Earlier this year, just as the summer sun was readying itself for its moment in the New England spotlight, Othello and I moved out of our cozy (read: tiny) Old North End apartment and into our current bigger (read: bigger) New North End home. The move, though a good one, has had an unexpected side effect: instead of walking to work each morning with my time occupied by thoughts of the next great blog entry, I’m forced to spend my morning commute distracted by other drivers and the morning radio’s news. Without that morning walk during which I habitually organized my thoughts on my life and the world around me and subsequently planned how to accurately and entertainingly present them in my blog, I’ve had a hard time compiling these anecdotes into entries worth reading. To compensate, I’ve changed my blogging habits, which is why I’ve spent many a recent evening patronizing Speeder’s, Sapa, and Dobra: three (mostly) quiet coffee and tea shops where I can research (via both the Internet and people-watching) and imbibe in the token Generation X-Y beverage. And so it was that I found my inspiration for this blog entry while seated in a somewhat comfortable chair in Sapa eavesdropping on a what-seems-to-be weekly discussion/debate group.
We love to debate, don’t we? In November, within a span of seven days, citizens of a New England state voted to ban gay marriage, the New York Yankees won a 27th World Series championship, a U.S Army major killed 13 people and wounded 30 others, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a controversial health care bill, and the infamous D.C. Sniper was executed by lethal injection, and though some of these events were more important than others (obviously), they all shared at least one common denominator: their ability to divide people into a heated debate. Whether you were for or against gay marriage, capital punishment, universal health care, the “Evil Empire” Yankees, or a “turn the other cheek” philosophy made popular by the conservatives’ right-hand man, Jesus, and whether or not you made any of these opinions known, it’s a safe bet you found yourself residing on one side or the other of each respective issue. I’d go so far as to say that you took opposition to your stance personally.
And then, as if there wasn’t enough controversial newsworthy material making its way through the airwaves and Internet lately, ready to divide even the closest-knit friends and families, Sarah Palin released her biography (I’d call it an autobiography, but let’s be honest here: her coauthor did the writing.) and it had the expected result: the stage-right liberals criticized her, the stage-left conservatives praised her, and the moderate audience made another bowl of popcorn to enjoy while watching this free entertainment play out on a national stage.
I’m sure my readers (read: reader) will not be surprised to hear that I wasted no time tossing my opinion into each discussion salad, nor will they will be surprised to hear that I didn’t always have the popular opinion. I debated the Boston Red Sox fan, Mr. Extracurricular on his view that the Yankees were an “evil” corporation like WalMart (my argument was that baseball is just a game and if you want to claim moral high ground for other teams, let’s talk about the Boston Red Sox’s all-white baseball team decades after the color-barrier was broken); I called this guy a bigot in a Facebook dialogue that featured him comparing gay marriage to the marriage of a man and a dog (Seriously? I thought that argument died with the fear of catching AIDS from a toilet seat!) (my argument was that government should never have gotten into the marriage business in the first place and that it should start recognizing “civil unions” instead of marriages; but in the mean time, I was tired of people playing the “God loves everyone … except you” card to justify their bigotry); I referred to Sarah Palin as a “moronic conservative woman” to which one of my conservative female friends called my view one-dimensional; and then, after not heeding every warning known to man (emphasis on man), I questioned the necessity of requiring health care plans to cover abortions unless the pregnancy is endangering the mother’s health or is the result of rape.
Considering the sensitivity of some of these subjects, I was surprised to discover the one that affected me the most was the Sarah Palin diss, simply because of my friend’s response. This friend of mine (I’ll call her Maine Girl) is an intelligent, conservative woman who is devoutly religious. I haven’t flat-out asked her, but I’m fairly certain that she voted for the McCain/Palin ticket last November (I don’t mean to single her out because she’s most definitely not the only friend of mine to make that claim). In her response to me, she said that she wondered if I was capable of seeing only one side to an issue (i.e., the liberal side). And that’s what bothered me: I wasn’t sure that I was.
