Tribalism Part V: Liberals vs. Conservatives

        I was born in beautiful suburbia to a conservative family.  I had a safe and happy childhood.  I love my conservative upbringing.  I was part of the tribe, mostly because I was young and didn’t understand politics.  I just went with the flow, drawing mustaches on Bill Clinton’s face every chance I got.  He and the other democrats were the enemy of course, and I had to do my part, right? 

        But then I grew up and found a different worldview.  I received a liberal education in college and experienced my first election between Bush and Kerry.  As much as I loved my conservative upbringing, and as safe as it had felt, I knew that something deep down in my core made me liberal.  I accepted the democrats’ message, while trying to gag down the republican one.  Of course I wanted the republicans to be right, but I wasn’t excited about their message.  I was excited about liberal ideals, and when that excitement came out of me, the bullying began.

        I was told that I was on a dangerous path.  I was called delusional, I was told that I couldn’t think for myself and that my husband had brainwashed me.  When I was pregnant with my first baby and debating the need for Plan B Contraceptives to be over-the-counter I was told that I was a baby killer.  I lost friends…a lot of friends.  I learned to be a closet democrat and keep my mouth shut.  Whenever it did come out that I was a democrat, the bullying would continue.  Only now, ten years later, am I confident enough to wear my liberalism and live outside the closet. 

        Leaving the tribe was hard, but living in one tribe when I once belonged to its enemy can be even harder.  Especially since most of my friends and family belong to that tribe.  I find value in conservatism and liberalism, and I feel that they could complement each other, but for the warfare.  Liberals call themselves progressives, but conservatives often call them radicals, godless, secular, unpatriotic.  Conservatives call themselves patriotic, defenders of America, good citizens, but liberals call them backward, gun-toting bigots.  This language doesn’t help. 

        Neither do the straw man arguments that are created in order to keep people riled up against the other side, thus preserving the solidarity of the tribe.  Straw man arguments are misrepresentations of an opponent’s argument.  For instance, I think most of us can agree that abortion is not something we want to be part of our society.  We just have different ways of wanting to solve the problem.  But if someone says they are pro-choice, a straw-man argument will misconstrue that to say “You don’t care about innocent babies and the sanctity of life.”  On the other side, pro-life can be misconstrued as not caring about the life, emotional strain, and choice of the mother.  This problem is aggravated by the people on the fringes who say ignorant things like a woman can’t get pregnant if it is a legitimate rape.

        I hear enough straw man arguments to think that what we have is two different sides building their own scarecrows.  These fake enemies are created in order to ensure fear of the other side.  A tribe needs an enemy in order to safeguard its survival.  An outside enemy creates nationalism and unity, and keeps people from looking at problems from within the tribe.   I am bothered by these fake enemies, because they obfuscate the truth and make it harder for liberals and conservatives to work together and understand each other. 

        Having jumped from one tribe to another, I quickly went from seeing Bill Clinton as the enemy to seeing George Bush as the enemy.  Now I try to search for the straw within the enemy.  That’s why it is hard to hear about President Obama, the cause of all our woes.  If the economy is bad, it is the result of this one man.  Twinkies go under because of the nature of capitalism, it’s Obama’s fault for killing capitalism.  Muslims are our enemy, well Obama must be a Muslim.  Obama can’t possibly have been born in the United States, because making him “other” than us makes him scary.  The problem is that President Obama is not the enemy.  Liberals, secularists, atheists, they’re not the enemy, and they are not going to cause the downfall of America.  The constitution is not hanging by a thread.  These are all fake enemies created to keep the tribe strong, and the fear of them keeps us from true communication and compromise.  That is the real enemy, the lack of communication and understanding that is keeping us from moving forward and reaching our potential as a nation.     

        I grew up thinking democrats were evil, but when I discovered liberalism, it was not the scary thing that I expected it to be.  The thing I love about having grown up conservative is that I enjoy the best of both worlds.  Conservative and liberal coexist peacefully inside me.  I have the progressive liberal side of me that looks forward and envisions greater things.  I also have the conservative side that keeps me grounded and helps me to look backward to evaluate the course and make sure that I am on safe ground.  How would things be different in politics if we could use our individual strengths to move forward together?  Tear down the straw men, cut out the tribal language, and look to each other’s strengths.  Let’s jump in a boat together.  Liberals can continue looking forward and conservatives can keep looking backward.  As we trust the vantage point of each other, working through our differences, we will have the best of both worlds.  We will know where we are going as well as where we have come from.    

