Top Ten List on How to Inhabit the Radical Middle

by Maggie Hanna, BSc PGeo, Consulting Innovator and “Energy Future Girl”, August 2017

A natural discussion is the opposite of a normal one. How do we turn a normal polarized discussion featuring an incendiary retrenchment of our positions into a natural, rich, nuanced and complex natural conversation? It is a radical thing to see a polarized, political or ideological person, with an opposite position to one’s own, as a full and complex human being, and then treat them as such.? That is where the Radical Middle comes in.? We are not talking about the safe, boring, silent middle here. Being a part of the Radical Middle means making internal space, within oneself, to really hear and understand what underlies another’s position, especially when the surface of what they are saying is absolutely antithetical to one’s own treasured position. ?

Uncomfortable exchanges with other people are inevitable in this life; even more so when there is a deep polarization of positions in our discourse. When there are two diametrically opposed and entrenched positions, there isn’t really a choice… not really...just a simplistic dichotomy. For example, political warring camps on world issues, cynical climate change debates, and energy future discussions are all framed as “Us versus Them”. ?One benefit of engaging such conversations, among many, is in being able to inhabit the tension of the opposites. This is the middle ground between two things that are both 100% true and 100% opposite. The tension between the two is the place of highest creativity, and there is high value in being able to reside there….though it is rarely comfortable.

No one has the monopoly on truth. There are many levels of truth. Small “t” truth is at the level of the story we are telling. It is true for us right now, and it can change in the next moment, or as we ripen, or as we gain more information, or for no discernable reason we can conjure.? Capital “T” Truth is more universal, deeper, relates more to the fundamental qualities of the universe and of being a human being, and is true for everyone all the time. When we mistake one level of truth for the other, we can get into trouble.

Of course, none of us want to surrender our cherished values. We have a perspective that is all our own and we are happy that way. It is based on the experience of our experiences, and the facts we have gathered so far. When we find ourselves in an argument, we want to triumph, thinking; “Everyone should have my point of view because it is the right one.” This locks us in a cage of artifice, pretense, and narrowness of opinion.

If we avoid troublesome conversations with people who think very differently than we do, the chance is lost to understand, and learn, and for our own understanding to deepen and our positions to evolve.? So how the heck do we make space within ourselves to really consider another’s point of view? What do we do to enrich the conversation when it gets challenging? Each and every one of us can change the discussion.? Here are a few ideas in the following: “Top Ten List on How to Inhabit the Radical Middle”.

Top Ten List on How to Inhabit the Radical Middle

1.????? Temporarily loosen one’s grip on one’s own point of view. When we recognize that our own point of view has evolved over time, then we recognize that it can never be absolute. How is your perspective different from when you were 16 years old? Pretty different I bet. What will your perspective be in 10 years’ time?? Not sure yet, but it will be different. We can always come back to our basecamp after ranging out, and return to the specialness of our own hard-won moral compass.

2.????? Ask oneself a BETTER question. ?The quality of our questions determines the quality of our lives. Our brains are hardwired to immediately go to work on whatever question we pose to it. If you ask yourself a disempowering question like, “Why is this person such a dip-turd? Or caustically annoying, or dumb as a bag of hammers?” … your mind will tell you why, but it will not advance your understanding of that person, their position, nor yourself. Instead we might ask a better question like, “Is there something, a word, an image, or a metaphor, in what this person is saying that is meant for me?” or “How could the opposite of what I think actually be true?” Those are empowering questions worth turning one’s mind towards.

3.????? Occupy both your head and your heart at the same time. Wisdom is the marriage of knowledge and emotion; the head and the heart. Knowledge can be defined as our ability to organize categories in one’s mind. It is significant, but it is not wisdom. Real wisdom requires both mind and heart. If one runs only on emotion without clarity, it is not wisdom. If one only has perception without heartfulness, it is not wisdom. It is the heart that provides those flashes of lucidity, recognition of resonance, and the acuteness of knowing that is undeniable. It is when we overcome the artificial barriers that separate the mind and heart that we can be in both places at once, 100% in our mind and 100% attuned to the information being shared with us from the heart. It is not an “either/or” proposition. It is a “both/and” way of being.

