Talk to Your Enemies

By Bryan Carpenter, Dallas Sierra Club Vice Chair

I subscribe to an electronic “quote of the day” web service, and I received a quote a few months back that was so plainly obvious, you could miss its profundity if you weren’t careful. The quote was, “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies,” by Moshe Dayan. My first response was, “Well, duh!”

As I pondered that quote for a while though, it became glaringly obvious to me that I haven’t done a very good job of talking to my enemies (a/k/a people with divergent view points) in the past. This is something I am really working on lately. Being a passionate and committed activist entrenched in my own convictions, I can tell you I’ve done a good job of shouting at my enemies. This last Presidential election was a great example of that, and made for some pretty tense family/friends get-togethers, both pre and post election. Thanksgiving and Christmas were sure fun at our house in 2004, how about yours? And don’t even get me started about all of those e-mails I shouldn’t have hit the send button on (oh come on, you know you sent them out too).

And then what do we tend to do after one of those stressful communications where “they just didn’t get it”? We run back to the base camp and complain and whine to our friends that understand how stupid and clueless and wrong those “other” people are. As comforting as it is to rally the troops, that doesn’t get us any closer to making peace with our “enemies.”

What I am learning is that effective communication doesn’t include raising your voice and shouting at someone if they don’t hold the same viewpoints as you do. It involves listening to each other. It involves having an open mind and sincerely trying to understand the other person’s viewpoint. It involves trying to find the common ground and values you each hold dear, rather than focusing on your differences. The more I have worked on listening to my “enemies” and finding our common values over the last few months, I have actually found that we have way more in common than I previously thought. I am learning how to have healthy and productive discussions with folks I thought were my complete opposites.

While we are quoting people, one of my favorites was from Mahatma Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you want to be heard, listen to others. If you want people to be receptive to your viewpoints, be receptive to theirs. If you want them to adopt some of your viewpoints, consider adopting some of theirs. I share this with you because I know a lot of environmentalists have a pre-conceived notion of “who the enemy is” – big business, crooked politicians, corporate lobbyists, developers, etc. I know that sometimes it is even “necessary” to label people or entities the “enemy” and point out all of the awful things they are doing in this world in order to rally the troops to take action against them (this happens in politics constantly). But most of the time we can be far more effective and persuasive in bringing about the changes we environmentalists want if we open the lines of communication with those persons that we have labeled “the enemy” and try to find the common ground. There are many big businesses, politicians, conservatives, liberals, developers and others that are doing some very progressive things to move us towards a more sustainable and healthy environment. But if you have already put them in the “enemy” camp, you just might close yourself off to some of the gems they have to offer you. I’m not saying you will always reconcile your differences, but you won’t even find out how close or far apart you are without talking to each other.

As we start a new year in 2006, I encourage you to examine your own relationships and see if there might be room for improvement in the way you communicate with people of different mindsets. Peel off the labels, try not to take different opinions or held values personally, and get out there and talk to the enemy. Remember, be the change you want to see in the world!