What's Stuck in Our Craws, Anyway?
Browsing Gristmill today, I came across a link to this interview with Frank Luntz embedded in a blurb generally about how he speaks with a forked tongue and can't possibly have anything meaningful to say. Okay, I get that this guy has been on the wrong side of many, many important debates of the last twenty years, helping to market a message whose only interest is preserving the status quo. There, there's my password; I get it, I'm an environmentalist too.
Having said all that, it occurred to me that Gristmill itself is a pretty good example of one of Luntz's main points: environmentalists are pit bulls. Take a look at any of Joseph Romm's entries, and you'll see what I mean. Most of the language is the same sort of divisive, Us vs. Them aggression that we've come to love (sarcasm here, in case you missed it) and expect from the voice of the status quo. Sure, it's motivation is likely a bit different; it's probably borne out of fear of what will happen to us/Earth/life-as-we-know-it if everyone on Earth doesn't become an environmentalist tonight. On the conservative side, it seems to be more about setting up a straw man to knock down, so they can appear to be doing something in service of the common good, when really their "service" is one of keeping us afraid of the wrong things. Whatever else you can say, neither side is spending much of their breath on constructive discussion.
Much as it pains me to say it, Mr. Luntz is completely right: we need solutions and unity, not bickering and finger-pointing. In another aspect of my life, I'm very involved in the Apache Maven open-source project. This is a place where all decisions are done by committee (or at least the committee has veto power), and where the project's purpose is to serve the needs of its community. The way I see it, this functioning of Maven's community has quite a bit in common with the types of policy discussions going on in the country these days. In the past, I've seen on multiple occasions large numbers of people swayed one way or another in the Maven project because of what amounted to fearmongering. I've also seen nearly all forward progress stop due to polarization in the development community at different times. Time and again, what I've seen is that there is no way forward until someone rises above the arguing and message marketing to float a solution that compromises and brings everyone back to the table.
People seem to have a tendency to articulate only part of the grand design for something that they're holding in their minds. And because they haven't seen any other way that the world could be, they cling fiercely to one or two ideas they see as the linchpins of that grand design. Sometimes, all it takes is to articulate a viable, alternate plan in order to bring everyone back to the table together. While we're still busy attacking one another and adding to the noise on the public airwaves, no forward progress is possible.
So, environmentalists out there: is there another way to get your message across that could align your interests with those people you see as your enemies? Maybe it means you don't get everything you want on the first pass, but isn't it better to start walking down the path, rather than sit here at the trailhead and argue over a hand-drawn map?
Can't we do better than this?