Thank you, Arthur Brooks, for giving us the manual that could save us.
Last night I traveled to northwest Indiana to cook and talk politics at my Red voting friends’ home. When we made the date I did not realize it would be just after Chinese New Year, though we agreed to make potstickers. My friends had bought a bowl full of Asian fruit to celebrate and we exchanged perspectives and opinions for six hours straight. I felt mildly nervous for days beforehand, but as soon as we got to chopping, wrapping, and talking, all anxiety fell away.
There was a lot of listening, questioning, explaining, and storytelling. It was all loving and connecting. I hope we continue to meet, cook, talk, and commune.
I had listened to Love Your Enemies this week and ordered the paperback to annotate; but I got the large print by accident. So I brought it to my friends’ house and offered it to them, which they enthusiastically accepted. I hope we can talk about its principles together soon, share the book with everybody we know, and maybe even expand our conversations to include others.
My hardcover arrived yesterday and I’m about 65% through reading and marking it up (it goes much faster after having listened). I hope to return here with highlights after today, but in case I don’t, here are four rules toward the end that would make everything better in all relationships and conversations, if we followed them regularly:
- Cultivate relationships “based on willing the good of the other and a shared sense of what is virtuous and true.” These are the friendships of honest caring and in which you do not fear disagreement. You each genuinely want to know why the other thinks or feels differently about something, that curiosity is founded in love, and you disagree respectfully.
- “Do not attack or insult. Don’t even try to win… The point of disagreement–if disagreement is to make us better and draw us together [which is Brooks’s premise in the book and I agree]–is never winning. It certainly isn’t to attack someone else. It is to enrich the discussion, test out your point of view in a respectful way, and persuade someone you care about.” Shaming, one-upping, jeering, name-calling and the like do no good. Please stop.
- “Never assume the motives of another person… To be sure, some people do harbor bad motives… But it is not reasonable to argue that malevolence and hatred are the animating fources behind the beliefs of the vast majority of Americans today. Worse than being just unfair, such a belief is too often based in rank ignorance… The truth is that highly partisan conservatives and liberals are shockingly clueless about the other side–about their motives and everything else. How many times have you heard a conservative pundit say that Democrats want to keep poor people dependent on the government to keep them voting Democratic? Or a liberal pundit say that Republican tax policies are all about helping Republicans’ wealthy friends?” The point is, individuals’ motives are complex and diverse within any given group, and they are often not nearly as nefarious or divergent from ours as the loudest and most extreme among us may scream.
- “Use your values as a gift, not as a weapon.” Examples: Someone who is pro-life calling someone who is pro-choice a baby killer, or someone in favor of gun control saying that NRA supporters care more about guns than children. “Values are supposed to be positive. Even if people disagree with them they aren’t supposed to harm others. It’s impossible to maintain the moral content of our values and use them as a weapon at the same time.”
I posted the following to my Instagram and Facebook accounts this week, and I extend the invitation to readers of this blog. We have work to do, my friends. The only way out is through. The best way through is together. I hope you will join me.
“Ok friends.
“I am filled with hope tonight. 🥰🙏🏼🥰
More and more people I know are inspired (or agitated) to do bridging work, and their skills, experiences, and perspectives are all so instructive, regardless of their politics.
“Looking through (Arthur Brooks)’s library in anticipation of his upcoming book, I found Love Your Enemies: How decent people can save America from the culture of contempt. Written in 2019, it is a cogent and humbling dissection of the state of our complex union to that point, and strikes remarkably prescient for our current toxic morass—culture of contempt on steroids!
I’m only about 35% through and it’s already both shifting and deepening my understanding of and approach to connecting across relational differences of *all* kinds. I have already ordered my print copy and I will mark it up with JOYFUL ENTHUSIASM!
“My friends, this is our moment.
“‘What can I do, I’m just one person?’ said seven billion people.”
“I want to share this book and this work with any of you who sense any inkling, any spark or movement of hope that you could participate, even in the smallest way. Because even if only seven of us start, our energy will ripple out. We *can* make a difference!
“So I have an offer/invitation:
I will gift this book, in the format of your choice, to you, my friends.
I have two conditions:
1. I know you in real life (online counts if we have interacted meaningfully and would meet in person if we were in the same city).
2. You agree to engage in one bridging conversation before July 4, with me or someone important in your life, as an earnest attempt at this work.
“My intent is to walk with, support, encourage, and hold you accountable on this important journey as we all learn, practice, and train together. If you commit to talking to someone else, I offer two thirty minute calls, one for coaching in advance, and one to debrief afterward.
“Comment here (I reserve the right to delete ad hominem etc) or DM me. Ask me questions. Share with our mutual friends.
My tank is full right now and my engines rev.
Let’s get to work! 👊🏼💪🏼👏🏼”
Healing Through Connection 
Dear Catherine, I love receiving your blog posts and I so admire the thoughtfulness and compassion you bring to your writing. But I feel the need to push back a bit on this most recent post.
When accepting the book LOVE YOUR ENEMIES, did your friend think you were part of the “culture of contempt” or did she admit that the current republican party is the “culture of contempt”? The evidence is overwhelming showing acts of contempt by the republican party, but if the average republican is unwilling to accept responsibility, or at least acknowledge these acts, how do we move forward?
