Weeks to go until the US election.
We’ve had candidates in hospital. We’ve had epic flight scenes over Washington.
We’ve had drama. And debate.
The US feels like an empire on the wane because it looks like an empire on the wane.
Ageing white men shouting at each other doesn’t look much like anything anyone wants to be part of.
The debate as microcosm looks and feels like the final flare of a star bursting into oblivion.
Politics, debate, commerce have been on a louder, shoutier trajectory for most of the last 50 years. Companies selling more, more loudly, more aggressively. Politicians selling more, more loudly, more aggressively. All of us, me included, shouting ever louder, selling harder and more desperately.
Two men shouting at each other to win the hearts and minds of a voting public is a logical conclusion. Of a dying story.
The Obama’s said when the opposition go low, go high. And when they go high, go low. That too was a good story.
But it’s in the same vein.
Rather than going low or high, we need more quiet.
Quiet companies posed to listen and learn. Quiet politics poised to listen and learn.
Tyson Yunkaporta has written an excellent book. It’s called Sand Talk.
It points to Aboriginal ways of thought and systems thinking. At the heart of these ideas is the understanding that everything is connected. Including you, me and The Donald, for that matter.
The books explains an Aboriginal view to relating well. And the first step is always respect. Only then are you ready to connect, reflect and direct (Yunkaporta, Tyson and Shillingsworth, Doris (2020) "Relationally Responsive Standpoint," Journal of Indigenous Research: Vol. 8 : Iss. 2020 , Article 4)
Imagine this - for our companies, politicians, the dinner table at home?
Companies, politicans, people committed to respecting first.
It’s a profoundly challenging view because respect knows no judgement. Everything and everyone demands it. Everything and everyone is sacred. Everything is interconnected. You, me, Donald.
When we start with respect, only then can we connect, reflect and direct.
In the book, the authors go further, making the point that in Western society the reverse is true.
Often we rush to direct, which creates tension and debate and discomfort and, often times, a wall of resistance.
Only then do we reflect, connecting and respecting occasionally.
We’ve got it the wrong way round.
The rush to shouting first, to directing, is doomed to fail. The louder we shout, the more resistance we generate.
Quiet listening might be the new super power.
Quiet listening is the epitome of respect.
it might make the next debate less of a TV spectacle, but it would mark a profound shift and point to a culture that people might genuinely want to be part of.