Tribalism Part IV: Mommy Wars

        In continuation of my feminist post, I am going to dive a little deeper into the subject of motherhood.  I know that a lot of blog posts have been written lately on mommy wars, but I will add my perspective to it.  In order to understand where I am coming from, I think a picture will help:

        This is my minivan full of kids.  I have dreamed of this my whole life.  I spent my childhood playing with dolls.  Whenever I played the Game of Life, I didn’t care if I had the most successful life or the most money at the end.  I felt that I had won if I had my car full of kids.  The other day I was joking with my husband that I waited to be born the year the minivan first came out, because I had to be sure that I could get one.

        This dream of mine has been much more challenging than I ever thought possible, but I still love it.  It’s me.  When I look at this picture, it activates the pleasure center of my brain.  I know that the same image would activate the amygdala (fight or flight) of other people’s brains.  We’re all different.  Some women want to be mothers and have lots of kids, some don’t.  Some women choose to stay home while others work.  There are so many ways to be a mom and raise children.   But instead of celebrating those differences, we divide into tribes and fight over the “right” way to be a mom and raise kids.

        Since being initiated into the world of mommy wars, here is a list of some of the things I have done “wrong”: I had my kids too early, I also had them too late, I had too many kids, but I also haven’t had enough kids, my spacing was too close, I birthed them wrong, I breastfed them wrong, I discipline them wrong, I send them to the wrong school…the list goes on and on.  I think this list is something that most moms can relate too and even add to. 

        Part of the problem is ethnocentricity.  The reason we use ethnocentric language is because it really is hard to see things from another’s perspective.  Because a picture of my four kids in a minivan gives me pleasure, it might be hard for me to understand that not everyone gets pleasure out of that.  I get annoyed at the comments people make about me all the time because I hear them all the time.  But I know they are made simply because someone who isn’t doing what I’m doing day in and day out will look at my life and feel overwhelmed.  Everywhere I go I hear, “Wow! You have your hands full!”  “Is she your last one?”  “You just stay home with your kids?”  “You know how those are made right?” 

        I heard some working mothers talking the other day about the things they hear all the time that annoy them:  “How do you DO it all?”  “How do you know that your daycare is a safe place for your kids?”  “Who taught your child to read and play the violin?  Your nanny?”  Once again, I think these statements and questions come from people who look at a life choice and feel uncertain about it because it is not their own. But these comments come with huge assumptions that just because you are a working mom, you can’t also be a fully engaged mom who teaches her child to read or play the violin.    Onlookers don’t really need to be making these remarks, because for career women and SAHMs, these things are already heavy on our minds. 

        The choices we make as mothers are not easy.  It’s not easy to stay home and raise a large family.  It has been the most difficult thing I have ever done.  It has expanded my capacities beyond what I though was possible.  It is a challenge financially, but I know many SAHMs who are incredible at finding creative solutions to money problems.  We teach our kids piano and swim lessons, work together with other moms to form co-op pre-schools or dance groups, cut coupons, and become really good at bargain shopping.  It is challenging mentally and emotionally, but these incredible women I associate with rise above it every day.  Yes, we have mounds of laundry and dishes that never end.  We are tired and frazzled and at the end of our rope with a certain child who is acting up.  Some days are monotonous, some days are stressful or tiring, and some days are perfect.

        It’s also not easy to be a career mom.  I can only know this from listening to other women.  But the internal struggle sounds similar to mine.  Just like me, she has mounds of laundry, children who act up, and not enough hours in the day to accomplish what she needs to do.  Most of her fears are fears that I share.  And underlying it all, am I doing the right thing?  Isn’t that what we are all asking?

        I remember being told when I was a new mom and used a pretty strict method with my baby that encouraged her to sleep through the night fairly early, that I was ruining my child because I let her “cry it out.”  I looked at my ever-happy four-month-old, and then and there declared that the idea of ruining your child is a myth.  As long as you are trying to do what is best for your child, it is not likely that you will ruin him/her.  We have to do what is best for ourselves, our kids, and our own family units.  People on the outside can’t possibly know what that is.  