For example, the most recent No Kings rally by Democrats and Independents and former Republicans included millions and millions of people across the country, and there was not one act of violence, not one arrest. On the other hand, we witnessed videos of ICE (funded and supported by a republican party in control of all 3 branches of government) agents murder two US citizens who posed no threat to the ICE agents. The video evidence was unequivocal about this fact, in spite of the lies perpetrated by the government. Another example, in Dec 2025 Trump granted a full pardon to Juan Orlando Hernandez, convicted of assisting in the trafficking of 800,000 lbs of cocaine into the US as well as arms trafficking and sentenced to 45 yrs in prison. Upon release from prison, instead of using ICE to deport him back to his home country of Honduras (where he would most likely face additional criminal charges), trump ordered Hernandez be transported by the prison to the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan where he had a room waiting. His current whereabouts are unknown. The media has not been carrying this story, and ironically according to trump and noem the primary purpose of the ICE raids is to get criminals, especially those trafficking drugs, out of the USA. This convicted drug trafficker was given a pardon and a room at the Waldorf Astoria, yet we’re supposed to find a way to reconcile the actions of our president and ICE?
How do we move forward with this type of gaslighting?
For the record, I hate feeling this way, but the actions from the “right wing” are so egregious, so malevolent, that I feel compelled to condemn them at every opportunity. I no longer see this as political discourse.
At the end of WWII, townspeople near several of the concentration camps were taken by allied forces to tour the atrocities at the concentration camps. The townspeople looked on with horror but denied any culpability. The allied soldiers told them they were culpable and complicit with the atrocities by their allegiance and silence to those in power.
Thank you for your thought provoking blog Catherine.
With my deep respect and admiration,
John
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Thank you, John! I always appreciate your comments here, and I want to be thoughtful, concise, and complete in my replies. I feel your distress at all that is happening, what you describe here and pretty much everywhere. I will try to address each question you pose, though I know this may not be the best forum to exchange on such complex things. I’m happy to do a call if you’re interested!
OK:
1. I think the central tenet of the book is that the culture of contempt affects both ‘sides’ of politics. My friends (they are an older cis-het couple) and I agree that both Red and Blue voters harbor attitudes of contempt when they think and talk about ‘the other side’, and that is what we want more people to resist. I see your comment here as addressing the contemptuous acts of those in government toward certain groups which, though related and well worth discussing, is not quite what Brooks means by ‘culture of contempt’, I think. What I feel from your comment is severe frustration at 1) the contradiction between what is said and what is done by this admin (a frustration I share), and 2) the utter lack of accountability for its actions anywhere. These would be, I think, great topics of bridging discussions, IF we can do it respectfully and calmly. And the whole book is about the stories, data, and skills that can enable us to do just that.
2. Complicit and culpable. Ya, that’s heavy and deep, too. The first barrier I see in discussing this is that we need to agree on what’s actually happening. Our media feeds diverge so radically and it’s too easy to call the other side’s information ‘fake news’. We have to be careful about the opinions and editorials we consume, the biased editing of video and audio clips–it all takes time that too few of us spend to vet sources and information. And too few of us also, myself included, deliberately consume news from ‘the other side’ just to see what they’re seeing. Recently I have started focusing my conversations on events that my Red friends and I all agree actually happen, eg the shootings in MN. They don’t often believe when I tell them about ICE dragging moms out of cars at their kids schools and hauling them away, leaving kids standing on teh street with the motors running… but I can get them to admit that there are instances where due process is not exercised. We can only start from some common, shared truth, and go from there, however slowly.
For myself, I get really angry that our federal government is such a direct source of chaos and suffering for so many people on such a large scale, and that so many of us are not more angry about it. Almost all of my free time is spent thinking through how we got here, what does it take for decent people to allow all this dehumanization, violence, etc. It’s mindboggling, and yet here we are–like the Germans were 90 years ago (a comparison that many of my Red voting friends DO NOT SEE–another point of rich potential engagement). 😦 The most recent insight I’ve had (in the last 24 hours), as I stew with impatience at the dearth of bridging conversations, is that each of us has a unique Why and set of values, priorities, and life circumstances, etc. This individual constellation, always in motion, determines our willingness to do anything–step out of our comfort zones, open our minds to different perspectives, engage with our own biases and self-delusions, resist the social tides of our tribes of belonging, etc, etc, etc… There is a balance somewhere between continuing to resist and attempt to change the prevailing culture and giving that up to just look out for myself and my people…I see parallels in so many domains–work, family–any place where human relationships matter… which is, of course, everywhere. ;P So in the end, YES, we are all culpable for what happens all around us, and deciding how to cope and address it is heavily complex, hence most of us avoid, I think.
On the left, I see and hear contempt all the time–Blue voting friends calling Red voters names (‘basket of deplorables’-y), expressing that deep disgust that allows us to throw away our closest relationships–throw away people that matter to us. It’s an intense emotional response, highly distressing, and toxic–it’s the water we’re swimming in, all of us.
*sigh*
So, here we are. In the end I think we are all responsible for our own attitudes and actions. We all have something to own, when we express our opinions and have any impact on others. It’s not about assigning blame or self-loathing. But I reject the idea that only people on one side of any debate are in the right or in the wrong. The work I advocate is for us all to take an honest, humble look at our own biases, self-delusions, and expressions, find places where we may be contributing to the conflict, and start turning ourselves around there. Then we really lead by earnest, respectful, integrous example…
Thank you again, John! My deep respect and admiration right back!
Cathy 🙂
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Dear Catherine, I’m honored to know you and call you friend. I will take your comments to heart, especially the call to “to take an honest, humble look at our own biases, self-delusions, and expressions, find places where we may be contributing to the conflict..”
wishing you peace, and a short winter,
John
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Dear Catherine, I’m honored to know you and call you friend. I will take your comments to heart, especially the call to “to take an honest, humble look at our own biases, self-delusions, and expressions, find places where we may be contributing to the conflict..”
wishing you peace, and a short winter,
John
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John, the feeling is definitely mutual! We all have so much work to do, and it’s all easier if we do it together. Right there with you, my friend! Hope to see you at an LOH reunion soon! xo
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