Transpartisan Notes

The Conservative Transpartisan Role

Transpartisan Note #16

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

People often note that transpartisan meetings attract mostly people from the left but few conservatives. Even though a number of ‘conservative’ leaders are transpartisans (Grover Norquist, Hernando de Soto, Rich Tafel, Bill Shireman, Ralph Benko, Michael Ostrolenk, and others), they are minority participants in transpartisan gatherings.

The issue matters in relation to the Four-Quadrant Transpartisan Matrix, which features each quadrant—including two on the right (freedom and order)—holding part of the truth. This may be troubling because it may mean that the conservative quadrants are not well understood, and this may obstruct recruitment of conservatives to the transpartisan cause.

Quick thoughts. Many conservatives think they represent only the past and they (sometimes desperately) advocate going back. They see disaster going forward. They stand as sentinels against a worse future and see no conservative role for moving toward a better future. They are wrong. The freedom- and order-right must combine with the efforts of the freedom and order left, for the future to be successful rather than a disaster.

Two order-right qualities are important for the transpartisan vision. First is the insight that private relationships are crucial to the social and cultural changes the left cares most about.

Reducing conflict over ‘differences’ and promoting real equality between people happens in personal engagement. Distant government actions affect personal engagement peripherally. It will take more than ‘arm-waving’ from the Oval Office to reduce racial intolerance. Personal relationships and communication across differences, bringing people together as human beings, will promote real change.

Religious or spiritual values, also coming from the order-right, are important, understanding that we live in a connected world. Efforts to change that world mechanically, by commands (e.g., from government or concentrated corporate interests) will often come to nothing—or worse.

The freedom-right promotes freedom, which is essential for engaged, conscious relationships. The public policy challenge is how to reform institutions and promote leadership for voluntary, engaged relationships for the greater good.

It is essential that transpartisans emphasize these values from the freedom- and order-right and integrate them with the values from the freedom- and order-left. This will help conservatives to see the indispensable role they play in moving toward a better future.

Searching for answers will be one of The Transpartisan Review’s major objectives.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.)

Subjectivity and Police Community Relations

Transpartisan Note #15

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

We have written about the importance of subjectivity to public programs and policy in Note #3 The Transpartisan World of Subjects and how it affects matters of race Note #13 Colin Kaepernick & The State of Political Debate and Note #14 Glenn Beck? Transpartisan? The State of Political Debate. President Obama underscored the role of subjectivity in maintaining peace and order in neighborhoods across the country when he declared last week National Community Policing Week.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch writing in the Washington Post highlighted the week as “a time for law enforcement and communities to come together, acknowledge our shared pain, begin to rebuild trust and chart a peaceful course forward.” She described the intentions of community policing saying:

“Community policing is a public-safety philosophy based on partnership and cooperation. At its core is the idea that everyone has a stake in the safety of the neighborhoods where we live and work, and that none of us, police or citizen, can make them safe on our own. Community policing uses our shared interest as the foundation for deeper understanding, mutual respect and closer partnership. In practice, community policing encourages officers and citizens to communicate regularly, to share concerns and collaborate on solutions, and, above all, to get to know one another as people rather than stereotypes.”

Deeper understanding, mutual respect, and closer partnership between police and citizens that form the backbone of Attorney General Lynch’s aspirational description contain subjective measures of success. In addition to the valuable quantitative measures of police on duty, crime rates, overtime worked etc. the more subjective understanding, respect and partnership aspects of policing offer opportunities for developing the qualitative aspects of living in neighborhoods. They also help communities take the first steps toward the kind of shared ownership of public spaces that we believe lies at the heart of Transpartisan policies and programs.

Most significantly AG Lynch took a 12-city Community Policing Tour finding police tutoring school children, being advised by youth advisory groups, and learning how to deescalate violence reminding us that, in spite of the cascade of bad news all around us, every day citizens across the country work across traditional lines of separation to create cooperative, imaginative and bold initiatives for improving daily living.

(Photo made available by the US Department of State and is in the public domain.)

 

Glenn Beck? Transpartisan?

Transpartisan Note #14

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

The State of Political Debate

Powerful factors influence Transpartisan realities. Among them the state of debate plays an important but often ignored role.

Take race relations. The same week, September 4 to 11 2016, San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem conservative radio host Glenn Beck wrote “Empathy for Black Lives Matter” a powerful Transpartisan op ed column for the New York Times.

