Truth and Objectivity: Where Does it Live?

There seems to be a consensus that all talk of civil dialogue must start with a commitment to truth.

But, what is truth? Are we able to objectively look at statements or facts and determine truth? Can we find media sources that we trust to give us truth?
Today, most of us have come to believe that “the media” media outlets have either a liberal bias or a conservative bias or a bias toward profit and sensationalism.

While it would be interesting to have a discussion about whether truth and a desire for objectivity exists in our media, I am more interested in whether it exists in us. The media will only give us truth and objectivity if we care about it. When I observe most of the dialogue among friends and family and I watch the political ads and the social media postings, I sometimes wonder how much we truly hold objectivity as a value.

What about you? Have you lost some of your objectivity during this elections season? To see where you may fit on the objectivity continuum, here is a quick test.

If you think every statistic that supports your candidate is accurate and every statistic that support the other side is misleading, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you believe that some of your friends who disagree with you do not care about the poor, or God, or babies, or the troops, or the elderly, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you cannot watch either Michelle Obama or Ann Romney and recognize that they are good people, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If, during the past three months, you have not listened to “the other side” and acknowledged that they may have a good point on a particular issue, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you observe disadvantaged people in your everyday life and only see examples of behavior that support your political views, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you believe that either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney are either unintelligent, inarticulate, non Christians, socialist or un-American, you have lost some of your objectivity.

So, how did you do? If you are like me, you will see that there is much room to improve. I think that is okay. If you care about becoming more objective, that is a good thing. What scares me is that I believe many people may be saying, “Why do I need to worry about whether I am objective?”

Objectivity is simply the ability to discern truth. If objectivity does not matter then truth does not matter. If we have lost our belief that the truth matters, then much of our talk about love of country and our sense of moral superiority is just ego and self righteousness.

Watching political ads during the next six weeks is likely to convince us that both parties are betting millions of dollars on our unwillingness to care about truth and objectivity. It would be great, just this once, if we could prove them wrong. If that happens, and a hunger for truth returns, our country will win the election, regardless of which candidate wins.

Civil Political Dialogue: Let it Begin With Us.

Our country is becoming increasingly divided. We have politicians unable to work together, news people who seem only interested in ratings and voters who feel increasingly frustrated. How did we get here? More importantly, how do we get out?

It’s easy to blame the government or the media for this deterioration, but that let’s us all off the hook too easily. In a free society, the governments and media sources are mirrors of the people they serve. The dialogue around the water cooler and the postings on Facebook are, for the most part, not any more unifying than the rantings in Washington.

How do we change this?

According to Gandhi, things will not improve unless we are willing to “be the change we want to see in the world.”

So, let’s get started.

If I look honestly at my own behavior, I contribute to the problem on a regular basis. Most of my political discourse simply reinforces what I already believe rather challenging my thinking. I usually hang out with people who agree with me so that I can exchange stories and statistics that deepen my beliefs. It is fun to do this, but it comes at a price. As I listen to just one side of the story I become too convinced of how "right" I am and I start to regard "the other side" as being either misled or morally inferior. That type of thinking adds to the deterioration of our national conversation and causes me to occasionally feel alienated from dear friends and family members.

So, what can we do to change this? One option is to seek out friends who disagree with us who are willing to help me find a better way to have these conversations. If we can try to understand each other and search for common ground and shared understanding, it will take the edge out of some of our divisiveness.

If we are to achieve these lofty goals, we need some ground rules for civil discourse. I would start with the following:

1. Seek First to Understand: Neither person can respond to the other until we are both sure that we have truly heard the other person.

2. Speak the Truth: If we are going to make any progress at all, we will all need to be more careful about our commitment to the truth. (A discussion of how to find truth and objectivity will be addressed in another blog.)

3. Be Kind and give each other the benefit of the doubt: For this to work, it is critical that we avoid personal accusations. This sounds easy, but I think we fail at this often. Liberals who assume conservatives lack compassion for the poor and conservatives that assume liberals are morally inferior routinely violate this rule.

