Take "the Other" to lunch

There's an angry divisive tension in the air that threatens to make modern politics impossible. Elizabeth Lesser explores the two sides of human nature that create this tension (call them "the mystic" and "the warrior") and shares a simple, personal way to begin a real dialogue -- by going to lunch with someone who doesn't agree with you, and asking them three questions to find out what's really in their hearts.

This room may appear

to be holding 600 people,

but there's actually so many more,

because in each one of us

there is a multitude of personalities.

I have two primary personalities

that have been in conflict and conversation within me

since I was a little girl.

I call them "the mystic"

and "the warrior."

I was born into a family

of politically active,

intellectual atheists.

There was this equation in my family that went something like this:

if you are intelligent,

you therefore are not spiritual.

I was the freak of the family.

I was this weird little kid

who wanted to have deep talks

about the worlds that might exist

beyond the ones that we perceive with our senses.

I wanted to know

if what we human beings see

and hear and think

is a full and accurate picture

of reality.

So, looking for answers,

I went to Catholic mass.

I tagged along with my neighbors.

I read Sartre and Socrates.

And then a wonderful thing happened

when I was in high school:

Gurus from the East

started washing up on the shores of America.

And I said to myself,

"I wanna get me one of them."

And ever since,

I've been walking the mystic path,

trying to peer beyond

what Albert Einstein called

"the optical delusion

of everyday consciousness."

So what did he mean by this? I'll show you.

Take a breath right now

of this clear air in this room.

Now, see this strange,

underwater,

coral reef-looking thing?

It's actually a person's trachea,

and those colored globs

are microbes

that are actually swimming around in this room

right now, all around us.

If we're blind to this simple biology,

imagine what we're missing

at the smallest subatomic level right now

and at the grandest cosmic levels.

My years as a mystic

have made me question

almost all my assumptions.

They've made me a proud I-don't-know-it-all.

Now when the mystic part of me

jabbers on and on like this,

the warrior rolls her eyes.

She's concerned

about what's happening in this world right now.

She's worried.

She says, "Excuse me, I'm pissed off,

and I know a few things,

and we better get busy about them right now."

I've spent my life as a warrior,

working for women's issues,

working on political campaigns,

being an activist for the environment.

And it can be sort of crazy-making,

housing both the mystic and the warrior

in one body.

I've always been attracted

to those rare people

who pull that off,

who devote their lives to humanity

with the grit of the warrior

and the grace of the mystic --

people like Martin Luther King, Jr.,

who wrote, "I can never be

what I ought to be

until you are

what you ought to be.

This," he wrote, "is the interrelated structure

of reality."

Then Mother Teresa, another mystic warrior,

who said, "The problem with the world

is that we draw the circle of our family

too small."

And Nelson Mandela,

who lives by the African concept

of "ubuntu,"

which means "I need you

in order to be me,

and you need me in order to be you."

Now we all love to trot out

these three mystic warriors

as if they were born

with the saint gene.

But we all actually have

the same capacity that they do,

and we need to do

their work now.

I'm deeply disturbed

by the ways in which all of our cultures

are demonizing "the Other"

by the voice we're giving

to the most divisive among us.

Listen to these titles

of some of the bestselling books

from both sides of the political divide

here in the U.S.

"Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder,"

"Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot,"

"Pinheads and Patriots,"

"Arguing With Idiots."

They're supposedly tongue-in-cheek,

but they're actually dangerous.

Now here's a title that may sound familiar,

but whose author may surprise you:

"Four-and-a-Half-Years of Struggle

Against Lies, Stupidity

and Cowardice."

Who wrote that?

That was Adolf Hitler's first title

for "Mein Kampf" -- "My Struggle" --

the book that launched the Nazi party.

The worst eras in human history,

whether in Cambodia or Germany

or Rwanda,

they start like this, with negative other-izing.

And then they morph

into violent extremism.

This is why I'm launching a new initiative.

And it's to help all of us,

myself included,

to counteract the tendency

to "otherize."

And I realize we're all busy people,

so don't worry, you can do this on a lunch break.

I'm calling my initiative,

"Take the Other to Lunch."

If you are

a Republican,

you can take a Democrat to lunch,

or if you're a Democrat,

think of it

as taking a Republican to lunch.

Now if the idea of taking any of these people to lunch

makes you lose your appetite,

I suggest you start more local,

because there is no shortage of the Other

right in your own neighborhood.

Maybe that person

who worships at the mosque,

or the church or the synagogue, down the street.

Or someone from the other side

of the abortion conflict.

Or maybe your brother-in-law

who doesn't believe in global warming.

Anyone whose lifestyle may frighten you,

or whose point of view

makes smoke come out of your ears.

A couple of weeks ago,

I took a Conservative Tea Party woman to lunch.

Now on paper, she passed my smoking ears test.

She's an activist from the Right,

and I'm an activist from the Left.

And we used some guidelines

to keep our conversation elevated,

and you can use them too,

because I know you're all going

to take an Other to lunch.

So first of all, decide on a goal:

to get to know one person

from a group you may have negatively stereotyped.

And then, before you get together,

agree on some ground rules.

My Tea Party lunchmate and I

came up with these:

don't persuade, defend

or interrupt.

Be curious;

be conversational; be real.

And listen.

From there, we dove in.

And we used these questions:

Share some of your life experiences with me.

What issues

deeply concern you?

And what have you always wanted to ask

someone from the other side?

My lunch partner and I

came away with some really important insights,

and I'm going to share just one with you.

I think it has relevance

to any problem

between people anywhere.

I asked her why her side

makes such outrageous allegations

and lies about my side.

"What?" she wanted to know.

"Like we're a bunch

of elitist,

morally-corrupt terrorist-lovers."

Well, she was shocked.

She thought my side

beat up on her side way more often,

that we called them brainless,

gun-toting racists,

and we both marveled

at the labels that fit

none of the people

we actually know.

And since we had established some trust,

we believed in each other's sincerity.

We agreed we'd speak up in our own communities

when we witnessed

the kind of "otherizing" talk

that can wound

and fester into paranoia

and then be used by those on the fringes

to incite.

By the end of our lunch,

we acknowledged each other's openness.

Neither of us had tried to change the other.

But we also hadn't pretended

that our differences were just going to melt away

after a lunch.

Instead, we had taken

first steps together,

past our knee-jerk reactions,

to the ubuntu place,

which is the only place

where solutions

to our most intractable-seeming problems

will be found.

Who should you invite to lunch?

Next time you catch yourself

in the act of otherizing,

that will be your clue.

And what might happen at your lunch?

Will the heavens open

and "We Are the World" play over the restaurant sound system?

Probably not.

Because ubuntu work is slow,

and it's difficult.

It's two people

dropping the pretense

of being know-it-alls.

It's two people,

two warriors,

dropping their weapons

and reaching toward each other.

Here's how the great Persian poet Rumi put it:

"Out beyond ideas

of wrong-doing and right-doing,

there is a field.

I'll meet you there."

(Applause)