         I think the reason moms often feel threatened by the choices of other moms is that they challenge the “rightness” of our own choices.  I want to know that my life choices are valuable and that I am doing the “right thing.”  But if I’m doing the right thing then someone else must be doing the “wrong thing.”  It can be hard to get beyond seeing the world in black and white.  I don’t actually believe anymore that there is a right or wrong way to be a mom.  There is no perfect way to produce a good child, a strong family, or a happy mom.  In fact, there are many imperfect ways.  We don’t need to add more pressure to women who are already wondering if they are doing the right thing.  Our hearts will tell us what the right thing is for us.  Let’s end the mommy wars.  Let’s listen to our hearts and let other people listen to theirs.   We are all different.  We have different bodies, different minds, different interests, different talents, and different life experiences.  Based on those things, we can make parenting decisions that are just right for us and our families.    

Next Post: Liberals vs. Conservatives

Tribalism Part III: Feminists vs. Non-feminists

        Oh feminism!  I say this with a sigh right now because I feel fatigued from running back and forth between the two tribes.  Why don’t I ever hear about masculinism?  Perhaps because men have had the ability to define themselves and the world around them since the days of Adam.  Women are only just beginning to enjoy a loud enough voice to define themselves.  From my vantage point however, it appears that tribal warfare is keeping us from fully defining ourselves. 

        Let’s look at the warfare: first the tribal language.  I’ve heard feminists call those outside their tribe “Sexists.”  While that is a characteristic that can exist among non-feminists, it is not fair to use that one characteristic to define a whole group of people.  In western culture, I think one of the main forms of sexism that exists is benevolent sexism, which places women above men as moral superiors, rather than beneath them.  People who use this form of sexism often don’t even know that they are doing it or that it is harmful to both genders.  I recently heard someone say that the feminist movement just caused women to be as base as men.  He was referring to Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs without even mentioning Robin Thicke who was an equal participant in that performance.  If men and women are truly equal then women are equal to men in their ability to be base as well.  Another phrase I have heard a lot lately is that women are more nurturing than men and that is why they belong in the home.  Once again, we are placing women above men in their ability to be nurturing, thus subjugating them to one role for which they may or may not be well suited.  This also causes self-fulfilling prophecy, in that men don’t have to learn to be nurturing because that is not in their nature.

         So sexism does exist, but it is not a good word to describe all non-feminists.  As I mentioned in my last post, it is wrong to take the deep and complex personality of someone and narrow it down to one characteristic.  It is also wrong to do this with a group of people.  It is especially ineffective to do this when the person or group of persons doesn’t even know that they are doing it.  Benevolent sexism can seem like a really good thing.  If someone thinks that sexism is the idea that women are not as good as men, then going to the other extreme and saying they are better than men can seem…well, benevolent.  But both extremes are dangerous.  Men and women are equal, plain and simple.  To say anything else is sexist.  That doesn’t mean that the person or group saying it is sexist, it only means that the idea is sexist.  Ideas don’t make up a person and ideas can change. 

        The characteristic I most often hear in reference to feminists is “angry man-haters.”  Some feminists are angry, some rightfully so.  Some feminists do in fact hate men.  But there are so many forms of feminism and so many different issues that appeal to different women within the realm of feminism, that it really is not fair to characterize all feminists as angry or as man-haters.  In fact, some feminists are even men.  If a feminist hates men, it may be that she was hurt badly by men.  The best way to know what a feminist is truly about is to listen to him or her.  I have found groups of feminists that I relate to and groups that I don’t.  It never hurts to listen.  In fact, a lot of the “angry” characteristic that is associated with feminism could be diminished if people just listened to them and understood them.      

        I have seen quite a bit of ethnocentricity coming from both tribes.  I think non-feminists tend to be content with the status-quo and it is hard to see how other women can be hurting because of it.  Instead of really trying to understand that pain, non-feminists use their own experience as a reference point and start coming up with reasons why they think women might be fighting for more freedom.  “You just don’t understand how valuable you are.” “You don’t value your femininity.” “You want to be exactly the same as men.”  “You want to be better than men.”  The problem with making these kinds of remarks is that they are huge assumptions about the motives behind another person’s actions or beliefs.  Anytime we make assumptions like that, we are in grave danger of being wrong and only adding to the problem.  It is always better to lay aside our own understanding and try to really listen to the other person.    