4. Seek Common Ground: When I am working with clients, the first thing we do is talk about their "big picture goals" and common goals. This usually allows them to start the conversation by understanding that they really do care about the same things. I think the principle of starting with common ground would work well in political conversations as well.

Am I dreaming here? Can these conversations happen? Are you willing to be a part of this conversation?

Respectful Disagreement. Talking Politics with Friends and Family.

As voting day draws near, I feel a pit growing in my stomach. I have strong feelings about the outcome of this election. I also have dear friends and family members who strongly disagree with me. I want to avoid hard feelings, yet I feel obligated to stand up for what I believe in. How do I get through these next ten weeks?

My first instinct is to argue with those who disagree, with the hope that they will come to to see things my way. If you believe this has been effective, I have some swampland in Florida you may want to buy.

My second thought is to simply avoid political discourse with people that do not see things my way. But that seems wrong at many levels. If we are to grow in our relationships, and as a country, I think it is important to find a way to have these difficult conversations without damaging our relationships.

My third thought, and the one that led to this blog, is to think about ways to talk about politics in a civil manner. It may seem naive to think that we can really improve in this area, but I refuse to give up on this idea. I think our country would improve if we could find a better way to have these conversations.

In addition, I am in the business of trying to create civil dialogue. I spend most of my days working with divorcing couples and I hold myself out as an expert in helping them find ways to talk about disagreements in a civil and productive manner. It seems hypocritical for me to shirk from these challenges in my own personal life.

So I am going to work on it; starting with this blog. I plan to write a series of blogs that I hope will help me think more clearly about all of this. Over the course of the next few weeks, I intend to ask the following questions:

1. What is civil communication anyhow? It is tempting for us all to believe that civil dialogue is "what we do" and disrespecful communication is what the people who disagree with us are doing. Let’s see if we can look it a bit more objectively.

2. Am I really hearing what my friends are saying or am I just planning my counterattack as they form their words?

3. Do I have to take it so personally?

4. Can I be “Impeccable in my words”? (We are entitled to our opinions, but are we entitled to our own facts?)

5. When I have a political conversation, am I open to learning anything that might affect my opinions?

6. Can we develop rules of friendly communication that will actually allow us to grow closer to each other?

If you are interested in any of these topics, let me know what think.

And please, keep a civil tongue, (especially if you disagree with me).

Fall: Roots, Wings, Adventures and Tears

Fall transitions; putting kids on the bus for the first day of school, packing away the summer things, and for some, closing up the cabin. For us, this year meant sending our youngest child, Katie, off to college.
Like most parents we like to talk about how we give our children “roots and wings”. We say it with a smile during the early root-giving years, mention it with some sadness when we put them on that bus for the first day of school. As they approach high school graduation, we bring it up only if we see a box of Kleenex nearby.
While I suppose there are many “wing events” along the journey, for me, none can equal that moment when you give our children a goodbye hug in a college campus parking lot and wave to the out the window as we drive down the freeway heading for home. After that moment, things are never quite the same. Their bedroom, while still filled with their childhood treasures, starts to feel more like a quaint museum.
Yet, for all of the sadness that can come at this time; ushering children through their college years and beyond, has been, for me, the most rewarding years of parenting. It feels like a time when we can open up that package that has been sitting under our tree for 18 years, and observe the person that we are turning turned loose on the world.
We begin to have real conversations with our children, sometimes lasting for hours, and we realize that they have ideas, opinions and personality traits that are uniquely their own. After awhile, it becomes easier to focus on the dreams and adventures that lie ahead for them and it begins to rekindle a feeling of rebirth in us, almost as if we get to be young again ourselves.
In working with divorce clients, we talk a lot about new beginnings and of the challenge of grieving the past to make room for the next adventure. I admire people who can absorb the pain of loss with dignity and courage and prepare themselves for the next great chapter.

Labor Day weekend feels like a brief pause that gives us just a moment to reflect on things that just happened, before we gear up for the next chapter. Hope your fall is filled with memories, peace and anticipation.

Father Knows Best: Or Not.

