Aug 26 2008
Story makes society possible.
When my neighbor started emailing me articles about Obama and McCain, I was intrigued—he seemed to be asking me to join in his thought process; he admitted to being unsure who to vote for. It was the first time we had the possibility of getting to know each other beneath chit-chat. We began writing back and forth, and our dialogue reminded me of this story from a few years ago.
In Boston in the early 1990s, when there was increasing violence around abortion clinics, the Center for Public Dialogue called a group of people together, half adamantly anti abortion, and the other adamantly favoring a woman’s right to choose. They asked participants to commit to six months of facilitated conversation to put a human face on the opposition. The primary mode of conversation they used together was story—not opinion.
Nobody changed their position, but they understood the other side better, and they had people on the other side of the issue about whom they cared, and whose life stories they knew. So all these people became in their own ways advocates for tolerance and developed the ability to see abortion as a social issue that was not going to necessarily be “resolved” in their favor, but could be carried socially without that resolution. Violence decreased and the conversationalists became so engaged with each other they stayed together for three years.
Reading about such experiments as this led me to write my book, Storycatcher, about the role story plays in making society possible. One of the things I totally believe after all this work is: stories build bridges, opinions build walls. Opinionating has become a kind of verbal blood sport in our country—with people cheering on one outrageous spokesperson or another as though they were cheering sports teams. But opinion can tear apart the social fabric, and it has. We have become more an us/them society based on polarized pro/con thinking than ever before.
What is possible in story is the chance to learn how people come to hold values and opinions and deep beliefs. So, when someone comes across my path expounding a passionate opinion, I try to find time to ask: What life experience do you think led to this belief?
It’s hard to switch—opinion is a little race-track in the mind, and our thoughts run round and round it, deepening the groove and our sense of being right. But if we are willing to stop rushing by each other and inquire into the story level, we can have an amazing conversation. We can discover what sources our opinions and beliefs about the world and find ways to draw together—even in our differences.
What are you curious about: and who might you be willing to talk to and listen to in story?
Dear Ms. Baldwin. Who says Google Books is bad? I did a Google search for Rasmus Hanson from Hafslo to see if there was anything new online about that part of my family & Google linked me to a page from your book, “Storycatcher,” which I just ordered from Amazon. Moments earlier I was linked to Odd Lovoll’s U. of Minn. book, “Norwegians on the Prairie,” which I also ordered, about the Norwegians in Benson, and a discussion of Rasmus & his brother Erik, whose kids Hans & Britha, first cousins, are my great grandparents. I met your grandmother, Emma, a few times & my late dad, Russell, saw her, I believe, when he was visiting in the Hemet area in the mid-1990s. I’m as hopeful as you about Barack Obama & I’m a Republican (I’ve been called a “RINO,” Republican in name only). Writing must run in the family. My daughter, Jennifer, who is a lawyer here in MPLS, wrote a book for Houghton-Mifflin, “The Real Freshman Handbook,” that made it to a second edition. Son Erik, who is a science writer, has one book under his belt, “Canyons” for young adults, has just completed one on hummingbirds, & just signed on to write one on foot care for people with diabetes. Send me your e-mail sometime & I’ll send you an incomplete digitized file of my newspaper history of the Hansons/Myhres half of my family background (Myhre being Dad’s mom’s family name). Best wishes. Burton Randall Hanson. BTW, your grandmother’s mother, Britha, also lived to 100. She was born in 1855 (not 1853 as some records indicate) and died in 1955. I was 12 when she died and I remember her well.