In our previous note we described a Transpartisan context for Kaepernick’s important statement that he hoped to kick off a conversation about race in America. Beck himself sets out such a context for his view of how he can address race saying:

“I consider myself a ‘classical liberal‘— a.k.a. ‘constitutional conservative’ — and I believe the greatness of our country lies in our founders’ creation of a system that allows and encourages all voices to be heard. The only way for our society to work is for each of us to respect the views of others, and even understand and empathize with one another. I have always tried to work toward this goal, even though I have often been guilty of conflating the individual with the whole.”

When a contrarian, conservative, combatant like Glenn Beck uses these words we believe it makes sense to listen. What he said next underscored our belief:

“After the massacre [of Dallas police officers], I invited several Black Lives Matter believers on my show. I got to know them as people — on and off air — and invited them back again. These individuals are decent, hardworking, patriotic Americans. We don’t agree on everything, certainly not on politics; but are we not more than politics? …they are black Americans who feel disenfranchised and aggrieved; they are believers; they are my neighbors and my fellow citizens.

“We need to listen to one another, as human beings, and try to understand one another’s pain. Empathy is not acknowledging or conceding that the pain and anger others feel is justified. Empathy is acknowledging someone else’s pain and anger while feeling for them as human beings — even, and maybe especially, when we don’t necessarily agree [with] or understand them.”

Read the Glenn Beck article here and experience a breadth of possibility that often goes unnoticed in this year of our divided national election. The conversation grows.

(Photo of microphone by user “drestwn” found here and licensed CC BY 2.0.)

Colin Kaepernick & The State of Political Debate

Transpartisan Note #13

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Among factors influencing Transpartisan action, the state of debate is important but often ignored.

Take race relations, which hit the front pages when 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem.

Soon other NFL players and personages in other sports joined the protest while others criticized it. See Time Line of spreading protest. Casual sports observers might have thought that concerns about how he protested, (e.g.) disrupting team cohesion on game day dominated the story. Some thoughts:

1. Sitting for the anthem amounted to a protest against the flag—the system. The system was to blame when it told blacks where to sit in buses and excluded them from restaurants. But Supreme Court decisions ended those practices. The system corrected itself, ending significant aspects of public discrimination.

2. The system protects peoples’ right to protest, and people should celebrate it for that.

3. There is more to the real racism problem than “the system.” The real problem includes individual discrimination—here, some police seeming to violate oaths to uphold the law protecting people against discrimination. We all need to keep working to correct that.

4. Another issue, however, may have greater impact in correcting abuses— even perception of abuses. We need civil society organizations (CSOs) to promote better relations between communities and police. For example The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (“The King Center”) has a non-violent policing program co-organized by Charles L. Alphina a retired St. Louis Missouri police captain. Its details are spelled out here. There are many examples of active partnerships between police and community organizations, sharing responsibility for law enforcement. Police seen as an ‘invading army’ is a major cause of conflict that needs to end.

5. Racism is caused by isolation: lack of contact and lack of subjective engagement. It is true for all forms of ‘difference’. Objective strategies often have little impact: forced bussing to desegregate schools featured no incentives for subjective engagement which therefore often produced internally segregated schools.

Few actions would reduce conflict around ‘differences’ more than empowering citizens as owners of public spaces (schools, police stations, hospitals and housing projects). ‘The system’ still has much work to do. Colin Kaepernick’s knee is good goad to us working.

(Photo titled National Anthem by user “Dave Hogg” found here and licensed CC BY 2.0.  Event name altered in photo.)

Transpartisan Bridge Alliance Enters Washington

Transpartisan Note #12

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

The Bridge Alliance, self-described “rising American tide of conservatives and liberals, centrists and moderates, … (that) can become a powerful and positive voice in the American political landscape advocating ‘Country Before Party,’” made its first appearance in the nation’s capital Thursday, September 15.

Cosponsoring an energetic Transpartisan gathering at American University’s Katzen Arts Center with Updraft America, the Alliance showcased its “43 and growing” member groups, brought its message of cooperative politics to a set of media players, and presented its vision in collaboration with a major American University.

The University describes the Updraft America Exhibition as “Washington, DC, sculptor (and former aide to Senate Democratic Majority leader Thomas Daschle) Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg (manifestation) of Americans’ frustration with our gridlocked partisan politics by taking an entire year of the official proceedings of the United States Congress, as documented in the Congressional Record, and folding each page into a paper airplane.

“From this mass of over 10,000 airplanes, striped red or blue to connote the political divide, the uppermost planes will rise into the air, as if taking flight, and as they do, their hues will combine to become purple – the color of hope that we may bridge the political divide.”