4.????? Be here now. ?The present is the only moment there is. Instead of obsessing about the past which has already happened, or worrying about the future which isn’t here yet; have a real interaction… now.? We have to be very much here to hear what otherwise would be missed.

5.????? Use one’s intuition to sense behind what a person is saying. Everyone has intuition. Intuition is the norm and the natural. It is not something that happens to us… it is us. When someone speaks against our firmly held belief or position, our tendency is to react, attack, defend and convince that person otherwise. What if, instead, we got quiet for a moment, checked in with our intuition, and asked a clarifying question? What common need or concern underlies their position? Why is this point so important to this person?

6.????? Seek to find the commonalities between their position and your position.? This requires a flexibility of mind. Even world religions are over 80% the same stuff as each other. Why focus on the 20% that is different? Rather focus on the similarities and not the differences. Find something you can genuinely agree on. For example, one might use the phrase, “I know exactly what you mean”. ?It affirms the other’s position and does not dilute one’s own. Such a phrase makes safe space for the other person to open up more, and unpack the deeper reasons and experiences that have formed their position, which enriches the conversation.

7.????? Leave some space to consider and reflect on what the other person has said.? This is hard to do when part of us is feeling challenged, feisty, and uncomfortable. It is a practice.? Leave a moment of space, instead of crafting one’s response while the other is still speaking, which means we are only listening with half an ear. Receiving another’s point of view doesn’t mean we must abandon our own.

8.????? See the wrong in the right, and the right in the wrong. We often divide the world into two parts, the part we like, and the part we don’t. There are many other sides to every story besides our own. In what way are the other person’s assertions right? In what ways are my assertions wrong? ?It is liberating to not identify with what you seem to be. What if we suspended our point of view for even a day and embraced the opposite view for a day to see what it is like to walk a mile in that person’s shoes? This requires a flexibility of mind, a level of respect, and a recognition that we are all human beings with a beating heart, born of a mother, and destined to die. We all need food, water, medicine.? We all appreciate conviviality and shared interests, and we have each suffered ordeals that we cannot know in another. What if, as an infant, you were switched at the hospital into this person’s family and raised that way? You could be talking to yourself! The Sufi teacher Pir Vilayat was fond of saying: “To become what I might be, I have to see myself in another myself, who shows me who I truly am.” ?

9.????? Embrace Discernment over Judgement. Discernment is the evolving ability to recognize ever more nuanced distinctions between two things that are very close to each other. Whereas Judgement is about making someone’s position “good, right and true” or “bad, wrong and evil” depending on how it relates to one’s own position. A rule from the Knighthood of Purity (…google it J? …it’s profound and cool) states, “My conscientious self, judge not another by your own law.” ?No one likes to feel judged. It shuts down the conversation really fast. ?It is also unhelpful to use one’s position like a big stick to beat someone up who disagrees … tempting sometimes…but never ultimately useful. The Dalai Lama said, “The truth is always kind. If it is not kind, it is not the truth. It is cruelty”.

10.?? Make it personal in a good way. When a person acts in a certain way that we don’t like, it is not personal unless we choose to make it personal. There are two ways to make it personal; an unavailing way or a profitable way. The first way is to react poorly as if attacked… we argue defend, attack back, become agitated, blow a gasket…. not useful. The second way is to really hear a person’s stories because there is abundant information in them which is ours to witness. We are being shown something.? That person could become our “Angel in Jackboots” teaching us a hard lesson about ourselves and/or about human nature that we can be grateful for, if we allow the lesson. In the Hindu tradition, there are stories about Krishna stealing butter as a metaphor for gleaning wisdom from everyone’s stories. The way of wisdom is to learn from everyone else, and I do mean EVERYONE, as grist for the mill of our own evolution.

The Radical Middle seeks understanding to find common ground, rather than to convert the opposition. Occupying that space opens up the possibility for people in a divided debate to not only sincerely speak with each other, but also to form partnerships.? What if those partnerships could form, not in spite of each person’s passionately held convictions, but because of them.