The Morality of Meeting People Where They Are
(Note: In the post that follows I’m not referring to ideas held by sociopaths out to do literal harm. I’m talking about perspectives held by people who enter conversations in good faith advocating for how to do the most good for the most people in the best way. There’s still plenty of disagreement amongst people of good will!)
2 Weeks Ago in a Touchy Subjects Q&A, someone asked how I could feel good about fairly representing points of view I think are wrong.
Last week, another asked whether we have a moral obligation to advocate hard for what we believe is right.
This week: I’m in Bend, visiting my 87-year-old father. Someone I love, disagree with routinely, and yet always learn from. So naturally I’m thinking about those questions.
My dad is moral. As am I. Our values overlap because he helped raise me, but our lives have led us to accumulate very different experiences. We’re both thoughtful. I’m a champion overthinker who will ponder for hours non-stop, he will chew on something I’ve said in small bites, off and on for months before coming back wanting to go deeper or offer a counterpoint. We often think each other is wrong.
One of Interpretation’s defining principles is that we spark thought. To do that, we start with the idea we’re trying to communicate, then meet audiences where they are at – using words, examples, and stories that will resonate with their life experience.
In conversations with dad, I see the power of this in action. If I hammer him with my ‘rightness’ he hammers back, and we go nowhere. But when I get curious about his life and choose my words with intention, I watch him get curious and consider. The best part - I also see him mirroring the behavior and asking me about my own experiences. No special training or interpretive guidelines, just his own instinct for connection.
With him I get to see something few interpreters (or presenters) get: the chance to see what happens when someone chews on ideas over time. That’s where the science says perspective shifts actually happen, and I have a front row seat.
Which brings me back to the Q&A Questions:
Is it a failing to empathetically represent perspectives we believe are wrong?
·Do we have a moral obligation to advocate for ‘rightness’?
The challenge in complex issues right now is multi-layered.
People tie their viewpoints about polarized issues to their view of themselves as good people. Which means that no matter what the facts of the issue, there is an emotional layer in the mix. If you look at anyone’s perspective through the lens of their lived experience, it usually makes sense. That doesn’t mean we agree with one another’s conclusions, but making that distinction empowers us to treat people with dignity and empathy while we explore ideological differences.
When we start by acknowledging good intentions, fears, and hopes, people are more likely to drop their defensiveness and explore ideas beyond their own. And when you present multiple perspectives, each with fairness, you build trust and nurture empathy.
In an environment where listeners feel accepted, trusting, and willing to empathize, we have the opportunity to explore ideas with a diverse group empowering everyone to take their own next step in thinking about your point. Not because we dragged them into ‘rightness’ or whacked their perspective with a shame stick, but because felt safe enough talking with us that they got curious and willing to consider. We empower our audience to adopt a mindset of “I’m still a good person even if I decide to explore that my opinion could be wrong.”
Into this mix walks ‘morality’.
History is full of places where harm was justified by morality: women were burned as witches, LGBTQ+ folks have been barred from teaching children in public schools, and McCarthyism blacklisted some people and terrorized others. People can share the same values and still advocate for approaches in complete opposition to each other – and skilled facilitators can turn those values overlaps into the path of exploration!
As facilitators we can explore across differences with mixed audiences. We can call in diverse ideologies and experiences and allow ourselves to learn and grow even as we facilitate. Moral or Morality are words that suggest that there is some sort of absolute perspective where I’m a good person and you are a bad person context be damned. And with complex issues, I disagree that such a perspective is easy to find if it can be found at all.
Enslavement is wrong. Sexual exploitation is wrong. Terrorizing people is wrong. But if an NPS worker holds their nose and accepts that they can’t speak important truths about history because they have to provide for their kids, are they somehow morally bankrupt for not quitting under protest and hoping they can find a new job before their own kids pay the price?
Can you take that NPS worker analogy too far and just reinforce the status quo – absolutely. But people making hard, values-based trade-offs (truth-telling vs job-security, community protection vs family protection) aren’t immoral, they are navigating tough realities.
More often, facilitating an exploration of a complex issue with people holding differing perspectives is like working on a complex, 5000 piece puzzle without a master picture to guide the work. If each person holds 200 pieces of the whole and my 200 pieces show blue sky, when you tell me that the puzzle is a field of flowers, I might decide you are off your rocker. Except that’s what your 200 pieces shows. We are both looking at pieces of a puzzle without enough pieces to see the whole thing. At least not without talking to one another with curiosity.
Lobotomization of History, Complex Issues, and Jefferson.
What we can do is bring those puzzle pieces together and create conversations where complex truths coexist.
When viewpoints are allowed to sit in tension with one another, audiences can be invited to work through the conflicts between good intentions, blind-spots and flaws. This is what inspires people to consider and possibly change their own perspectives. And that potential is how I can feel ‘good’ or ‘moral’ in trying to understand and fairly represent people holding views I vehemently disagree with.
We can hold Thomas Jefferson’s virtues and his harms side by side. Jefferson acknowledged in his writings that slavery was an evil stain on the new country and his home state of Virginia, but enslaved people his entire life including his own children. When we look at more of the pieces that motivated Jefferson to repeatedly do something he knew was wrong (his idealism, pragmatism, and futurism), we can see how his contradictions aren’t relegated to the past, but in fact exist in modern society in new forms.
If we insist there’s only one “Moral” way to see him, we lose the opportunity to learn from his story. After all, if he is bad and we are good, or he is a ‘great man’ and we are ‘ordinary mortals’, we shut down thought provocation and lose the consideration of how we might be just like him: the same opportunities to do good and the same temptations to put the good of ourselves above the good of all.
When all members of our audiences feel seen, treated with dignity, and allowed to start where they are, they are more likely to loosen their grip on the certainty that their current view is the only way to be a good or moral person. Curiosity and empathy can emerge. And in that space between “I’m right” and “You’re wrong,” new ideas can emerge – new solutions no single perspective could have produced alone.
That, for me, is the opportunity. Not declaring that we are the moral actors advocating on the side of the angels. Instead, choosing to be facilitators of thoughtful, challenging explorations that helps people think, connect, and discover.