Hope animated the crowd as Ms. Firstenberg and media star & Washington-player Cokie Roberts cohosted the program’s two panels with Executive in Residence Rebecca Cooper of American University’s Kogod School of Business who works to create “thought leadership forums … to highlight smart conversations with smart people finding solutions.”

The Christian Science Monitor presented its new program Under-reported Good News stories.

The Congressional Management Foundation shared  “While the process may be slow, when people provide Congress with helpful input, Congress makes thoughtful, informed and deliberative decisions that represent an investment in the nation’s future.”

The Bridge Alliance’s entry to Washington reminds us that much goes on each day than our daily press skips. A lot of this unreported news is hopeful.

The Many Faces Of Transpartisan II

One Matrix, Multiple Dialogues

Transpartisan Note #11

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Left and right agree that both freedom and order are essential for solutions to social issues. Transpartisan dialogues are designed to reveal this agreement. Dialogues need to ensure both values are represented on each side and then highlight the conflict between them.

Conflicts within left and right tend to be between the traditional, often religious (order) and libertarian (freedom) right and between the social democratic (order) and libertarian (freedom/ACLU) left. To highlight the challenge of integrating them, consider:

  •   One side, representing order, promoting government ‘solutions’ that encroach on individual freedom, and
  •   The other side, representing freedom, investing all their energy encouraging people to distrust the government.

These positions form the Four-Quadrant Transpartisan Matrix (see Note #10), and they create multiple potential dialogues — within and between left and right, searching for a path to integrate freedom and order.

The Matrix increases understanding of the complexity of positions, revealing new, potential paths to agreement. Positions integrating all four will both bring people together and solve problems—often creating things that no one ever imagined. This is especially true showing paths to order (virtue, justice) through freedom.

This approach highlights values often ignored, including:

  • A strong concept of citizenship, with citizens playing active ownership roles from public school reform to foreign and security policy;
  • Idealism of empowerment added to left’s commitment to equality (empowerment as the key to effective equality since real, objective equality is elusive.);
  • Strong participation of civil society in empowering each individual including disadvantaged and marginal populations;
  • Emphasis on the subjective (community and connection) as essential to empowerment;
  • Emphasis on ownership especially in public spaces, expanding the ‘self-interest’ in capitalism to all individuals including disadvantaged and marginal populations and to voluntary service for the public good*;  and
  • In emphasizing the subjective, emphasize spiritual connection in all transformational change.

Including Four-Q activists increase Transpartisan ranks: besides our programs (Educate Girls Globally and Citizens for Health/Voice for HOPE): Mimi Silbert (Delancey Street Foundation, San Francisco); Lenora Fulani (All-Stars Project, New York City); James Dierke (Visitacion Valley Middle School, San Francisco), and many others.

* Milton Friedman promoted this (expanded) concept of capitalism, e.g., in his assertion that the Israeli kibbutzim are a triumph of capitalism because they are freely-chosen. That many socialists also consider them as a triumph of socialism suggests a Transpartisan understanding of the relationship between capitalism and socialism.

The Many Faces Of Transpartisan I

Transpartisan Note #10

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

The contemporary Transpartisan movement appears to have two quite different faces. Many transpartisans, perhaps most, associate with the most recognizable theme, which might be called the Dialogue Approach. This approach regards conflict as inevitable and binary (the left-right spectrum) and encourages partisans to find common ground. Examples are the Mediators’ Foundation, Search for Common Ground, The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, and Living Room Conversations.

The second approach expands on the first. It starts with the belief that most conflicts are more than two-sided and that binary framing of conflicts often conceals important conflicts and differences within each side. This creates four positions and parties for every binary conflict: right critics of both the left and the right, and left critics of both the right and the left.

We believe (as Lawry Chickering first wrote in his 1993 book Beyond Left and Right and we expanded in our 2008 book Voice of the People) that ideological conflict among the four quadrants (order-right, freedom-right, order-left, freedom-left) is an Hegelian thesis/antithesis/synthesis search to integrate four positions that are partly true, but incomplete, representing the two great values in all modern societies: ‘freedom’ and ‘order’. (The quotations are important to highlight the mythic nature of these concepts, with left and right using different words to express their concepts of order — ‘virtue’ and ‘responsibility’ for the right; ‘justice’ and ‘equality’ for the left.)

Our Transpartisan Matrix integrates the two approaches by overlaying a horizontal left/right spectrum and vertical freedom/order spectrum as follows:

F(reedom)

*

R(ight)_________________L(eft)

*

O(rder)

(For further discussion click here).

