Common Ground

My friend, Jonathan quipped that with all the discord happening in the world these days, we need to throw a great big family reunion picnic. He was half-serious. After all, eating is our universal experience, so why wouldn’t a worldwide reunion help us find some common ground? Why can’t humans be one big happy family?

Despite the fact that we’ve never been one big happy family, I like the idea of a family reunion that includes every person on Earth (and in orbit around our planet). It could be something like our annual New Year’s Eve celebration but without promoting drunkenness.

After all, humanity has been in the midst of competition, tension, and wars throughout our history. This has impacted our ability to move forward with humanitarian goals and the overall betterment of life. Every time one group attains some semblance of equality and equal rights, they run up against stubborn opposition.

Despite constructive efforts by kind-hearted people everywhere, there is the promotion of divisiveness, exclusion, and violence amongst ourselves. We make little effort to honestly hear one another out. Misunderstandings and disinformation are running rampant in propaganda campaigns that are dead set against harmonious relationships. This continuously ramps up to the point where people tune each other out. We find ourselves enveloped in chaos and disorder.

Humanity faces conflict even within subcultures and special interest groups. There are the constant controversies over the environment, globalization, abortion rights, immigration, and civil rights for minorities. There are people around us who have divisive, strong views about what we should and should not do. Just as we near some sort of concensus, someone challenges the agreement. Then the process of argument and discord begins again.

Someone will choose to disagree either out of contrarianism or valid reasons. The process starts again from another set of opinions until someone insists that it is best to agree to disagree for awhile. We align our thinking with the desire for calm to achieve a sense of peace–at least temporarily.

It is important to note that this movement towards a more peaceful state of affairs is not rooted in the tendency to avoid conflict wherever feasible. Such conflict avoidance is flawed from the beginning. Just because tension and quarreling make us feel queazy does not mean that problems will simply vanish if we pay no attention to them. Procrastination will not help resolve humanity’s big disputes. We cannot just push them off to the side without dealing with them in a mutually constructive manner. There are wrong ways and right ways to compromise on urgent matters.

Regardless of one’s aims and goals we wish to promulgate, the fact remains that the people sitting across the negotiating table are human beings with hopes and dreams of their own. The common goal should be to establish meaningful, repectful common ground. The discovery process means reaching out with genuine respect and empathy in spite of the divisive issues. Common ground is all about the things that unite all of us as humans.

In an ideal world, we would choose wise leaders who prioritize common ground ahead of furthering political gains. As world citizens, it behooves us to embrace civility, kindness, thoughtfulness, and wisdom when we select our leaders regardless of their sectarian and political beliefs. If we wish to preserve the foundation of civilization, we need to settle upon common ground that allows for the greater good of everyone involved–that means everyone. This does not mean surrendering core ethical values. It means coming together in helpful, constructive compromise.

Perhaps we can follow my friend Jonathan’s sage wish for an annual, global humanity family reunion picnic. Why does it have to be pie in the sky? We all deserve our share of harmony and peace.

Namaste

The Blue Jay of Happiness quotes U.S. Senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker. “Patriotism is love of country. But you can’t love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywomen. We don’t always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good.”