Open Hearts, Open Minds: #1: Do We Need Both?

So already, in 2016, I wrote a series of blogs about perspective-taking. At the time, I was wondering about the degree to which a person could actually understand--"take"--another person's perspective, whether it was really possible for someone to walk in, fully inhabit, someone else's shoes.

To understand, really understand how another person walks in the world--sees it, experiences it, makes sense of it--what a challenge! Still, maybe with deep listening and humility we can come to understand "enough" about another person or group's viewpoints to be able to build on that understanding and to do something positive with it.

In the last few weeks, I've been thinking about how America might become a country in which people, through talking about and across their divisions, come to experience themselves as one nation. Consequently, I've also been thinking a lot about open hearts and open minds. Is opening one of them enough? If we open our minds but don't open our hearts, will we be able to talk across those differences in a way that brings us together "enough"? If we open our hearts but don't open our minds, will we have any better success at building those needed bridges? Do open minds lead to open hearts, or vice versa? Or should I not be talking about open hearts and open minds at all--should I be talking about policy instead?

Lately as I've been watching the news on various networks, I've been thinking about its purposes. I think that while the aim of the news has often been to educate viewers about differing perspectives, to inform us of their existence, less often has its aim been to open our minds to those perspectives. This has been especially true when newscasters have intentionally or unintentionally signaled their opinions about those perspectives. 

Despite the fact that most networks routinely share stories of victims and heroes of COVID-19, of hurricanes and tropical storms, of race-based violence, I can't say that I think opening people's hearts is a major aim of most news show. But should the news be responsible for opening my or anybody else's heart? 

Perhaps this question is occurring to me only because I suspect that in these stressful times in which news breaks continually, most Americans spend far more time consuming news than they do immersing themselves in art, music, literature, prayer, or nature--those things they often say open their hearts.

So can we build those needed bridges without opening both hearts and minds? I ask this having said nothing at all about what each "side" might do before the first conversations to assure the other side that it intends to participate in good faith. Still, I'd like to know what your first thoughts are about this.

For the next weeks, I am going to write more and shorter blogs that provide more questions than answers. Their titles will all begin with "Open Hearts, Open Minds." I hope you'll read and respond.