If someone had told you on January 19th that a skinny young woman from L.A. would upstage the inauguration of our new President Joe Biden, dramatic performances by J.Lo and Lady Gaga, and even the joyful swearing-in of our first female VP, Kamala Harris, you might’ve been dubious. But the effervescent Amanda Gorman outshone all the stars with her wise words and soulful delivery. She tapped into the zeitgeist of America, addressed the “terrifying hour” of January 6th, and challenged us to “rebuild, reconcile and recover.” Gorman reminds us that there’s always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.
When the world seems dark and our lives continue to be dislocated by the pandemic, I often think of Amanda Gorman, and listen to her poem, again and again. In watching her interviews with everyone from Trevor Noah to Anderson Cooper, I’m inspired by her poise, her wisdom and her optimism. Did you know that from age seven she’s been preparing to become president of the United States? That gives me hope.
This week, as Trump’s impeachment trial began in the U.S. Senate, and we’re forced to relive the horror of January 6th, I’m exploring these questions: How did our our country become so polarized and our politics so violent? And is there any hope for closing the divide? And what’s the role of empathy in the process? Is there a role for you and me?
I sought out the wisdom of three experts. And there is good news. My latest BBC report aims to do two things:
- Help us understand how we got here: by exploring insights from psychology, anthropology and sociology.
- Offer some tangible action we can all do to douse the fire and live more peacefully with people with whom we don’t agree.
Although Amanda Gorman was featured in my original draft, she didn’t make the final cut for the BBC (due to time constraints). Yet the words of her inauguration poem echoed the wisdom I gleaned from the experts: We must put our differences aside and focus on what unites us, our common aspirations. We must try to build bridges, and (as hard as it is sometimes) assume good intent. So I’d like to start this week’s Fresh Dialogues podcast by revisiting Gorman’s rousing performance at President Biden’s inauguration, before I share my report.
“We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all…”Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate and Inauguration Poet
As much as it pained me to hear his provocative words again, I was forced to include some audio from Trump. You’ll understand why very soon…
Listen to my report on the BBC Health Check podcast (starting @27:00)
Or to the Fresh Dialogues podcast here or below:
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Here’s a transcript of the report which aired on the BBC (including some parts which didn’t make the final cut):
Trump: They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some I assume are good people.
Hillary Clinton: You could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables: the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it…”
Alison van Diggelen: That was Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton during her presidential run in 2016 and before her, Donald Trump during his bid as the Republican candidate, when he made his infamous comments about undocumented Mexican immigrants.
Dan Fessler is a professor of anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles. He’s convinced that provocative language leads to dehumanization and is a key driver of the polarization problem.
Dan Fessler: Any time that you hear any politician, or candidate for office, talking about “them and they,” describing a competing party in terms that homogenize it, that treat it as uniform: “those people over there.” When single labels are applied, alarm bells should go off and you should start to ask yourself whether the humanity of people with different ideas is being eroded. This is happening in the US and around the world. As soon as it becomes “us vs them” we slide down the road of seeing others in our society as less than human.
Alison van Diggelen: As an anthropologist, Dan Fessler frames the issue with a wide lens.
Dan Fessler: I try to understand contemporary human behavior in the context of the species’ long evolutionary history, characterized by both remarkable co-operation, and a very long history of inter-group conflict. That propensity is strongly selected for. So it’s easy for us to flip into a mindset that leads to dehumanization, that’s an inherent part of our human psychology.
The perception of “the other” has a class component to it, those with more education and those with less interact less, live in different geographical regions, and confront different challenges. It’s easy to conceptualize “the other” as homogeneous and less worthy.
Alison van Diggelen: Larry Diamond, a professor of political science and sociology at Stanford University agrees about the danger of dehumanization.
Larry Diamond: The polarization in the U.S. and other advanced democracies represents an empathy gap. We aren’t even trying to see the world through the eyes of people very different from ourselves and to understand their pain and anxiety.
Alison van Diggelen: In the US, people have always had different views on issues like tax rates, gun control and health care, and held opposing moral and religious positions. Racism has a deep history in the country, and has been fanned by recent events. But more recently the rising inequality and growing opportunity gap have also contributed to the toxic mix. And according to Larry Diamond a new level of inflammatory and divisive rhetoric combined with conspiracy theories has pushed polarization to new extremes.
Larry Diamond: We have to put a heavy stress on leaders, political leaders who give oxygen to this fire.
Trump (6 January, 2021): All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left democrats which is what they are doing, and stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done….
Larry Diamond: Leaders who inspire it, give legitimacy to it, and who led these people falsely and cynically to believe that their candidate had won this election when they hadn’t.
Trump: We will stop the steal.
Alison van Diggelen: Larry Diamond identifies partisan news media and social media as further amplifying the resentment and political polarization.
