Just Listen -- It's Not About Liberal vs. Conservative

I recently visited with a wise and deeply principled female senior manager from a Fortune 500 company. She offered an observation that I have not been able to get out of my mind. She was happy to have me quote her, but upon further reflection I decided to save her the possible complications that speaking out might cause. Discretion is often the better part of valor when you work at a large company -- which may explain why I have never worked for one.

She told me that she thought the greatest rift in our country was not between liberal and conservative, left and right, democrat and republican, but rather between the shallow hearted people who just talk (and blame and complain and whine) and the deep hearted people who take action on their convictions.

Her observation -- which I am inclined to agree with -- is that people of diverging political views, who are truly committed to bettering the world around them through different approaches and demonstrate that commitment through action vs. words may respectfully disagree, but then will find ways to work together cooperatively.

The real problem is those from both sides of the political spectrum who are filled with rhetoric -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing -- who rarely take action, but waste the time of those who would cooperate by continuously stirring the pot.

What do you hear when you "Just Listen" to the world around you?

On another note, please accept my deepest thanks and appreciation to the Huffington Post and readers that have helped my just released book, "Just Listen" jump to the top of multiple categories at amazon.com.

 

 

Follow Mark Goulston, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markgoulston

Comments

[ProfessorDuh]

No, it's about liberal vs. fasclst.

[Mark Goulston, M.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't support the current war(s), I do support soldiers, police officers, firefighters AND teachers who put themselves in harm's way to benefit others in ways the most people don't.

[LordMoon]

All relationships take work, and understanding, and just labeling people is counter productive, and avoids having to "relate".

I've seen this over and over again, someone comes up with an easy solution to all our problems, if only people would just do this, then all will be well, instead people once agin glom onto this new way to relate, turn off their minds and respond from an unreal place, it just never really works...

ideas are like opiates until tolerance develops they seem to be the answer for everything, but once tolerence is over come, people go back to looking for their new fix.

[crclarkny]

So true that a lot of us are all talk and no action, but I don't see that as the cause of any great rift - just occasional annoyance. The rift, as I see it, is between two very different, very deeply felt views about society, government's role and personal responsibility. They've been in conflict throughout history. The problem now is no one wants to compromise - it's "my" way or the highway thanks to an increasing amount of narcissism.

As for "deep hearted people" taking action on their conviction­s....worki­ng together towards bettering the world. Who defines what's better?

[ProfessorDuh]

Yes. Hitler was quite "deep-hearted," i.e. a passionate person who took action on his convictions.

[Mark Goulston, M.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the typo corrections. I guess in my eagerness to get some of my rhetoric out I wasn't mindful of getting all the details correct. I'll bet that happens to a lot of people.

That said what your you going to do -- vs. just talk about -- to make the world better? The project I am most honored to be a part of is one helping repay vs. just honor people who have sacrificed to make the world better for everybody. The first focus will be returning soldiers, but will hopefully extend to teachers, police officers, firemen and others who have given so much.

[mcthfg]

That is the most shallow understanding of the situation I've ever heard.

History is about liberal vs. conservative.

Liberals usually win, by the way. That's why we have clean drinking water, garbage collection, and a 5 day work week.

Sometimes conservatives win. That's why we had slavery, segregation, and businesses that are "too big to fail."

[HMDMSR]

How could so many years of advanced education produce such an undeveloped and mundane point of view?

We've just watched the collapse of an economic point of view that had been operating in the US for 30 years. There was no concrete difference between the views of Left and Right regarding those 30 years of economic misdirection? Isn't equalitarianism a goal--perhaps the main goal-- of the Left, but not the Right. Is equalitarianism a silly goal to be dismissed by ordinary folks? Don't ordinary folks have the same views about the theory of biological evolution?

The Right is concerned with tradition, sentiment, and moral codes, not one of which is recognized by the Right as having only a subjective presence in the world. These subjective views that appear to their victims to be objectively real are properly referred to as ideologies. These ideological views are concentrated on the Right, but diffuse across the political spectrum into the Left, leaving only a few on this end of the distribution immune to them. These old ideas are what makes political life hard for the Left.

If the indifferent in-between don't want to advance, but instead simply want to tread water, how can the Left be blamed for a general lack of progress?

[oneeleven]

Agreed, and what is worse, the discord we are involved in with the society at large is a mirror of what we see going on with Congress and it appears divided to the point of futility.

[PlaceboStudman]

The reason people just don't listen is because we've moved to a place where being right (correct) is far more important than being happy. People on both sides have rallied their troops, and organized and memorized their particular lines of empty headed propoganda rhetoric, and nothing else matters.

Just as an example, I have been trying to get an honest sincere answer to a very simple question that no one has yet had the cajones to answer....simply, "what then?" in other words, what do we do when the insurance companies are abolished, and we are receiving health care for as close to free as possible, but it is the same poor quality or dangerous health care that many of us are all receiving? Are we then going to have an honest genuine discussion about improving medicine and technology or are people going to be happy receiving the same old dangerous poisons they've always had, because they're free, without a thought to the fact that they are dangerous poisons

[HMDMSR]

To make all the advances you mentioned, the entire healthcare system should be socialized. The profit motive must be removed from the doctor's office, hospitals, university research, etc. Our various food industries and food retail establishments also need to be radically altered, or banished.

[PlaceboStudman]

And Energy and Climate bills need to be passed and implemented as well, to reduce some of the reasons people get sick in the first place. THAT is never discussed

[LordMoon]

We'll said...

[HMDMSR]

I agree.

[MerhabaAbi]

Hi Mark,

Who would you say most resembles the shallow people, as a party, Republicans or Democrats? Maybe liberal vs. conservative functionally comes down shallow vs. deep hearted principles.

Respectfully,
mike

[nellyb stl]

Doctor, the problem isn't liberal vs conservative; or Republican vs Democrat. Call them libertarians; call them right wing radicals. They feed off of a media that has journalists that are willing to sell theimselves for a buck. They will create another Hitler.

[nellyb stl]

Dr. the REAL problem in this country isn't between Liberals and Conservatives, or between Republicans and Democrats. Talk to enough people; read enough web sites and they are there seething. Call them Libertarians; call them the new Right Wing Radicals. They are the newest minority who seem to have the media's ear. What we need is a return to conscience in journalism.
Lest we 'create' another Hitler.

[mommadona]

Well, that's one Fortune 500 "country's" take on it.

"Can't we all jest git along?" hasn't worked out for U.S. when those same Fortune 500 CORPORATIONS refuse to play well with others, and tend to hit up the scrawny kid for his lunch money.....THEN spend millions on playing one group of citizens against another for their own monetary gain.

I'm sure she's a pleasant and sincere woman.
She's kinda wrong.

[NickHP]

Perhaps you meant "Fortune 500 company"?

[nellyb stl]

PERHAPS you didn't notice 'country's' is in quotes. My comment would be to the doctor, "perhaps in this case naming source would be a good idea."