        That goes for feminists too of course.  I have heard some feminists make remarks about women who chose to live “traditional” lifestyles as stay-at-home mothers and housewives, who suggest they are not living up to their potential.  Their feeling is that these women allowed themselves to be subjugated and what they are doing is not as worthwhile as a woman who is contributing to the world in another way.  I read a book recently by a muslim female doctor.  While I really liked her story of how she overcame sexism to get where she was at, I couldn’t get past the comments she kept making about housewives.  It was as though she expected women who stayed home and raised large families to all be desperate, undereducated, and to have let themselves go.  Her mentality sounded something like this: “I can’t believe she looks so good considering she is just a housewife with three little kids.”  It’s really not fair for a career-oriented woman, even one who had to work so hard to get where she is at, to look at a stay at home mom in this light. 

        I am going to delve deeper into the sub-tribal warfare that we often call “mommy wars” in my next post, but the main point for me is that there are many different ways to live and experience life.  Ethnocentrism makes it hard for us to look at other people’s life choices and to be okay with them.  This is what draws me to feminism.  The kind of feminism I like to promote tears down walls that say that one way of living is better than another.  My feminism desegregates the sexes and relieves the world of arbitrary gender roles that say men should be this and women should be that.  My feminism makes use of all of our talents and abilities to maximum capacity without any thought of whether that is the proper role for that person.     

        I haven’t always been a feminist.  In fact, this is the first time I have actually called myself a feminist.  Until just recently I could count on one hand the number of times I have felt unequal to men in my own culture.  I didn’t see the harmful effects of benevolent sexism.  My life choices fit well with my society’s expectation for women, so I have not had to deal with a lot of the bullying that comes from going against the cultural current.  But my eyes have been opened to the negative impact that specific gender roles can have on society. 

        This all came to a head for me about a month ago after I had spent some time myself experiencing the negative impact of gender roles.  I was at McDonalds with my seven-year-old daughter.  She didn’t like the toy she got in her happy meal so she went to the counter to trade it.  The lady laid out all the toys, segregated of course, and said, “These are the boy toys and these are the girl toys.”  My daughter frowned and walked away with the toy she already had.  I didn’t think much of it until I heard her and my son fighting.  She was trying to manipulate him into giving her his toy.  I sat down and asked her why she didn’t take that toy when it was offered to her by the McDonalds employee.  “Because it’s a boy toy,” she said.  My heart broke for her.  Here she was only seven years old, already learning that she can’t do or have certain things simply because they are for boys.  Here she was at the age of seven, already learning that the way to live in a man’s world was through passive-aggressive manipulation.  I asked her what else she thought boys could have or do that girls couldn’t.  I was amazed at the long list she produced.  My intelligent seven-year-old daughter who likes bugs more than babies deserves to make her own decisions in life.  Her choices should not be based on a set standard of gender roles.      

        That’s what feminism is to me.  It’s about being able to dream as little girls, and make our dreams a reality.  As women, I don’t think we should be on different sides pitted against each other.  We should all be fighting for feminism.  Feminism is the right and ability to define ourselves and the world around us.  It is the freedom to be who we are as individual women, with respect, love, and acceptance from the collective womanhood.

Tribalism Part II: Extroverts vs. Introverts

        It is a little problematic to fully fit introversion and extroversion into the realm of tribalism as I described it in my last post, but in a culture that values extroversion over introversion, there is a bit of warfare that goes on.  As I talked about in my last post, tribes typically use their language’s word for “people” to describe themselves, and an epithet like “eaters of meat” to describe another tribe.  Similarly, in our culture we refer to extroverts as OUTGOING, which has a very positive ring to it, while referring to introverts as “shy.”  It is pretty clear just by the use of those terms which tribe is dominant in our western culture.

        I belong to the less dominant tribe and have suffered from the tribal warfare.  When I was little, there was one thing in life I could count on more than anything else.  When I met someone new, they were pretty much guaranteed to call me shy.  They weren’t the only ones of course.  Everyone called me shy.  I tried so hard to rise above that label.  Sometimes I would meet new people and I would try so hard to prove to them that I was not shy.  But the inevitable always came out of their mouth: “You are so shy!”  I wasn’t being shy!  Do you know how much I was putting myself out there?

