Big Differences, Big Tent

Without many more small, gentle, human interactions—and more commitment to creating them and designing them well—we’re a lot less likely to move toward solutions.

Jan 10, 2022

Over the past several weeks, Kevin Frazier and David Frank have written pieces for The Oregon Way about connecting across differences. I also wrote a piece that specifically addressed connecting across big differences in a small tent.

In this post, I want to address a different but related question: how might we connect across big differences in a big tent, or in the apparent absence of a shared tent? To say it without the metaphor: How can we connect with one another when we can’t count on familiarity, shared history, or time-tested patterns of mutual trust and care? When we only share a town, city, state, or even a country rather than the cramped confines of a (mislabeled) two-person tent, how might we interact more productively with all those people we disagree with, or don’t know, or fear?

I’ve usually thought of this endeavor to connect across differences of background and belief as a slow, long-term endeavor, an endeavor whose horizon is off in the distance. But I’ve recently and increasingly come to feel that this is also the endeavor of our moment – the urgent task that lies beneath all other efforts, and one that could, if not deliberately attended to and taken seriously, stand in the way of other urgent efforts that seem to be spiraling away from us. Our capacity to respond to changes in climate, demographics, the economy, and other huge challenges depends on the sort of collective action that simply won’t be possible unless and until we get better at, and more committed to, connecting across differences.

Our apparently metastasizing sense of the impossibility or undesirability of connecting across differences of background and belief is where the day-to-day effort to connect has to start (and in this short post, I’ll only have room to talk about a start). Even if, or precisely because, differences and divides weigh heavily on us, we simply have to begin, again and again, by acting as if connection is possible. We might even have to begin by believing that connections already exist and that it is our job to find and tend them.

If this sounds naïve or abstract, then I’m saying it wrong. What I mean by this first pass at addressing how to connect across differences of background and belief is this: We have to come to all our public interactions by assuming that we are connected to the person we are encountering—to any person we encounter—and that if we pay attention most of all to that person before us as a person, we will almost necessarily unearth at least a few meaningful connections and help both of us recognize that those and other connections are there.

Sometimes this recognition of existing connections might begin with a place that we share—a bus stop or a school, a grocery store or DMV, a city or a state. Sometimes it might begin with a care or concern that we share—the outcome of a game, the condition of a sidewalk, the color of the sky. Sometimes it might begin with eye contact, or a slight nod, or a low-key greeting and the offer of my name. And sometimes it might begin with a question that resonates for both of us.

All of these small steps toward recognizing and nurturing connection are most easily taken in person, but they’re also possible, if more difficult, online. And they’re possible in large groups and across large distances—though again, they’re more difficult in those circumstances. Because large groups, big distances, and technologically mediated interactions make it more difficult to recognize and tend to connections, we should never fail to seize easier opportunities and build connections there. And we should, in both easier and more difficult circumstances, intentionally identify and deliberately aim for interpersonal connection as a worthwhile goal—maybe the most important goal of any and every gathering.

A few years ago, I heard someone boil it down this way: “First the gathering, then the topic.” Here I want to push that even further: “First the person.” Not the topic, not the issue, not the category. The person. Period. The topic will follow.

When we do gather, for whatever topic or reason, we should have our eyes up, less with suspicion than with opportunity. In informal settings, we should chat with a couple of people, especially people we don’t know or have had trouble with before. In formal settings—especially but not only if we have a hand in designing them—we should make time for people to connect in groups of two or three, as people rather than as representatives of fixed categories or sets of beliefs.

We should invite people (and ourselves) to talk with and listen to each other. We should ask gentle (though not infantile) invitational questions, questions related to what we’re gathered for but concerned more with why we care about the topic than with some fully prescribed solution or theory about the topic.

These commitments to small, gentle, human interactions—these intentional invitations to people to show up as people—will not, on their own, solve the big issues that challenge and divide us. And designing these kinds of interactions and invitations takes not only commitment but also its own kind of expertise. But without many more of these interactions—and more commitment to creating them and designing them well—we’re a lot less likely to move toward the solutions—and the trust and relationships—and the democracy—we so clearly need.

Adam Davis works with Oregon Humanities to get people thinking and talking together, and he used to lead backcountry trail crews with the US Forest Service.

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