What are your highest values: A conversation about taming political rhetoric.

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Last night, I attended a panel (and then small group) discussion on how to solve today’s problems in an environment of hyper partisanship.  The speakers, brought together by the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition and the Interfaith Youth Leadership Coalition, spent a lot of time discussing how the current soundbite culture revs our language up into a place of combativeness.  However, as community organizers, each noted that their daily work involves using conversations to break down barriers between people and form long-term relationships.

This disconnect between rhetoric and conversation, between trying to win arguments versus collectively solving problems, keeps many people from seeing politics as a place to fix what ails our society.

All of the speakers and most of the attendees agreed:  That’s a problem.

The first speaker, Rachel McIver Morey (pastor at Mosaic Church in Brooklyn Park), wondered if the young social entrepreneurs she comes into contact with today would have been field organizers for a political party or movement in a different generation.  She’s on to something.  My Google search turns up scores of articles on how young people don’t see politics as the answer to getting things done.  So, they are starting up their own businesses, nonprofits, or community organizations to tackle problems directly.

Heck, while I don’t fit into the young camp, I’d describe Speak for We as an experiment in social entrepreneurship.  I find most of the current political warring as driving a wedge between advocates and the moveable middle … our potential base.  I’m trying to create a resource / forum / action site to change that.

Elianne Farhat, an organizer with AFL-CIO, used her prior organizing experience in Chicago as an example of how to break big problems down into issues that you can make progress on.  She noted that youth violence and homicides are huge problems in Chicago.  And the reasons for this violence are many.  As an organizer, she couldn’t end that violence.  But she could do something to make a dent in it.  She, and a number of Chicago youth, worked to create a summer jobs program for youth so they would have meaningful, productive things to do when school wasn’t going to keep them occupied.  And, these jobs would give them community connections.

Did this jobs program end violence?  No.  But, it likely kept some youth out of harms way or from exacting violence.  It also provided a tangible example of how to tackle a community problem … I think it also serves as a good example of the types of things our politics should support.

I identified with a lot of what Aasim Shabazz (president of KORE Design and trustee at Masjid An Nur) said.  I’ll just share the simple statement he made near the end of the discussion.  Moderator Rachel Herzfeldt-Kamprath (JRLC) asked about what works to tame the political rhetoric.  He stated that when he hears people using language that escalates anxiety and combativeness, he likes to ask them:

What are your highest values?

Priceless!

I think that question needs to be asked in many places it is not.

When you are at a gathering this holiday season and a family member starts ranting hateful comments, ask, “What are your highest values?”

When you are at a community meeting and your neighborhood is fighting the siting of affordable housing, ask (directly of those fighting you), “What are your highest values?”

And, when you visit the Capitol and start arguing with your political opposition, ask (of your opposition and yourself), “What are your highest values?”