A good resolution: Avoid labeling people, get to know them instead

Here’s a good resolution for 2021: Let’s use fewer labels to describe people and instead see them as unique persons with their own individual perspectives and values.

After a tumultuous 2020, when so many people chose to identify other people strictly by a label, let’s try to understand each individual by what she or he really says, acts and is.

Take, for example, the labels of conservative and liberal, words which during centuries of English language development have had many meanings, as words tend to do.

“Conservative” centuries ago in English simply meant simply to “preserve.” If you added something to fruit or meat you wanted to keep for a while, you added a “conservative.”

All of us want to preserve certain things — whether they’re values, natural environments or other things important to us. Who would not want to preserve our redwoods, for example? And who would not want to preserve our American principle of liberty and justice for all? So, in one way or another, all of us are conservative.

Similarly, the word “liberal” originally meant something different from today’s understanding. Centuries ago, it meant “worthy” or “a free person” or “open-minded.” Who would not want to be worthy of freedom and who would not want to be the opposite of “closed-minded”? All of us are in one way or another liberal.

It behooves us then, when talking with or thinking about friends who have various political or religious viewpoints, not to paste the label of liberal or conservative on them, or even the label “Republican” or “Democrat.”

A quick survey of American history will show how much and how often those two words changed in the past 200 years. Republicans in the time of Lincoln, for example, wanted an end to the tradition — of slavery. Democrats in the South in the mid-20th century strongly insisted on keeping the tradition — of segregation.

Moreover, all of us are both Democratic and Republican. We all believe in a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” And we pledge allegiance not only to the flag, but “to the republic for which it stands.”

I suggest we see each person in our life as an “independent.” Each person has his or her reasons for believing the way they do — their upbringing, their geographical location, the education they received, their current circumstances.

Just about any word or label we might want to ascribe to a person has a variegated history and a current ambiguity. A question we might ask a friend, who is willing to be honest with us, is not “What label can I pin on you?” but “What do you really believe? And why?”

As we listen, we need not immediately respond with “I disagree” but with something like “I hadn’t realized that before.” In other words, we should not get into an argument but into an exploration. Hopefully, our friend would then ask the same questions of us and respond to our answers in the same way.

The conversation that would follow would be more enlightening than deafening. It would allow us not only to better tolerate others, but to better understand them. And it would reflect what many of us, including me, believe — that all of us have more in common with others than we have differences.

Think of the many things we all have in common. We all breathe. Blood runs through all our arteries and veins. We all want to survive.

We all want to preserve our life and liberty and to pursue happiness. Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues who declared our country’s independence had it right.

Perhaps the two words we need to eliminate entirely from our conversational vocabulary are “us” and “them,” when used to separate ourselves from others.

Maybe we should all join traditional debate teams, the ones high schools and colleges used to feature. What made this kind of debating worthwhile was that each student could be assigned either side of a debate and be required to argue it persuasively. The following week that same student could be assigned to argue from the opposite viewpoint and be just as persuasive.

Such a debating exercise would enable us to not only provide arguments for “our” side, but also make persuasive arguments for “their” side. We might come to a better understanding of those who have viewpoints different from ours.

In every disagreement we can find a seed of agreement, a common understanding. How good it would be to not only find that seed but water it, nurture it and make it grow.

All of us hope to put 2020 further and further behind in our mental rear-view mirror, not just the pandemic but the polarity of the year. Few of us enjoy constantly sparring with each other, except for rare people like the guy I knew you once said to me, “My goal is not to get ulcers, but to give them.”

I suggest we try to understand each other more in 2021 and to work more closely together for the common good of our city, our state and our country. This might be the best way we perform our patriotic duty.

Let us resolve this year, as our founding fathers did more than 200 years ago, to “form a more perfect union,” to “insure domestic tranquility” and to “promote the general welfare” for “ourselves and our posterity.”

This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 10:20 AM.