A Dramatic Shift: Apprehension to Invigoration
The June 2024 Biden-Trump debate unleashed intense political interactions within the Democratic Party—a significant disruption to the existing interactive patterns among Democrats. Chaos ensued. Dems of all stripes were in turmoil, many expressing anxiety and dread as they saw the very essence of democracy at stake with no clear solution in sight.
Then, suddenly, amidst the turbulence, a dramatic change emerged. Biden, the current Democratic president, announced he would no longer seek reelection. Instead, he declared Kamala Harris, the current vice president, would replace him on the ticket. This announcement fundamentally altered the content and trajectory of interactions that were occurring within the Democratic Party.
The shift not only altered the Democrat’s interactions but significantly impacted the political dynamics between the two primary parties—Republicans and Democrats—and others, as well as the general voting public.
While the dynamics of human interaction continually percolate under the surface of an obvious change and contribute to the unpredictable nature of human communication, it’s the emerging “eruptions” that tend to shift collective patterns of thinking and behavior dramatically.
No doubt, the predictable patterns of “wrangling” between the two parties up and down the ballot will continue right up to Election Day. However, it is the unpredictability that keeps us on the edge of our seats.
Natural Complexity
Political exchanges, especially in an election year, elucidate the value of understanding and even embracing a view of reality informed by the modern sciences. Complexity describes a neutral phenomenon of interdependence, continuous movement and change through interactions among “parts” of a coherent “whole.” While no two interactions are exactly alike, they are often self-similar and form patterns of behavior that are primarily steady and reasonably predictable.
Until they are not.
When perturbed by an unexpected event in a dynamic environment, the seemingly steady patterns can shift in radical and unpredictable ways. In fact, a key feature of understanding reality through a complexity lens is the knowledge that no one is in charge of what happens.
As conscious beings, humans think, feel, and form opinions based on our long histories of experiences and beliefs. It’s our nature to think we’re objective and know for certain what’s what, to assume we can control others and predict outcomes by following a precise action plan. In reality, the complexity of life is happening all around us and we learn to recognize that the only person over whom we have control is ourselves!
Enter: Generative Communication (TM)
My last blog featured a gorilla in the room that everyone ignored. The gorilla symbolizes the unspoken differences in our political points of view and our unwillingness to converse with someone with opposing perspectives. I argued that by engaging in respectful, generative conversations, we are likely to expand our own understanding of a situation and, perhaps, welcome others to do so in the process.
Interestingly, many of you responded by citing your futile attempts to initiate such conversations in the past. You noted a sense of unforgiving hostility you felt toward those who wouldn’t or couldn’t respond to your efforts with anything more than “undocumented, parroted platitudes.” Many of us have felt that frustration or not even bothered to try. It makes me wonder: do we too easily give up having genuine conversations with people we disagree with?
I get it. It’s hard work staying engaged with someone long enough to understand what they believe and why. It takes patience to get past the rhetoric and, together, discover our individual voices grounded in our varied past experiences and beliefs that lie underneath the often-repeated platitudes.
Fortunately, Generative Communication gives us the tools to help navigate the complexity and chaos. Generative human communication means generating—co-creating—shared value in our everyday interactions with others regardless of our complex and challenging circumstances.
We can generate a common understanding through exchanges that include genuinely listening to and trying to understand one another. We can generate mutually agreeable and good-enough solutions to our complex problems. We can generate unimagined possibilities aimed toward a world of goodwill. But first, we must learn to embrace the natural complexity of our shared reality and let that new understanding inform our communication choices.