Talk to your Enemy

So, after last week's column about the importance of dialing down the divisive rhetoric and the portraying of neighbors and community members as enemies over basic political issues, I received an interesting email response. A reader thanked me for the column and explained how she really liked it and agreed with me .... except for the part where I said neither party hates America and no one is trying to destroy the Constitution. Then she proceed to explain how the radical Marxist extremists are bent on the destruction of American culture and society.

Oh, well. (heavy sigh).

As I read the email, just shaking my head, I thought of my current study of John Knowles' classic American bildungsroman A Separate Peace with my ninth graders. Specifically, I am thinking about the closing of the novel and its poignant and important bit of wisdom:

"All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way -- if he ever attacked at all; if indeed he was the enemy."

The novel is a wonderful and insightful read if you haven't read it before, or if it has been a while. And along this same line of thought, I must offer another reading suggestion, I highly recommend Jonathon Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9780307455772