Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Engaging the Enemy
Van is a spitfire. She is a dedicated conservative and she loves this country. She left Vietnam with her family right after the war. She is an entrepreneur, having started several businesses, and now in her senior years runs a nail business (does fingers and toes, as my husband would say) from her home, and does my nails. I’ve known her for more than ten years, so we know each other pretty well. The other day she stunned me with a story of bravery and determination. And it wasn’t about leaving Vietnam.
Van has mostly senior customers from all walks of lives, an assortment of religions or no-religions, and many cultures, ethnicities, and races. I’m going to share her story as she told it to me the other day, in her inimitable style:
So I’m talking to my customer about many things, and I asked her why she calls herself an African-American. Why? She is an American! She isn’t from Africa and she doesn’t have family from Africa, so why doesn’t she just call herself an American? I don’t call myself a Vietnamese-American!
[Uh-oh; I start to cringe, just a little.]
So she tells me that her ancestors were from Africa, and she calls herself an African-American to remind herself that they were kidnapped in Africa and made slaves after they were brought to this country, and she never wants to forget that.
So I say to her, but you were not a slave and you’ve told me that none of your family were slaves. Not only that–many of the people kidnapped in Africa were captured by other black Africans!
[Bigger uh-oh—my eyes start to widen and my jaw drops.]
No, no, my customer says, that’s not possible, that couldn’t have happened. We know about the slave ships and the whites who took them captive.
* * *
At this point in the story, Van has finished working on my nails. I’m nearly speechless. I asked Van if she and her customer were still talking to each other, and she laughed and said, oh yes, we talk like this all the time. She’s still a customer and we’re friends.
* * *
So what made this conversation possible? For myself, I don’t talk about these kinds of topics with any of my liberal friends, because I feel certain the conversation wouldn’t end well; I can’t deal with their lack of education regarding the facts, their unwillingness to consider other data, and their lack of reflection on their positions.
I think that Van gauges the customers very carefully when she initiates this kind of conversation. First, they are always friendly with each other, if not friends. As a result, there is a level of fondness, trust, respect, and appreciation for each other. Second, she is joyous in her sharing as a proud American, not angry, which allows the customer to stay engaged, rather than become upset. Third, she might sense the intimacy that comes from touching another person’s fingers and toes! All in all, Van becomes a teacher and mentor in those moments.
Even with these explanations for her success, I still don’t know how she does it.
I will make one observation: she has taught me a few things about engaging the “enemy.”
Published in Politics
Weird that they believe they have the right to garden their way but that their neighbor doesn’t have the right to garden her way.
And by weird, I mean pathetically common.
Emotional and physiological needs, too. Rage releases dopamine. Rage/anger is addictive. Look at the Squad. Each day a new outrage, another dopamine fix. Excitement also releases dopamine and gets your adrenaline flowing, too. That’s why TV news openings are accompanied by dramatic music, drum rolls and video special effects; people get a buzz from that.
Speaking of which, life expectancy has gone up in proportion to pesticide use. Pesticides have made fruits and vegetables more available and their wider consumption has contributed to an increase in longevity. Yields of mainstay crops — wheat, corn, rice — have increased because of pesticides, leading to longer lifespans in poor countries. The anti-pesticide group is like the anti-vaxers; their crusade, if successful, would imperil human health.
Anchor larvae.
Wow. I’ve wondered about that. Interesting. Fascinating.
Thank you.
:-) :-) :-)
Love it!
I’ve been thinking this morning about another meaning of the title I chose, “Engaging the Enemy.” This title can mean not only taking on the discussion of difficult political topics with others, but also taking on another enemy: ourselves. In effect, we are our own enemy when we build up preconceived ideas about other people, about the topics we are willing to discuss (or not discuss), and about the reactions we might encounter in bringing up conflict-ridden ideas. When we pull back–even if it seems wise to do so–we can also be our own enemy, holding onto our ideas about our own beliefs and the beliefs of others. I’m not judging those decisions as either right or wrong. But they certainly are self-limiting, and no one is holding a gun to our heads, forcing us to choose whether to engage or not.
For a conservative (G-d fearing?) person, the true enemy is always ourselves. For a progressive (G-dless?) person, the enemy is always an outside person or force, as in Trump Derangement Syndrome.
When a young soldier came back from war with a victory laurel crowning his head, his old father greeted him with these words:
“Yes, congratulations, you have defeated our outside enemies. But now the real battle begins, the struggle to defeat the enemy within.”
In Judaism, our greatest enemy is the yetzer hara, the evil inclination.
Finally, there’s this:
“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”― Winston Churchill
No one would argue that a nation’s greatest enemy is lack of unity. It is a far more disruptive force than any outside enemy.
I recall a statistic I read from one of Basil Davidson’ s books on the slave trade and the history of Africa that was quite striking when I read it–back when Alex Haley’s spectacularly successful book and TV series Roots was sweeping the national conversation (circa 1977) such as it was before the internet, Facebook and Twitter.
If you recall, Haley’s ancestor Kunta Kinte was a Mandinka. The stat that I remember as eye-popping was that while an estimated 250,000 Mandinkas were taken into slavery over those two centuries they probably sold 400,000 captives from other tribes to slavers. In other words, people in the larger tribes were more likely to enslave than be enslaved but the slave trade was the eventual winner of all tribal warfare.