I have spent the last 10 years of my life passionately supporting the staple liberal points of view (gay rights, civil rights, social programs, less military, more education, peace, abortion rights, etc.), while patting myself on the back for being open-minded, and now I’m afraid that somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the justifications for one of the most important liberal commandments: Thou Shall Have Freedom of Speech. Sure, I’ve recognized everyone’s right to speech (e.g., when the Westboro Baptist Bigots visited my state earlier this year, I didn’t fight their right to be there), but I’ve done so with an attitude that listening to their speech wasn’t worth my time. And let’s not kid ourselves here: listening to the WBBs and the Facebook Bigot wasn’t worth my time except maybe for the opportunity each presented me to understand ignorance and hatred. But, not all opposing views are those of extremists and I need to remind myself that just because someone resides on the other side of the aisle, doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is wrong. And if I listened to the other point of view, I might learn something.
There is always, as Mama and Papa Benchly taught us over and over again, more than one side to the story. And even that’s not the whole truth because, in fact, in most cases (especially political debates), a good rule of thumb is to assume that there are at least three: your side, the other side, and the truth. So if it’s common knowledge that there are at least three sides to the story, why do we even bother debating? Why are we willing to debate our friends and strangers over a social-networking website; and travel 1,500 miles to protest for 3 hours; and organize a bunch of Craigslist strangers in a coffeehouse to discuss a weekly topic? To help me understand, I muted Van Morrison in my headphones and listened in on the discussion group.
The identity of the Sapa discussion group’s organizer was quickly revealed through his group moderation tendencies and his propensity to dominate the discussion: he was both Jim Lehrer and John McCain. He did not hesitate to share his anecdotes, which it seemed, had been carefully recited on his morning walks to work, and he did not shy away from bold and controversial statements (e.g., “unlike men, women just don’t appreciate anything that has to do with physics”). Like me, like Sarah Palin, like the WBBs, like Mr. Extracurricular, he wanted others to hear his voice and the message it carried, because, like all of us, he believed deeply in what he was saying. And like all of us, there were folks who disagreed (shame on them if they didn’t!).
After eavesdropping for a bit on Mr. Anti-Women-in-Physics and without the acquisition of any real evidence to support this theory whatsoever, I’m going to try to answer my own question: we debate because we believe strongly about something (i.e., life, health, death, and all the controversial subjects in between), because we are deeply afraid that our beliefs are wrong, because the only way to assuage our fears is to be surrounded by like-minded people, and because, in the absence of a like-minded support group buffer, we are desperate to disprove opposing points of view so that our beliefs can be validated. In essence, we are all insecure schoolchildren hopeful that we can convince others that we possess that all-too-elusive cool trait, and the way to do so is to be the proud owners of indisputably right and morally-sound beliefs.
Feel free to let me know if you disagree, and I’ll do my best to listen.
Benchly'sword 
Hmm, doing this entry post-Thanksgiving is a good opportunity to rethink the epic debates me and my father have when we get together.There is a risk of leveling two sides of an argument just for the sake of doing so. In the case of Sarah Palin, I believe that it is a solid truism that she is an unqualified, divisive politician that poses a threat to our country if elected President. When I ask my father why he likes her, he responds "She's a breath of fresh air". While good for a general public personality, that is no qualification for office. Most of the arguments for Palin are all of this sort; nothing about how she has the knowledge of a particular issue.Read through the Media Matters website and you'll find hundreds of misrepresentations of lies thrown about by leaders of the conservative movement (Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc.) Why does their point of view need to be equated with a peer-reviewed study on global warming, for example?Sapa's a great little coffeeshop. My girlfriend's addicted to their bubble tea.
The comment you overhead about women and physics fascinates me (even though it wasn't yours). I've recently been noting my significant other's tendency to ignore or not understand physics and its place in our daily actions, success, or decisions. But I'm probably too physically based and he perhaps not enough. Shall we debate that? (You do know both of us….)
Oops, I meant "overheard" not "overhead"!
Now, granted, my book group unabashedly calls itself the Best Book Group Ever (BBGE) so I'm most definitely the last person who should be commenting on this, but nevertheless, after some light Internet research, I was able to locate the aforementioned discussion group online (http://philosophy.meetup.com/254/) and I have to ask, does a group that calls itself The Deep and Meaningful Conversation Meetup Group really expect me to take them seriously? I won't reveal the identiy of Mr. Anti-Women-in-Physics but he's on the site and you can probably figure it out. Regarding his comment, he was discussing a piece of structural art in Washington that impressed him but failed to impress his female friend. He said this was because she was a woman and women don't tend to appareciate the physics or physical side of things.