Larry Diamond: The technological disruption is super charging these people in terms of disinformation, rumor, conspiracy theories… The human brain is wired to be receptive to shocking rumors [ you can go all the way back to witch hunts…] but social media connects people on a larger scale and diffuses and magnifies these conspiracy theories and facilitates misinformation at a pace and scale we’ve never seen.
Alison van Diggelen: Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She points to psychological research on our susceptibility to fake news and conspiracy theories.
Rachel Kleinfeld: We all want to believe what we want to believe, so strongly – it’s an idea called motivated cognition. In experiments with rats, they found when you hear a confirmation of your belief, it’s like getting a hit of dopamine, getting a drug. So people really want to confirm their own beliefs. They seek out information that confirms their beliefs, they hear it faster, they see it more quickly on a page. Amazing when you got through this research…
Alison van Diggelen: So what might it take to heal the deep divisions in the United States?
President Joe Biden (January 20, 2021): This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And, we must meet this moment as the United States of America.
Alison van Diggelen: This is part of President Joe Biden’s inauguration speech on the 20th of January.
President Joe Biden: Let us listen to one another. Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war.
Alison van Diggelen: Larry Diamond believes Biden’s call for more listening and mutual respect is achievable. He’s encouraged by the results of an experiment called “America in One Room.” In 2019, his team from Stanford gathered a diverse group of five hundred US citizens for three days at a resort in Texas. They were given non-partisan factual information and neutral moderators led discussions about political issues. Living together, having meals and talking together helped them see one another in a whole new light.
Larry Diamond: We had African Americans who said they’d never got to know a white person socially before, a white suburban housewife who’d say I’ve never met an undocumented immigrant before. Once you meet people and see they’re human beings too and that you share some common aspirations and emotions with them, the instinct to demonize them is immediately de-escalated….We did achieve a reductions in emotional polarization and animus.
Alison van Diggelen: The researchers also recorded significant changes of opinion. The most polarizing policy proposals, from both the left and the right, generally lost support, and the more centrist proposals gained popularity. Could this experiment be replicated and made part of a national discourse? Diamond hopes that the experiment can be expanded across America using online video conferencing, to help build empathy between people who view each other as enemies.
Larry Diamond: We now have the (technological) ability to scale this up with automated moderators that ensure equal participation in the conversation…There’s no reason why, if we have the funding and sense of civic purpose why we can’t organize open minded, mutually respectful conversations among millions of Americans in the coming years.
Alison van Diggelen: And evolutionary psychologist Dan Fessler points out that if we want to close the divide and build bridges, it’s important to start with the right assumptions.
Dan Fessler: The first step is to recognize the other person or group is not inherently bad. Someone can be a good person and see the world differently than you do. If we begin with the premise that this is a reasonable person who is moral, and is motivated by things they believe in, then the question becomes: how can I understand what they believe in and where can I find things we agree on?
That’s not to be naive and to suppose there aren’t people out there who do wish to harm and exploit others, there are, but that should be your last conclusion, not your starting premise when you interact with someone with whom you disagree.
Alison van Diggelen: And Rachel Kleinfeld offers this advice for healing rifts with relatives, friends and neighbors. For example, what if you’re liberal and live next door to a (fervent) Trump supporter?
Rachel Kleinfeld: Focus on the things you have in common and try to rebuild neighborly ties. No one wants bad relationships with their neighbors. For whatever reason, they might have been a racist, someone who simply liked the tax breaks or really believes that abortion is wrong and they liked getting the judges that would support that view. You don’t know why they voted for Trump, but you do know that when it snows they have to clear their driveway just like you do, then you can commiserate and build some bonds over those things.
REPORT ENDS
And finally, another reason I’m optimistic today is an interview I did this week with Harvard professor, Marshall Ganz. He shared some valuable wisdom about how to turn anger and outrage into constructive action. It’s something he knows a lot about. If you’re not familiar with his work, check out his Research Page or his Wikipedia page. As well as working with Cezar Chavez to help secure decent working conditions for farm workers, he’s credited with creating the successful grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama’s winning presidential campaign in 2008.
Once again, thanks to the BBC’s talented Andrew Luck-Baker who did a herculean job editing my original draft, and thanks also to the experts who were so generous with their time: Dan Fessler, Larry Diamond, Rachel Kleinfeld and Marshall Ganz. I look forward to sharing more of Marshall’s insights with you next month.
And I’d like to give the last word to Amanda Gorman, because as she reminded us in her recent interview with Michelle Obama, “I am not lightning that strikes once. I am the hurricane that comes every single year, and you can expect to see me again soon.”
Just in case you need reminding, here’s our call to action from Amanda Gorman:
“When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid,
the new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