Each quadrant is partly truth, but incomplete. The separate quadrants alone feature continuing conflicts both within and between left and right, and experience great difficulty solving problems. Integrating freedom and order occurs when people come together freely in communities and solve problems.

Next week we will provide examples of how one Matrix produces six dialogues; organizing conflict toward the inherent agreement implicit in every disagreement.

Antidote to a Poisoning Epidemic

Transpartisan Note #9

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Here is part of what our Transpartisan colleague Jacob Z. Hess, Livingroom Conversations partner, wrote in The Huffington Post. For the full article click here.

from What If Our Political Opposite Isn’t (Actually) The Devil… What Then?

by Jacob Hess, August 3, 2016

Friends and acquaintances used to be mystified at my interest in liberal-conservative dialogue. Not anymore. America is having a rude awakening about the value of dialogue and deliberation in a world torn by bitter conflict.

At the center of the harshest rhetoric (from both sides) is one essential claim: Those Other People (on the other side) are dangerous. They cannot be trusted and do not have America’s best interest at heart (and if they say they do, they’re basically lying).

They are Demons Incarnate…and must be treated as such.

What if closer examination revealed that people holding different views are equally good-hearted and care the same about ensuring America’s well-being but have different ideas about what that requires?

Thousands of years ago, one of the world’s earliest scientists invited people to sit in silence and turn towards (rather than away from) inner contradictions in body, mind and heart. As people tried this radical act, they were surprised to find the gnawing tension inside them change. And insight arose—with suffering decreasing too.

In recent years, the dialogue and deliberation community has been inviting people towards a similar experiment: instead of avoiding painful questions, to begin sitting with our political opposites and turning towards the contradictions between us — listening and getting curious…

Last year, we tried an experiment. We offered free consultation to anyone willing to try a Living Room Conversation (with anyone they wanted, on any topic). Then, I went knocking on doors inviting people in my own neighborhood, but I was turned down right and left.

Liz Joyner, national director of the Village Square, explained: ‘Jacob, there is something we like about polarization; something almost reassuring about knowing that Our Side is superior to Those Demons.’

Chronic resentment hurts. That same scientist (the Buddha) warned that anger functions like a poison in the body and mind.

If he was right, America is now suffering from a poisoning epidemic on a vast scale. Turning toward our contradictions, in a safe and comfortable livingroom environment, might begin to drain the poison.

Excerpt from What If Our Political Opposite Isn’t (Actually) The Devil… What Then? by Jacob Hess from The Huffington Post posted August 3, 2016.  Used with permission of the author.

Bridge Alliance: Transpartisan Gathering

Transpartisan Note #8

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

We spoke this past week with David Nevins, the new President & Co-Director of Bridge Alliance (www.bridgealliance.us), a growing home for Transpartisans. He talked of leadership, spelled out the Bridge Alliance mission, and told us of the group’s first big Washington, DC public coming-out event.

The Mission: “We are the Bridge Alliance – a rising American tide of conservatives and liberals, centrists and moderates, business owners and workers, students and retired persons, diverse in age, color, faith and orientation. We have come together in civility, respect, and goodwill to solve problems together. Together, we can become a powerful and positive voice in the American political landscape advocating ‘Country Before Party.’”

The Event:

Moving America Forward
Co-Sponsored by Updraft America & Bridge Alliance
Panel Discussion Moderator: Cokie Roberts
September 15, 2016 7:00 PM
Katzen Center at American University
Washington, DC

updraft_logo_borderThe Event will feature the unveiling of Updraft America — an installation of 10,718 paper airplanes folded from a year’s subscription to The Congressional Record by Washington, DC sculptor Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg. The red and blue striped paper airplanes rise into the air, inspiring hope that we may rise above partisan politics.

A panel will discuss How To Bridge the Partisan Divide, presenting alternatives to the partisan narrative that permeates the political process and there will be presentations by organizations representing a cross-spectrum of civic engagement and collaborative problem-solving that is already present across America.

Leadership: David told us of The Nevins Democracy Leaders program he started at Penn State University. The program teaches a cohort of students how to apply Transpartisan deliberative skills to enhance their sense of civic responsibility, their approach to building community, and practical politics and participatory government. To further this goal, David is appealing to business leaders around the country to implement similar programs at their alma maters.

Bridge Alliance is well on its way to its first fifty organizational members. See the list here www.bridgealliance.us/bridge_alliance_members. It provides a home for individuals of every political stripe who want to get things done through collaborative initiatives that transcend narrow partisanship. We salute David Nevins and his co- director Debilyn Molineaux for their creative leadership of this inspiring initiative.