Mediaboss Marketing

One winter morning when I was 7 or 8 years old, walking to school, swinging my Robin Hood lunch box by my side, I saw a bunch of kids playing King of the Mountain on a huge snow pile. I ran over to join the game.

It was the usual teams, Arctic Cat versus Ski Doo. I started up the hill, climbing on hands and knees, until I was just about to the top. A kid I recognized looked down at me. What team? he challenged. Ski Doo, I said. Arctic Cat! he shouted, and kicked me in the shoulder, sending me head over heels down the hill, my lunch box bouncing along behind. After a couple more unsuccessful attempts to gain the peak, a bell rang, and we all dusted off and headed inside to our classrooms.

When I sat down for lunch that day, I noticed milk leaking from the corner of the lunchbox. I opened it up and saw that my glass-lined Robin Hood thermos, a gift from my grandma, had broken, and everything inside was soaked in milk. I had nothing to eat, and I felt sick at the thought of telling Grandma what happened.

But then all the kids at the table, even the ones who had been kicking me down the mountain a few hours before, began handing me portions of their lunches: half of a peanut butter sandwich, a hardboiled egg, a slice of pickle, a chocolate chip cookie. It was the best lunch I ever had.

I learned something that day about the nature of politics, that sometimes the price of playing the game is declaring loyalty to one side or the other. But as soon as we do that, we lose sight of our shared humanity. We are at our best when we sit down with one another and address common concerns without first taking sides.

Thats not easy to do. There are some people who see every issue in terms of opposition.

A few years ago I was attending a town hall meeting in western Wisconsin. The topic of discussion was political issues affecting rural communities. The evening started out well, with genuine, thoughtful conversation about challenges faced by small farms, families and businesses. Suddenly a group of people came through the door and attempted to take over the meeting. They were loud, rude and passionate. They had only one thing on their minds: the pro-life agenda.

One of the organizers of the event tried to point out that the purpose of the town hall was to discuss rural economic policies, conservation issues and agriculture. But the leader of the protesters was undeterred: There is no other issue she insisted; either you are pro-life or you are anti-life.

It is hard to stand in the center, because those on the extremes see it as refusing to take a position, as being wishy-washy, indecisive, even cowardly. They accuse anyone who doesnt agree with them of enabling the enemy. They see politics as a matter of defeating the opponent rather than as an effort to find solutions to common problems.

The political centrist believes in ethical persuasion as the primary means of achieving lasting societal health and stability. That means being completely committed to truth-telling, fairness and transparency in negotiating. For the centrist, political strategies like voter suppression, gerrymandering, backdoor dealing and closed meetings are anathema. Such tactics may be intended to achieve some particular good result, but they always come at the cost of the common good.

What does centrist political speech sound like? It is civil and employs respectful forms of address. It is mindful of the dignity of all people. It is honest, neither hiding the truth nor manipulating the evidence. It is passionate but never angry or spiteful. It is often cheerful, and capable of being serious without being solemn. It is impersonal, not adversarial, always focused on the common good. It is questioning, expressing a desire to deepen understanding. It is more reflective than reactive, determined but not stubborn.

What does extremist speech sound like? Its takes the form of either shouts or whispers, domineering among its opponents and conspiratorial among its fellows. When opposed, it becomes by turns hostile or defensive. It frequently employs personal attacks to discredit the other side and distract from the issue at hand. It sets up false dilemmas, insisting on only two options the good and the bad without considering other possibilities. It is incapable of humor in any form other than ridicule. It does not have to ask questions because it already has all the answers.

I try to be a political centrist, because that is the only place where ethical persuasion functions. On the two extremes there is no reasonableness, only reaction. There is no place on the extremes for calm reflection, for gathering information, for thinking things through, for honest debate. There is only kicking. On the extremes, words are not used to persuade, they are only used to declare sides, to determine who should be kicked.

It is important at all times, but especially now, for centrists to speak up, if only to keep the extremists in their place, to let them know that even though they may be loud, and arrogant, and full of bluster, they are not kings of the mountain.

In our country, in our communities, democracy is still king as long as enough people continue to believe in it and use their voices to defend it.

Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University. He also is a member of the Tribunes editorial board.

Go here to read the rest:
Richard Kyte: Despite turmoil, democracy is still king - La Crosse Tribune