        I learned how to act “outgoing.”  I read self-help books on speaking and I practiced hard.  It’s been at least ten years since I’ve heard myself reduced to the term shy.  But now the cycle starts all over again.  It barely takes seconds for a new person to take the intricate and complex beings that are my children, and reduce them to one flat character trait.  “Oh you’re shy.”

         I worry about kids who are growing up with the idea that they have to change who they are to fit the world’s criteria for acceptance.  I know the great complexity of my kids’ souls.  I know them inside and out.  So when I hear people make snap judgments about them and instantly reduce them to one label that is supposed to sum them up, I want to scream at them.  You don’t know her!  How can you make the slightest judgment about who she is?  That is the problem with snap judgments and labels.  These labels can’t even begin to describe the complex beings we are.           

         There are as many different ways to be shy as there are people to act shy.  Shyness itself isn’t even a character trait.  It’s a reaction in the amygdala, the fight or flight area of our brains, to new and uncertain stimuli.  People who are more sensitive or high reactive will have stronger reactions in their amygdala.  “Shy” is a horrible word to use because it oversimplifies the complexities of the human brain.  Introvert and extrovert is a better comparison, but as I mentioned before our society values extroversion over introversion.  Here’s the problem with that: introversion is not all bad and extroversion is not all good.  It is not better to be an extrovert or an “outgoing” person. 

        Both personality types have their good points and their bad points.   For someone who struggles with shyness, it is hard to battle the physiological challenges that arise when you have to get out of your comfort zone and speak to people.  But the sensitivity and ability to observe that introverts have opens up a world to them that extroverts sometimes struggle to see.  It can be hard for an extrovert to open up the part of his/her mind that can see the big picture and notice all the little details as well.  Sometimes empathy doesn’t come as easily.  But extroverts are amazing at being able to speak and win people over and radiate friendliness.  It’s no wonder we value extroversion.  But we need both personalities.  Like the yin and the yang, they are complimentary and they complete our world.

        So in my experience, tribal warfare between introverts and extroverts in the western culture mostly looks like extroverts setting the stage and the rules, expecting introverts to adapt.  The problem with this is that it will only leave us off-balanced.   If you want to see how the world might look without a healthy balance of introversion and extroversion, look at congress.  Our political system is set up in such a way that introverts don’t make it very well.  And we all know how functional congress is.  We don’t need introverts to become extroverts.  We need to value both and allow space for both to be who they are, to overcome the struggles they do have, and most importantly to work together to make the world better.

        If you are interested in this subject, there is a great book called “Quiet,” by Susan Cain.  I highly recommend it.    

        Next tribes:  feminists vs. non-feminists

Tribalism Part I

        It’s as old as time itself.  Being the social creatures we are, the group or groups we belong to are an essential part of life.  We are hard-wired toward tribalism because it is evolutionarily advantageous for us.  Our tribe gives us a sense of safety and security and allows us to use our different skills for the benefit of all.  Survival of the fittest is easier for a group than an individual.

        Tribalism of course exists in a different form in the modern world where the major battlefront seems to be social media.  We form tribes around ideas.  We group ourselves with people who are similar to us and we fight against people who are different from us. There is definitely a purpose to this.  It is comforting to belong to a group of like-minded people.  It’s even comforting to shun those who are not like us because of the threat that they pose to our equanimity.  In a religion, people can worship peacefully, knowing everyone else knows the rules and can play the game the right way.  In politics, people can group together their core values and vote together for those things.  

        But tribalism also brings with it negative and even dangerous problems.  Most tribes tend to refer to themselves in their native language with the word for “people,” while referring to other tribes with an epithet, or a prominent characteristic about that tribe.  So while a particular tribe might refer to itself as “people,” they might refer to another tribe as “eaters of meat.”  When you really pay attention to the language we use in our own modern tribes, you will find that we do the same thing.  In a society that values extroversion over introversion, the terms we use are OUTGOING which sounds like such a positive characteristic, and shy, something to be ashamed of.  From a feminist tribe, anyone who is not a feminist might be considered a sexist.  From a non-feminist tribe, a feminist might be called a man-hater.  Language is a huge part of the formation of tribes and the walls we build up that make it nearly impossible to understand the other tribe.

