Where the Political and Personal Meet

Democracy Newsletter: February 2024

By Steve Zolno

​​Our discussion for January 8, 2024, was about the book How to Know a Person, The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, by David Brooks, published October 2023.
 
David Brooks is a conservative columnist known for his articles in the media. He often is seen and heard on talk shows, recently while promoting his new book. His books are primarily about how to improve our communication with others and this new one is particularly popular and well-read. The message he is increasingly conveying in his books and interviews is that politics is personal; if we want a world that functions well, we need to improve our ability to communicate.
 
Brooks makes it clear that he now is aiming higher than simply prescribing how people should interact. He describes what he considers the wisdom that we can bring into our interactions to make them — and the world — function more effectively: “Wise people don’t just possess information; they possess a compassionate understanding of other people. … Being open-hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills.” (Page 7)
 
He is concerned about how many people feel unable to be heard and thus are alienated: “It seems like we have intentionally built a society that gives people little guidance on how to perform the most important activities of life. As a result, a lot of us are lonely and lack deep friendships. … Above almost any other need, human beings long to have another person look into their face with loving respect and acceptance. On social media you can have the illusion of social contact without having to perform the gestures that actually build trust, care, and affection.” (Page 8)
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One of the most important skills we can develop is empathy: “Life goes a lot better if you can see things from other people’s points of view. … There is something to being seen that brings forth growth.” (Page 11)
 
For democracy to survive, we need to be able to communicate with those with whom we disagree to establish and work toward common goals: “To survive, pluralistic societies require citizens who can look across differences and show the kind of understanding that is a prerequisite of trust.” (Page 12) And an essential part of that is empathy, or seeing the world as others see it.
 
Rather, we tend to group people into categories based on gender, race, etc. and fail to see their individuality: “People belong to groups and there’s a natural tendency to make generalizations about them.” (Page 22) We even can do this with people we love.
 
At the most essential level, all of us are equal: “If you consider that each person has a soul, you will be aware that each person has some transcendent spark inside them. You will be aware that at the deepest level we all are equals.” (Page 31)
 
Much of our emotional connection with others is done on an unconscious level: “Through small talk and doing mundane stuff together your unconscious mind is moving with mine and we’re getting a sense of each other’s energy, temperament, and manner.” (Page 45) This especially happens with children.
 
The best communicators, writers, teachers and even friends guide people to come to their own solutions rather than providing answers for them: “A [good] teacher could offer the answers, but he wants to walk with his students as they figure out how to solve a problem … Writers are at their best not when they tell people what to think but when they provide a context within which others can think. … When someone is going through a hard time you don’t need to say some wise thing, you just have to be there with heightened awareness of what they are going through at that moment.” (Page 52)
 
Whether or not there is such a thing as objective reality, we each see events through the lens of our background and experience: “         Every person takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world. … People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life.” (Page 64) In our conversations we need to open ourselves to the viewpoint of the other person in order to really communicate.
 
A serious lack in our educational system is that we are not taught to listen to each other, but often try to outdo each other in our interactions: “We should explicitly teach people, from a young age, how to be good conversationalists.” (Page 74) Conversations are much more productive when seen as mutual exploration of truth.
 
Loneliness seems to be increasing in our time: “Between 1999 and 2019, American suicide rates increased by 33%. Between 2009 and 2019, the percentage of teens who reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness rose from 26 to 37%. … People were spending much more time alone.” (Page 98)
This may be contributing to the increasing alienation among many young people.
 
Our political situation may be adding to feelings of isolation and polarization: “Politics seems to offer a comprehensible moral landscape. We the children of light, are facing off against them, the children of darkness. Politics seems to offer a sense of belonging. I am on the barricades with the other members of my tribe. Politics seems to offer an arena of moral action. To be moral in this world, you don’t have to feed the hungry or sit with the widow. You just have to feel properly enraged at the people you find contemptible.” (Page 101)
 
