Jim Fleming: American democracy is in trouble. Political influence is bought and sold by pacts and special interests. Political discussion has become a  blood sport. And in election time, more and more Americans opt-out. The quaker, writer, teacher and activist Parker Palmer explores ways to restore the invisible infrastructure of American politics in a new book. It’s called: “Healing the Heart of Democracy. – The courage to create a new politics worthy of the human spirit.” To begin with Parker suggests we deal with our political tensions by honoring rather than manipulating them, because those tensions are at the heart of democracy itself.

Parker Palmer: The institutions of American democracy are really built along a long term capacity to hold tension. You don’t have a democracy without the kind of tension-holding institutions that the founders created. So, for example, we have an executive branch, we have the legislative branch, and we have a judicial branch. And it takes only a moments thought to realize that time and time again, what comes out of one of those branches gets held in tension with contrary views in another of those branches. And out of those collective tensions over time come decisions that are only temporary decisions. Because those tension-holding structures of government keep functioning like a loom to weave and re-weave the fabric of a civil society. Joseph Ellis has a brilliant book called “American Creation” in which he says: “Look, the institutions that the founders have established were not designed to come up with answers to our problems. They were designed to hold the salient questions long enough that we could keep coming back to better and better answers. We have this desire in us as human beings to resolve tension right now. That’s part of the fight or flight impulse that is so famously known among us. But in a democracy, if you come up with a final solution, you’re on the path to evil. And I mean that quite literally. There is a form of government that came up with the final solution. It’s called Nazism it was exercised in the Third Reich.

Fleming: And they were voted into office.

Palmer: And they were voted into office. Absolutely. Because every now and then there arises in a body of people the desire for a strong man who will just cut the tension. Get it over with. And let us get on with our lives. If that’s what you want then fascism is the thing for you.

Fleming: Listening to you talk, it seems that democracy boils down to a decision – a personal decision. Even NOT choosing is a personal decision. It seems Americans have lost a connection to this whole thing being personal – about us.

Palmer: I think absolutely so. If you listen in to Americans talking about politics these days, it’s all about stuff that’s a thousand miles away. It’s about those people in Washington that you see. It’s about folks who operate behind closed doors with lots of money, with lots of access and lots of power. It’s always about them and it’s always out there. But the whole principle of American democracy is, in the words of the founders, it was called into being by “We the people”. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” And it’s always been true that if it’s going to be called back, and every time that it’s been called back, that call has come again from “We the people”.

Fleming: And it’s the habits of the heart that are developed in a personal sense that are the only hope we have of developing habits of the heart in a public sense.

Palmer: I think absolutely. These habits of the heart and the local venues in which they develop: families, neighborhoods, classrooms, religious congregations. The spaces of public life. These are infrastructure of democracy. And just as we have let our physical infrastructure in this society go to hell in a handbasket, so have we neglected the infrastructure of democracy. We have created, well, we have allowed a political climate to be created, which is so, not only conflicted, but so verbally violent, and violent in other more direct physical ways as well, that lots and lots of “we the people” have been driven out of the public sphere back into private life.

Fleming: So how do we heal the heart in this way? It sounds as though this is a difficult process. We’re faced with a world right now where there is intense division between the haves and the have-nots in this country. We’re faced with those people in Washington – I say that as much as anybody. Those people in the state capitol, whatever state you’re in. Those people who don’t agree with me, are wrong. Those people who agree with me, are right. We need to get away from that. It’s seems stronger now. Where do we go to begin to heal the heart in a personal but in a political way. How do we heal the heart of democracy?

Palmer: It seems to me, that what we need today is a “We the people” movement which begins and home and which starts to create a climate of discussing our differences, but is respectful enough and creative enough that people aren’t driven out of the political arena by it, but are drawn more powerfully in. I’m prepared to grant that on the left, and on the right, there are 15 to 20 percent of people at the extremes who are constitutionally incapable of participating in that creative generative conversation.

Fleming: In your book you talk about this conversation, with the percentage that are capable of having it, as a dance between the darkness and the light. Can you explain that further?

