Yes! Magazine has an interesting blog series tby the Interfaith Amigos, an interfaith trio of spiritual leaders. One post in particular by Rabbai Ted Falcon poses some interesting question about how you seek common ground with those who have seemingly intractable or irrational positions.   To wit:

I am reminded, too, of a parent-teacher-administrator meeting at a school where a friend used to teach. The topic under (sometimes heated) discussion related to a proposed expansion of foreign language offerings at the school. One woman, clearly upset, rose with a challenge.

“If English was good enough for Jesus,” she said, “why isn’t it good enough for us?”

Rabbai Falcon’s prescription is to move away from arguing the legitimacy of specific statements towards seeking to understand the context in which the statement is being made.

In the school meeting I mentioned, it is likely that the woman and I shared a common denominator of interest in education that best prepares students for college admission and for living in the world.

I appreciate the wisdom and grace of the Rabbai’s efforts…I really do.  But as a practicing political scientist, I’m often confronted with views and discourses that seem to rely primarily on the denigration of a chosen other.  I’m sure many will disagree, but the callous way that some people speak about undocumented immigrants reflects not to a willingness to find a common ground solution, but a need to position oneself vis-a-vis a “other” who purportedly have no claims to an equal humanity.  

Simply calling a human being an “illegal” speaks to a desire to invalidate the depth and complexity of 10 million people living in the United States without documentation.  Martha Nussbaum observes that every society creates objects worthy of disgust.   Some days it seems that no amount of back-story will affect the views of people who see themselves aggrieved by “illegals,”  when their real beef should be with large, impersonal, structural forces that has exacerbated the free flow of labor across borders.  But you can’t exactly be “disgusted” by trans-national capital.  You can however, be disgusted by its by-product.  Particularly if it speaks a different language, looks different and has different norms and customs.

My pessimistic thought for the day. Enjoy 🙂