Election season is in full swing, and I’m hearing more heated political conversations every day. Consequently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ideas we discussed earlier this year in Sitting out the Culture War—namely, how much we share as human beings living in the year 2008 on Planet Earth, and how we can focus on our shared humanity when the political fur starts flying.

Focusing on differences drives a wedge

I was born and raised Catholic, and I rejected that faith in my early adulthood. I spent many hours arguing late into the night with family members, pointing out all the hypocrisies I saw in Catholicism’s tenets.

I was so self-righteous, so indignant. How could these otherwise intelligent people cling to beliefs that were so obviously outdated, incorrect, and even oppressive? My voice was shrill, and my arguments were passionate, but I never managed to get anyone to agree with me. My ranting only served to drive an already prevalent wedge even deeper.

Nowadays, my viewpoint is quite different. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t care less what other people believe. It’s up to each of us to tend to our own minds and live our own lives. What I do care about is how our belief systems divide and immobilize us in the face of big problems that need to be solved.

What we share

Think of human needs and desires organized into a series of circles, some overlapping, some completely enclosed within larger circles. Consider the circles we all share—we all ...
... need food, water, and air
... love our families and want good things for them
... want good things for our loved ones
... like to laugh
... like doing things that are meaningful to us
... hate sitting in traffic

Now consider the circles that don’t overlap or even touch.
... Christian / Buddhist / Atheist / Muslim, etc.
... Republican / Democrat
... various shades of brown / beige
... skinny / fat
... small town / big city

If you imagine these circles, and look at the ones we all share versus the ones we don’t, it becomes clear that the number and weight of our similarities outweigh our differences by a long shot. The circles we share are important and tangible, the stuff that allows us to live and be happy, while our differences are superficial or based on preferences or ideas rather than physical reality.

Higher thoughts about human beings’ place in the order of the universe are valuable, of course, but without food, water, and air, there won’t be any living brains in which those higher thoughts can take place. Our preferences and ideas on how to live can only be expressed once the basics of survival are handled.

This political season, my hope is that we can make an effort to focus on what we have in common, the things we all want, and let the other things recede in importance, at least until we get the basics sorted out.

Focusing on the overlap

In the first Sitting out the Culture War post, a reader named Sheril and I had a fascinating discussion about our thoughts on the environment. I see our place on Earth as part of the Earth’s intelligent systemic design, and as precarious as that of any of the thousands of species that have come and gone throughout the millenia.

Sheril, on the other hand, believes that humanity’s place on this planet is guaranteed because we are created in God’s image as His children, and it’s simply not possible for human beings to screw anything up so badly that God can’t fix it—we just don’t have that kind of power. (Of course, I am paraphrasing—Sheril, if you read this, please chime in and correct me where I am wrong.)

My worldview puts humanity in one place—embedded in Earth’s patterns and laws even as we also have the ability to manipulate those patterns and laws—while Sheril’s worldview puts us in another—a privileged position of Grace and stewardship.

Now, Sheril and I could both decide that the other is closed-minded, brainwashed by the culture she lives in, and horribly misguided. We could focus on these differences in opinion, arguing with and devaluing one another until our humanity simply disappears behind the ideas we espouse.

But there is another choice—we can decide to focus on what we share: a desire for clean air, less waste, and elegant designs that preserve the gifts we have been given rather than squander them.

We might not agree on who or what bestowed those gifts on humanity to begin with, but does that really matter? There’s a huge overlap in what we want for the future—a world where humans can live peacefully, according to their own beliefs, in communities of their own choosing, without having to worry about devastation, starvation, or lack.

By reframing our conversation to focus on the person we are actually speaking with, rather than what we think we know about the kind of person who embraces a certain worldview, we can get beyond repetitive arguments and inaccurate assumptions to a place where we can see all that we share and work together to take good care of it.

Have you had any contentious or illuminating political conversations lately? Let us know in the comments.

(image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via flickr)