Palmer: I think we have to be able to say that the darkness and the light are constantly in play, and the one isn’t good and the other bad. It’s what comes out of the dance of darkness and light, the intermingling, the co-creativity, that we value and cherish. And we need to learn how to host that dance, and to engage in that dance, and to do that dance with one another. If we drop down to a more human level in exchange and invite each other to start telling the stories that lie behind the beliefs we hold, then we’re going to get somewhere. Then we’re going to have a more creative conversation. I was with a physician a couple months ago who was complaining bitterly about medicare. I happen to think medicare is very important and it’s jeopardized in our society now, and I don’t like to hear anybody, especially a physician put it down. But instead of tossing my opinion back at him – for some reason I was given grace at that moment – to just start asking him questions about his life as a doctor. And I learned that he’s spending long nights at the clinic filling out forms that medicare requires that are really sapping his energy and his morale for the work that he was called to medicine to do, which was to be with patients. And he shows up the next day exhausted and spent and resentful that some government bureaucrat who’s not a physician has forced him into this position. Well I don’t think that the whole answer is to be found in that story. But I do know that hearing his story humanized my response to him. We were able to have a more creative conversation because I had learned enough of his story to have empathy for what he was trying to say. The more you know about another person’s story, the less possible it is to distrust them or dislike them, let alone to hate them. Or to marginalize them or call them subhuman. We have a thousand examples of that and I think that more and more of our local political discourse needs to be around this sort of simple question: What is it in your life journey and what is it in your life experience that leads you to this place. What’s interesting in that question to me is not only do I understand you better once I’ve asked it and pursued it, but sometimes people suddenly understand they’ve just been grabbing political opinions out of their favorite radio program or their favorite columnist, and there’s actually not a lot of life experience to stand behind them.

Fleming: I wish we could go on forever; we can’t. Those stories really are what democracy should be about, aren’t they? Learning the other man’s story – the other woman’s story – the other particular person’s story is the start of any good democratic experience.

Palmer: I think so. I think democracy is a full-body sport and it’s about being human with one another and we have to invest ourselves in it as much as we invest ourselves in the living of our own lives. And I think that if we can do that, we’re going to come out in a much better place in a civic community as “We the people”.

[music]

Fleming: Parker Palmer is a quaker, writer, and activist. His new book is called: “Healing the Heart of Democracy.”

Jim Fleming: American democracy is in trouble. Political influence is bought and sold by pacts and special interests. Political discussion has become a  blood sport. And in election time, more and more Americans opt-out. The quaker, writer, teacher and activist Parker Palmer explores ways to restore the invisible infrastructure of American politics in a new book. It’s called: “Healing the Heart of Democracy. – The courage to create a new politics worthy of the human spirit.” To begin with Parker suggests we deal with our political tensions by honoring rather than manipulating them, because those tensions are at the heart of democracy itself.

Parker Palmer: The institutions of American democracy are really built along a long term capacity to hold tension. You don’t have a democracy without the kind of tension-holding institutions that the founders created. So, for example, we have an executive branch, we have the legislative branch, and we have a judicial branch. And it takes only a moments thought to realize that time and time again, what comes out of one of those branches gets held in tension with contrary views in another of those branches. And out of those collective tensions over time come decisions that are only temporary decisions. Because those tension-holding structures of government keep functioning like a loom to weave and re-weave the fabric of a civil society. Joseph Ellis has a brilliant book called “American Creation” in which he says: “Look, the institutions that the founders have established were not designed to come up with answers to our problems. They were designed to hold the salient questions long enough that we could keep coming back to better and better answers. We have this desire in us as human beings to resolve tension right now. That’s part of the fight or flight impulse that is so famously known among us. But in a democracy, if you come up with a final solution, you’re on the path to evil. And I mean that quite literally. There is a form of government that came up with the final solution. It’s called Nazism it was exercised in the Third Reich.

Fleming: And they were voted into office.

Palmer: And they were voted into office. Absolutely. Because every now and then there arises in a body of people the desire for a strong man who will just cut the tension. Get it over with. And let us get on with our lives. If that’s what you want then fascism is the thing for you.

Fleming: Listening to you talk, it seems that democracy boils down to a decision – a personal decision. Even NOT choosing is a personal decision. It seems Americans have lost a connection to this whole thing being personal – about us.