        Ethnocentrism, or judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture, is a major part of tribalism.  It’s what keeps people committed to the group.  But it is also a major cause of hatred, violence, and war.  That religion’s spiritual rituals are different from mine, so they must be wrong or less spiritual.  She is opposed to gay rights, something I am for, so she has to be a bigot.  Or he voted for gay marriage, something that I am religiously opposed to, so he just doesn’t understand the moral implications of what he is doing.

        Another problem that exists in tribalism is bullying.  If a member of a tribe isn’t willing to conform to the politics of the collective, he/she is bullied by the rest of the group.  It is uncomfortable to go against the current of the tribe you belong to.  There is actually a neurological basis for this.  In the early 1950s a psychologist named Soloman Asch did a series of experiments on group influence.  He showed his volunteers some pictures of lines and asked them questions about how the lines compared.  In this first test, 95% of the students had correct answers.  Next he grouped the students together with an actor who confidently answered incorrectly.  In this test the number of correct answers dropped to 25%. 

        In 2005 a similar test was done by Gregory Barns with the help of brain-scanning technology.  The results were similar, but they were actually able to determine the reason behind the students’ change in answers.  When the volunteers tested alone the brain scans found activity in the occipital and parietal cortex which are associated with visual and spatial perception.  There was also activity in the frontal cortex which is associated with conscious decision-making. 

        When placed in a group with one person giving the wrong answer, there was heightened activity in the visual and spatial field, not the areas of conscious decision-making.  This means that they did not make a conscious decision to go along with the group.  The group actually changed their perception.  This suggests that if a group thinks an answer is true, you are more likely to believe it too.  This study also found that those who picked the right answer despite the group’s influence, had heightened activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fight or flight.  Barns calls this “the pain of independence.”

        When you put this in terms of our social grouping, it shows you that not only is there a problem with ethnocentrism and putting walls up to keep other tribal influences out, there is actually a problem with group solidarity.  In a religion, if one confident person gets up and says he or she knows something is absolutely true, how does that affect our perception of the issue?  And if we don’t go along with the group, the pain of independence along with the tribal bullying we experience may be too much for our amygdala to bare.  We may silence ourselves for fear of losing the comfort of our group.

        As I have found myself in and out of different tribes in my life, I have come to appreciate the need for tribes.  When I have lost the comfort and security of one tribe in my life, it becomes crucial to my emotional well-being to immediately find a new tribe to cling to.  For instance, and I will go into more detail in a later post, when I left the Republican Tribe, I needed a new political construct and a new group of people to associate with.  I couldn’t share my new views with my Republican friends because they rejected my views and bullied my opinions.  So I clung to the Democratic Party because it more fully encompassed my political views.  By making friends with other Democrats, I was able to safely share my views and rebuild my political construct without fear of rejection and bullying.  So while I can still love my Republican friends and associate with them in other ways, I now also have an outlet for my political beliefs.

        Another thing I have observed however, from being in and out of tribes in my life is how firmly each tribe believes they have the right way, the only way.  That is what causes tribal warfare.  I wonder if there could be a way for us to enjoy the benefits of our tribes without the warfare.  What if we could enjoy associating with people who are likeminded, and listen respectfully to people who view things differently from us?  What if we could love and associate with people whether they are in our tribe or not?  What if we can love and associate with people even when they leave our tribe?  What if we could appreciate that they were in the wrong tribe for them and be happy when they find a new tribe that suits them better?           

        This is my first post of a multi-part series in which I will examine some of our modern tribes.  Some that I have highlighted above include introverts/extroverts, feminists/non-feminists, conservatives/liberals, and differing religions.  Let me know if you can think of any other tribes in modern society that are worth discussing.

Disagreement

There is nothing more frustrating in an argument than realizing that the person you are arguing with doesn't understand your position. The counterarguments offered up seem jarringly nonsensical, off topic, shallow, misleading, disingenuous, and a whole slurry of other maddening adjectives. We all want to be understood by one another. Those we argue with want to be understood by us as much as we do by them.

So how do we bridge the gap?

The first thing that must be done is to find common ground. A discussion on a topic is pointless if you are not talking about the same things in the same terms. I will illustrate with a conversation that my dad and I pick up and put down from time to time: same-sex marriage. I have found these discussions to be very fruitful, despite being inconclusive.