It’s too bad that Haley didn’t write his book as a novel rather than a history; his story was a fabrication . Many criticized him including Thomas Sowell. But I digress.
Thanks for those figures, @oldbathos. It is sad when people are not interested in the truth, especially when it comes to their own history, unpleasant though it is.
In Haley’s defense, he openly admitted it was fictional in part because he did not have all facts and it did read more like a novel than a formal biography. It was remarkable that he found what he did. The TV portrayal of the Mandinka village as an idyllic assemblage of philosopher craftsmen whose peace was shattered by invading white sailors with weapons was a stretch but made for a simpler story. By the late 1700’s when Kunta Kinte was taken, the incidence of razzia as a source of slaves was diminishing in favor of sailing into port with trade goods (e.g., nails or rum) to exchange for already acquired slaves.
Thanks for clarifying and elaborating on this background. You are always such a source of information!
In the spirit of fairness I wish to point out that the history of slavery in America, while certainly not unique, is unusual in that it was largely race A owning race B with the races being visually distinct from each other.
So no one is going to forget anytime soon. Nor forgive – not because no one has a will to forgive but because what would be forgiven is impossible to define to everyone’s satisfaction. This remains true regardless of the distortions, fear-mongering, race-baiting, and products of grievance studies essayists; unlike kings, queens, and jacks, the race card has no specific value which means it’s impossible to agree on whether it has been mis-played or not.
I wish we could strip away the nonsense, that we could all agree on whether there is a problem and if so, what that problem is. But that ain’t happening anytime soon if what passes for frank discussions on race are any indication.
Antoine de St-Exupery encountered Arab slavery in North Africa in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and wrote about it eloquently: The French Aviators and the Slave.
This is critical. You can have two sets of people exchange the same set of words, with one having a result like you report and the other ending in disaster It is the existing base of fondness, trust, respect, and appreciation that allows for the former. And it took both Van and her customer feeling the same about each other.
Thank you, @gumbymark, for taking a moment to recognize the importance of these elements!
There is no longer a race problem in America, really, and it is less of a problem every day. The problem is that, starting with Obama, a weak and unaccomplished individual, it became okay, on a national stage, and for political advantage, to shout “racism” as an excuse for personal and communal failings among people of darker skin color.
I’m anti-pesticide. Doesn’t mean I didn’t use a pesticide powder on the potatoes in my vegetable garden this year rather than spend hours and hours picking off the larvae, like my parents had us do when I was a kid. I did a bit of that, but after a while could see it wasn’t going to be enough, so went for the powder. I don’t feel it’s necessary to exterminate the Colorado potato beetle, nor is it really possible. But I knocked them back enough that the plants held their own and then some. We go to some trouble and expense to avoid pesticides in the food we buy, and minimize their use in our own garden. But they are good to have when there is no other reasonable recourse.
About a month ago, just as the population of plague-carrying rodents exploded in California, the legislature in that state passed a ban on an important class of rodenticides.
When the people who passed the bill get bitten by fleas whose diet consisted mainly of bubonically tainted rodent blood, it will be intersting to see what happens.
https://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=2950
A scientist sat and worked, when suddenly approached by his 9-year-old son, determined to help him in his work.
The scientist, who would rather not be interrupted, tried to ask his son to go somewhere else for a while, but when he saw that he would not, he started looking for something that can keep a child busy. He grabbed and tore a page from a booklet with world map, cut it into small pieces, and gave it to the child with a roll of duct tape. “Do you like puzzles?” he said, “Take this dismantled world map and see if you can fix it yourself.” He was confident the child would take many days to assemble the map, but a few hours later, he heard the voice
of the son calling him “Dad, I’m done, I put everything back together.”At first, he did not believe it: “It isn’t possible at the age of nine to reconstruct a map of the world he had never seen before!” He thought. But he put down his notes, and went to his son, when he was sure he was going to see a mess. To his surprise, the map was perfect and all the pieces were in place! “How did you DO that??” The scientist asked his son “how did you put the world back together?”. “Well, dad,” the boy answered, “I don’t know the world, but when you tore the page from the magazine, I saw on the other side a picture of a man. When you gave me the world to fix, I tried but couldn’t. Then I flipped all the pieces and started to fix the person. And when I fixed the man, I turned it over and saw the world had been fixed as well…“
Kol ha’kavod, Yehoshua. Nicely done.
I need to clarify that my husband and I are extremely careful with pesticides. We use them when we feel we need to, but we use them carefully and sparingly.
I think it is like surgery and surgeons. Surgery has its own risks, and surgeons try to avoid it when possible. But when it is the best answer, they do it and do it carefully. :-)
It goes along with this, which you most probably have seen or heard somewhere:
“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”
Unknown monk, c. 12th century
It goes along with this, which you most probably have seen or heard somewhere:
“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”
— Anonymous
I would add that it’s never too late to start this process. If you really work on improving a character trait — not speaking ill of others, for example — you will notice changes in the people, places, and things around you. It really does work. But that’s the problem with Internet exchanges. We — myself included — tend to allow cynicism and sarcasm to prevail over straight talk and we attack or mock individuals instead of addressing the underlying, universal issues involved.
I didn’t choose the snark life; the snark life chose me.
If you’d like to change, we can help.
Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 1,000 won’t be enough if the light bulb doesn’t want to change.
I would like some data that this works for people with low I.Q.
Who said anything about psychiatrists? My aversion therapy is done with a cricket bat.