I know we often miss the good old days, but we also fail to notice the ways that things are better today. Like the role of Dads, for example. I am grateful to have been born into an era where a Dad was expected to be more than just a stoic provider. I am glad that today's Dads are expected to be more involved in the lives of their children but are allowed to just be themselves.
In my earlier parenting years I tried, without success, to be a perfect Dad. It was a great revelation for me when I realized that was not only impossible, but unhelpfu.From watching Dads daily in my divorce practice, as well as being a father to my own children, I have come to believe that the best gift a father (or any parent) can give to their children is to express your love for them by simply Showing Up in a genuine way.
Looking back over the years, I am grateful that I was generally able to show up to be a regular part of their lives. Sometimes that meant coaching them in sports or attending school events.Sometimes that meant simply making sure I was home for dinner every night or simply sitting in the next room while they worked on their homework. And sometimes that just meant being a real human being: laughing, crying, making mistakes, showing weakness and letting them know that no one has to be perfect.
When I was growing up, there was a popular TV show called Father Knows Best. Like many shows of that era it starred a flawless Father. That was not me. I did not always know best. Sometimes I did not have a clue. But somehow, I helped raise three amazing children, so maybe showing up and loving them was all I was required to do. Who knew?

A word of caution about being too careful.

From the time we are born, we are told to be careful; by our parents, then our teachers, our doctors, our lawyers and just about anyone who wants us to avoid certain risks. It has often made me wonder whether we are more at risk of being “too careful” in our lives. As Thoreau once warned, we may be running an even greater risk of “carrying our songs to the grave.”

It seems to me that every act of caution carries with it some hidden risks and, unless we look at the risks on both sides of the equation, (the risk from inaction as well as action), we are lacking true balance in our lives. For example:

When a parent tries to avoid the risk of harm to their child or their lawn by refusing to let the child play in the park or run in the yard, they may be creating a greater risk of stifling the child’s social development.

When we avoid asking someone about their lives to avoid awkwardness, we may create a greater risk of appearing not to care.

When doctors hold back information to reduce the risk of being sued, they may seem to lack authenticity and create a risk that we will distrust them.

When lawyers tell us to put disclaimers on everything, they may appear to be putting their needs ahead of the clients.

When we avoid doing frivolous things so that we can work long hours to make a living, we run the risk that we will not live as long, or that we may not enjoy our lives quite as much.

When we avoid saying what we really think, in order to avoid being misunderstood, we create a greater risk that we may never truly be understood.

I heard Robert Gates say recently, that the only way to avoid making mistakes is to “say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

I am not saying we need to throw caution to the wind; but it might be okay to at least crack open a window to let it catch a little breeze.

So, all you who read this blog, this is your day, to go out and take those risks, make those mistakes, seize the day.

Caution: The content of this blog is for information purposes only. Please consult your doctor, lawyer, clergy and parents before doing anything out of the ordinary. The blogger is not responsible for any damage caused by the reckless behavior that may result from this advice. (However, if all goes well, I am hoping you will give me full credit.)

Letting Go of Our Plans to Make Room for What Really Happens

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

- E. M. Forester


I first heard this quote from one of my favorite divorce clients. She was clearly still in pain about the divorce; deeply saddened by a divorce she did not want. This quote helped her move ahead. The faith that somehow there was a better life waiting for her gave her the strength she needed to move ahead and helped her make healthy decisions during this critical juncture in her life.

That was many years ago. I talked to her this past year and she was happier than she had ever been; maybe happier than she ever thought she would be. Hearing about happy endings is the greatest reward my job offers.

It doesn’t always happen this easily. But I wonder if she could have found so much happiness if she had not summoned up the courage to let go of her old beliefs about what her life needed to be. I have watched divorcing people hang onto their resentments like grim death and I have wondered whether they will ever be able to let go of the anger and the hurt.

I cannot judge them either way. I have not been divorced but I know how hard it can be to let go of things. There is a part of me that wants to hold on stubbornly to my way of looking at things and my expectations of the way are supposed to happen. I have always believed in new beginnings. It has been only recently that I have started to understand how new beginnings must be preceded by burying cherished old plans.

For many, the ability to let go of the need to completely control our destiny is a matter of faith. For others, it may be simply the triumph of experience over delusion. In either case, coming to acceptance of this reality seems to bring a sense of peace.