The main point of confusion is what is meant by the word "marriage." It can really be seen in at least three, distinct but connected, ways: legally, socially, and religiously.

• Legally, marriage is simply a set of rights granted by the government. It's a contract.
• Socially, marriage is how we treat the relationship among ourselves and others generally. Calling my wife my wife, rather than my girlfriend brings to mind a certain level of commitment and seriousness.
• Religious definitions vary more, but in the context of the United States, it's a predominantly Christian system that dominates. Within this context, marriage is defined semi-biblically, with the idea of one man and one woman being the most important aspect.

These are crucial distinctions. When I argue for a legalistically based form of marriage, my ears are not open to counterarguments from a religious perspective. Likewise, my arguments for the legality of the thing don't make a dent in any of the religious underpinnings for what he is saying. This is a terrible place for the conversation to end because we are both frustrated and nothing has been accomplished. It ended there between my dad and I for a long while.

A breakthrough occurred when we started talking about civil unions instead. It's a beautiful term because it separates out the legal side from the religious side. We were finally talking about the same thing! The conversation quickly shifted to become more interesting and meaningful, and I feel like we've become more similar in our thoughts on the subject. We changed each other's minds, at least on the legal front. We still haven't come to terms on the social side of things--I think that "civil union" is an unequal term to "marriage" in a social context; he thinks the opposite. The key is that we're talking about the same things now.

Expanding that thought out to a more general sense can help us lay the basis for other friendly disagreements. It is critical to take turns explaining and questioning each other until everyone there is a basic, agreed upon set of principles and terms. Then the rubber can hit the road.

We can never hope to understand another's thoughts without first finding where they intersect our own. Only then we can see where our ideas diverge and really grow as people, rather than finding ourselves dissatisfied with our disagreements.

Your Mother Tongue

They say that the typical human infant is born with the ability to learn any language.  When we came out of our mothers’ wombs, we had the potential to learn fluent Mandarin Chinese, Castilian Spanish, Navajo, Kikuyu, Icelandic, or any other of a number of diverse languages.  As we age, our ability to learn does not disappear, but certainly dramatically decreases and our chances of making someone believe we are native speakers is abysmal. 

Babies make all kinds of crazy sounds as they are exploring their vocal chords, tongues, lips and breath.  Apparently, as infants are picking up the nuances of pronunciation for the language they are learning, they disregard the sounds that don’t have a place.  If the child is learning English, those interesting guttural sounds that we hear in some places, or the clicking noises used by others just fade away into non-retrieval as the child ages.  

Have you ever had the experience of hearing someone say a word in another language that you try to say back, but when told you have not said it correctly, cannot hear the difference?   My mother-in-law tries to teach us some words in Chinese.  This is a language that is particularly reliant on tone to pronounce a word.   Put the emphasis on the wrong syllable and instead of saying what you think is “beans,” you’ve got the other person sniffing her own armpits because you’ve told her she’s got body odor.

When I think about this phenomenon of language acquisition, I also think of languages that are not so literal.  In a country like the United States, where there is such a diversity of experience and circumstance there are many who speak the same “language” but don’t really understand each other at all.  What I think it may come down to, is that people grow up with different experiences of their reality.  We grow up in particular communities, with particular expectations and beliefs.  If we are never exposed to different ways of seeing the world, we slowly lose our ability to understand how it could be any different from the way we’ve always experienced it.

When I have discussions with people who see the world differently than I do, sometimes it seems like I can’t get the other person to understand what I’m trying to say and vice versa.  We’ve grown to understand different languages.  How disorienting it is to travel to a place where you don’t understand a word someone is saying.  It can be exhausting to spend a day, let alone a number of days trying to navigate the streets, restaurants and hotels of a country (or another person) by any means possible, usually involving a lot of hand gestures and still not be sure that you’re where you thought you were.  That’s not to say that one is right and the other is wrong.  It’s just the only way we know how to talk. 

Apparently, babies who grow up in bi-lingual or multi-lingual families have a lifetime advantage in their brain’s ability to learn more languages, perform complex multi-tasking and a host of other desirable traits.  Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could learn to speak some other “languages” than the ones we’ve always used?