Vanishing
Opportunities to Learn Conflict Transformation Skills
...as Kids Without Adult Supervision
...as Kids Without Adult Supervision
Senator Sasse wrote a serious book, The
Vanishing American Adult, covering a lot of ground…and it is worth
reading for at least three reasons (despite the fact that he is, in my view,
unfairly critical of public education in America).
Reading this story is
like taking a cross-cultural journey. Sasse’s book
serves as a window into the concerns and interests underlying a wide range of
political positions frequently taken by those with alternative or competing
perspectives on politics, positions I often find difficult to understand.
It is critically important for all of us to hear, from those
who actually hold opposing views directly, the thinking and feeling and caring
and valuing behind otherwise thin and easily dismissed competing positions.
Sasse includes the importance of travel in his remedies and reading his book
provides one way for someone like me to invest in democracy by taking the
important trip he leads readers on.
Reading this story first
allows me to hear from a thoughtful parent and then to more clearly see
connections between family values and political priorities. Sasse’s book
stands as a candid articulation of how one thoughtful father thinks about
raising children today. While the story is impossible to separate from
politics, it can be read as first a father’s story about parenting in one
family and secondarily about the political commitments and positions that are
associated with the values and priorities identified in that father’s story.
The margins of my copy are filled with comments, mostly in
disagreement, sometimes in frustration because he seemed to be willfully
overlooking factors with more explanatory value because doing so would push him
toward solutions inconsistent with his ideology. But I also came away with a
respect for his combination of candor and open-mindedness (he often defended
his position with reference to thinkers on the other side of the aisle making a
related argument).
Reading this story is
an important invitation to dialogue. Sasse’s book
is provided as self-conscious effort to speak from the heart but in a way that recognizes
deliberation and the sharing the goal of achieving agreements (even as we
continue to disagree) are prime directives in any prosperous democratic
society.
Over and over again, Sasse pulls back and says ‘as you read
this I am sure you are imagining policies unlike those I might support, but let’s
first come to a basic agreement on the questions and problems before we fall
into those all-too-familiar and crippling trenches.’ Every time (and more) when
he says this, he is right about this reader.
I agree that we need to come to an agreement on the most
important questions and problems, the dimensions of each, and the best
available data for analyzing them. He and I anticipate disagreement on potential
remedies, but compromise and progress remain more likely if we can accept his
invitation to join him at a democratic starting point.
I am considering using this book in my Social
Entrepreneurship class. I like using authors who disagree with me, authors who
are political practitioners (‘in the arena,’ so to speak) and authors who write
in a pragmatic and thoughtful way I expect my students to find engaging and
challenging.
Senator Sasse has a very conservative voting record and yet
he has been a #nevertrump from the start, writing this
open letter. He is trying to help us figure out how to more productively
address the conflicts we face. I respect that, even though I usually disagree
with his prescriptions.
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