Palmer: I think absolutely so. If you listen in to Americans talking about politics these days, it’s all about stuff that’s a thousand miles away. It’s about those people in Washington that you see. It’s about folks who operate behind closed doors with lots of money, with lots of access and lots of power. It’s always about them and it’s always out there. But the whole principle of American democracy is, in the words of the founders, it was called into being by “We the people”. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” And it’s always been true that if it’s going to be called back, and every time that it’s been called back, that call has come again from “We the people”.

Fleming: And it’s the habits of the heart that are developed in a personal sense that are the only hope we have of developing habits of the heart in a public sense.

Palmer: I think absolutely. These habits of the heart and the local venues in which they develop: families, neighborhoods, classrooms, religious congregations. The spaces of public life. These are infrastructure of democracy. And just as we have let our physical infrastructure in this society go to hell in a handbasket, so have we neglected the infrastructure of democracy. We have created, well, we have allowed a political climate to be created, which is so, not only conflicted, but so verbally violent, and violent in other more direct physical ways as well, that lots and lots of “we the people” have been driven out of the public sphere back into private life.

Fleming: So how do we heal the heart in this way? It sounds as though this is a difficult process. We’re faced with a world right now where there is intense division between the haves and the have-nots in this country. We’re faced with those people in Washington – I say that as much as anybody. Those people in the state capitol, whatever state you’re in. Those people who don’t agree with me, are wrong. Those people who agree with me, are right. We need to get away from that. It’s seems stronger now. Where do we go to begin to heal the heart in a personal but in a political way. How do we heal the heart of democracy?

Palmer: It seems to me, that what we need today is a “We the people” movement which begins and home and which starts to create a climate of discussing our differences, but is respectful enough and creative enough that people aren’t driven out of the political arena by it, but are drawn more powerfully in. I’m prepared to grant that on the left, and on the right, there are 15 to 20 percent of people at the extremes who are constitutionally incapable of participating in that creative generative conversation.

Fleming: In your book you talk about this conversation, with the percentage that are capable of having it, as a dance between the darkness and the light. Can you explain that further?

Palmer: I think we have to be able to say that the darkness and the light are constantly in play, and the one isn’t good and the other bad. It’s what comes out of the dance of darkness and light, the intermingling, the co-creativity, that we value and cherish. And we need to learn how to host that dance, and to engage in that dance, and to do that dance with one another. If we drop down to a more human level in exchange and invite each other to start telling the stories that lie behind the beliefs we hold, then we’re going to get somewhere. Then we’re going to have a more creative conversation. I was with a physician a couple months ago who was complaining bitterly about medicare. I happen to think medicare is very important and it’s jeopardized in our society now, and I don’t like to hear anybody, especially a physician put it down. But instead of tossing my opinion back at him – for some reason I was given grace at that moment – to just start asking him questions about his life as a doctor. And I learned that he’s spending long nights at the clinic filling out forms that medicare requires that are really sapping his energy and his morale for the work that he was called to medicine to do, which was to be with patients. And he shows up the next day exhausted and spent and resentful that some government bureaucrat who’s not a physician has forced him into this position. Well I don’t think that the whole answer is to be found in that story. But I do know that hearing his story humanized my response to him. We were able to have a more creative conversation because I had learned enough of his story to have empathy for what he was trying to say. The more you know about another person’s story, the less possible it is to distrust them or dislike them, let alone to hate them. Or to marginalize them or call them subhuman. We have a thousand examples of that and I think that more and more of our local political discourse needs to be around this sort of simple question: What is it in your life journey and what is it in your life experience that leads you to this place. What’s interesting in that question to me is not only do I understand you better once I’ve asked it and pursued it, but sometimes people suddenly understand they’ve just been grabbing political opinions out of their favorite radio program or their favorite columnist, and there’s actually not a lot of life experience to stand behind them.

Fleming: I wish we could go on forever; we can’t. Those stories really are what democracy should be about, aren’t they? Learning the other man’s story – the other woman’s story – the other particular person’s story is the start of any good democratic experience.

Palmer: I think so. I think democracy is a full-body sport and it’s about being human with one another and we have to invest ourselves in it as much as we invest ourselves in the living of our own lives. And I think that if we can do that, we’re going to come out in a much better place in a civic community as “We the people”.

[music]

Fleming: Parker Palmer is a quaker, writer, and activist. His new book is called: “Healing the Heart of Democracy.”