and other things; in fact, our friends suggested that there was a time for all things under the sun, and the sun had set on that amiability a long time ago, and why not admit it?
I remember reading in 2008 about broken friendships littering the landscape like so many blossoms in the dust.

So there I was talking politics. We agreed on our outrage, but differed on the future. Most of our talk was done in standard political epithets, like some aged Homer standing for office in Ancient Greece:
it's not a crime to be rich, land of the free, opposition to the administration is racist, etc. You know them all. What astounds me is that most of us most of the time have thoughts that are so mealy and mushy and unsubstantial, and we let them pass for the truths that will rule our lives!

When we left, we embraced.
I felt something odd, and tried to place the feeling.
What happened was that I was with someone with very different opinions, yet we were open and friends and were determined to remain friends. The unusual feeling I had afterwards was that I "saw" his opinions in a very different light.
I not only saw his opinions that way, but I saw the many such modern day Republican opinions that way. (Not all... there are many opinions - right and left - that are beneath contempt.)

Furthermore, I realized that for years I had been complaining about spending and irresponsibility. I had endorsed Ron Paul in 2008, too. (Of course, with a Ron Paul buffet, one should make sure one sees all the "foods" that are being offered: some are great, some are cranky.) I realized that a lot of the anger that fueled the Tea Party also fueled my ire.

I feel very good about this. Of course, this does not mean I would vote for Michelle Bachmann; there is a world of difference between seeing someone as a good human being and voting to give them the power of life and death over oneself! A vast difference!
But I was amazed at the power of human emotion; I was amazed at its importance in our understanding of our human community. We ignore the power of positive emotions at our own peril. By giving in to opposition and hatred and vilification, we are selling our birthrights as human beings, human beings made by God with Intellect and Emotion. We have seen intellect and knowledge and science take us beyond the solar system, yet we sit on a dung heap of emotional debasement... and we find it acceptable.

We must discover the Love which is our birthright as human beings.

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