12 tweets · November 2020 · 29 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
Continuing to be 🤨 at politicians talking about unity but not actually addressing the people who voted against them. KH: > You delivered a clear message. You chose hope, and unity, decency, science, and yes—truth. "Clear message"—MAYBE if a landslide.
What would it be like for someone to stand up in a "1st speech as [vice] president-elect" & say "You know, we honestly thought we would get more votes than we did. That tells us there's something we don't understand about the needs of all Americans. We're gonna listen closer."
THEN talk of unity would be more than an ideal. (to be clear, I'm aware that most of the audience at this event *are* probably Biden+Harris voters. Doesn't matter. They're addressing the whole country, and the world (hi from 🇨🇦!) via this speech.)
KH: > "You chose Joe Biden as the next POTUS" This represents the American will as being already unified. It's exactly the sort of language that encourages compartmentalization in individuals, and I would expect it to encourage division in a nation as well.
It says "the will that spoke most vehemently won, and all dissenters can stuff it." A series of primary votes then a national election is an absurdly crude approximation of collective will. It's what we've got, but we don't have to pretend that it's actually good.
Timely quote from Churchill. Note that these don't strictly contradict. KH's quote doesn't portray US democracy as perfect. But it does portray it in a way that suggests people should feel satisfied with it, even if they don't.
I honestly don't expect most people to get this, because my understanding of it is only a few months old, and came out of a bunch of deep exploration into the nature of the psyche (Unlocking the Emotional Brain) and dialogue (On Dialogue by Bohm) and trust. Still articulating.
This tweet calls it: > I’m not really interested in “unity” or “healing” with the people who called me god awful things for four years simply for not agreeing with them politically. So don’t be surprised I don’t want to hold hands and sing kumbaya. twitter.com/jason_games198…
Dialogue requires acknowledging this: you don't know what you need to know in order to integrate with others—truly integrate, which means respecting their INTEGRITY. You have to listen.
Biden, ~21mins in the video: > Refusal of Ds & Rs to cooperate with each other is not some mysterious force beyond our control. It's a decision… if we can decide not to cooperate, we can decide to cooperate." I see it not as a decision but skills: listening & finding win-wins.
If you don't have those skills, then "deciding to cooperate" means "deciding to compromise" means "deciding to half give up". With those skills, you don't have to *decide* to cooperate. You just *do* because it *works better*. Win-wins are stable, rather than contested.
While writing this thread, I found myself imagining writing an alternate pair of speeches for Harris & Biden to deliver on this occasion. I think that would be a profound & challenging exercise for any aspiring memetic mediator.