Although a long-time political commentator, Brooks give low marks to politics as a route to personal satisfaction: “If you attempt to assuage your sadness, loneliness, or anomie through politics, it will do nothing more than land you in a world marked by sadistic striving for domination.” (Page 102) Neither does he seem to think that our society provides adequate guidance for how to lead a satisfying life: “Ultimately, the sadness and dehumanization pervading society leads to violence. … Look at many of the young men who commit horrific shootings. They are ghosts. In school, no one knows them. … These young men often have no social skills.” And “As a society, we have failed to teach the skills and cultivate the inclination to treat each other with kindness, generosity and respect.” (Page 104)
“Most important is that we “teach moral and social skills.” (Page 106)
 
Beneath every conversation, Brooks tells us, is the actual conversation, that conveys the emotions and message of divisiveness that people hear: “The actual conversation occurs in the ebb and flow of underlying emotions that get transmitted as we talk.” (Page 114)
 
Getting to know a person includes opening up to hearing how the other sees the world, which also expands our own understanding: “Each mind constructs its own reality.” (Page 133)
 
We each have periods of self-doubt which we carry with us our entire lives: “Every child, even from birth, is looking for answers to the basic questions of life: Am I safe? How does love work? Am I worthy? Will I be cared for?” (Page 135) “Our self-doubt can translate into fear of looking or feeling bad: “Emotions and relationships have hurt me, so I will minimize emotions and relationships.” (Page 138)
 
The models in our minds help us anticipate how others might act, but we also can exaggerate our fear of others which prevents us from seeing them and interacting based on reality rather than our projections: “Each of us goes around with certain models in our head that shape how we see the world. You build these models early in life and they work for you. They help you defend yourself from abuse or neglect [but] a person with an overreactive defense architecture is thinking, My critics or opponents are not just wrong, they are evil. Such a person perceives apocalyptic threats coming from all directions and seizes on conspiracy theories that explain the malevolent forces all around. … Angry people always are in search of others they can be angry at.” (Pages 139-41)
 
Looking inside ourselves may not work to improve our interactions with people: “Introspection isn’t the best way to repair your model; communication is.” (Page 143) And the most productive communication is based on empathy — a willingness to really hear the other person: “Empathy is a set of social and emotional skills. … A person who is good at mirroring is quick to experience the emotions of the person in front of them, to reenact in his own body the emotions the other person is holding in hers.” (Pages 144–46)
 
Brooks discusses how we carry two, sometimes competing, characteristics within us: “We humans are divided creatures. We have these primitive, powerful voices within us — passions such as lust, rage, fear, greed, and ambition. But people also possess reason, which they can use to control, tame, and regulate those passions.” (Page 170)
 
When we train our children to hopefully be responsible citizens, we want to encourage them to develop positive behaviors. This is best done by modeling and pointing out positive ways to act rather than criticizing actions we want to discourage: “Instead of calling attention to the behavior you want your child to stop, call attention to the behavior you want them to do.” (Page188)
 
In the larger picture, empathy allows us to identify with the deep feelings of all members of the human race: “The person with interpersonal consciousness can not only experience other peoples’ experiences, she can experience the experience of humanity as a whole.” (Page 196)
 
Brooks makes an important point about identity politics where we tend to assume we know about people based on their outer characteristics: “A black woman could be wise or foolish, compassionate or callous, considerate or cruel. … Today, in our identity politics world, we are constantly reducing people to their categories: Black/white, gay/straight, Republican/Democrat. It’s a first-class way to dehumanize others and not see individuals.” (Page 235)
 
The author shares a number of thoughts about what he thinks constitutes wisdom in contrast to knowledge. Wisdom looks at the big picture and the long-range potential of people and situations rather than reacting only to the immediate situation: “Wise people don’t tell you what to do; they help you process your own thoughts and emotions. … The knowledge that results from your encounter with a wise person is personal and contextual, not a generalization that can be captured in a maxim,” and: “The wise person sees your gifts and potential, even the ones you do not see. … We all know people who are smart. But that doesn’t mean they are wise.” (Pages 249-50)
 
Ultimately, developing a capacity for compassion is what best serves us and those with whom we interact: “She who looks with the eyes of compassion and understanding will see complex souls, suffering and soaring, navigating life as best they can.” (Page 270)

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Steve Zolno graduated from Shimer College with a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and holds a master’s in Educational Psychology from Sonoma State University. Steve has founded and directed private schools and a health care agency in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of six books.

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