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• Friday, December 23, 2005 09:28 AM

  We are all connected

  One of the advantages of belonging to a family is that it positions us to love people with whom we might not otherwise choose to interact. Consequently, many families have drama of one sort or another, because it is a crucible to which nature binds us.

  The ties that bind also intensify the feelings, whether they are harmonious or antangonistic. I find it helpful to frame the family experience as being like going to the gym. I know I'm going to get a workout, because I'm going to encounter resistance. The muscles of my own moral point of view are made stronger than they might be if I were in an environment where there was nothing against which to exercise them.

  Is it not the nature of life to present us with dramatic situations? Each of us alone can choose how we react to these events. I believe there is a high ground here. We can focus on and experience the connection with those we love quite deeply, even when each of us is articulating an opposing point of view. Often the zeal of each point of view is comparable, because it springs from shared rather than disimilar impulses.

  I do not believe in the death penalty. I take "thou shalt not kill" as unambiguous and without exception. Yet I understand that those who, like Will's Dad, support the death penalty are (ironically) coming from a comparable horror at killing. They see the solution to killing as killing those who kill. That is the nub of the philosophical difference: *how* do we stop the killing. It springs from a shared abhorence of killing. It is helpful, I think, to feel the point of connection there. I think it is always helpful to look for such points in those with whom you disagree, because we are truly all connected.

  Oddly, polarization often depends on a strongly shared common passion. Political disagreements are about how to achieve these things we all treasure: freedom, peace, the pursuit of happiness. When we fight with each other, it is often as if we are fighting with parts of ourselves, because we want to get it right. Disagreement can be accomplished with love, however.

  My advice to Will is to strengthen your own convictions. Recognize that light is more powerful than dark, and hold forth the candle of your truth with your father. Do it with conviction and affection -- because the dispute is not between you, it is between two solutions to the same problem that you both want to solve.

  I send peace and goodwill to all (including Fox news, Republicans, and other piquant flavors of the human spirit).

  --Duck

  —David Greene Read David Greene's other letters
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