Last week my wife and I went to visit the right-wing side of the family. This is always an odd experience because, on the one hand, we really love the folks. They are great, salt-of-the-earth people who have integrity and kindness as part of their character. But start talking religion and politics and suddenly it's like we are transferred into Bizarroland. In their world the economic crash happened because too many people without resources made a run on loans to buy houses. In their world austerity is a needed reform. In their world God is pissed and is about to slaughter the human race, saving only those who pledge to support the magical mantra, "Forgive my sins, Lord Jesus."
So, like most families we stay away from any matters of substance. I think we spend lots of time as if we're in an old Seinfeld episode. But last week we stayed calm and took turns listening to each other. Nothing was resolved, but, later, dinner tasted a bit better.
This scenario is not unique. Folks are always talking with me about similar episodes in their own family and friendship networks. We're worried that, as a people, we're losing our capacity to actually talk with each other about important civic matters. We're worried that segregating each other behind silo-identities like blue state or red state, conservative or liberal, spiritual or atheist, is only creating a cage that imprisons us in a powerless and ultimately hopeless void characterized by an every-dog-for-itself mentality. We're worried that as we the people become smaller, corporate persons become bigger, war increases, corruption rules and the earth slips away into a coma.
We need to break down these walls of segregation. As the political season heats up we'll all be tempted to get sucked into the false consciousness of "us versus them." Beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 10, a group of us are opening up a place for conversation. We call it the Common Good Caf