Partisanship and the American Identity

I’ve had the very good fortune of seeing a variety of different places. Since I was young, my parents traveled around and were kind enough to bring me along. I’ve been to both coasts of Mexico, the Caribbean, and several European countries, many of them being around the western Mediterranean.

During many of my travels, I’ve run into fellow Americans who were by chance taking a trip to the same country. It’s really cool when this happens. When I’m in a foreign state salivating at all of the rich cultural differences around me, it can be a nice change of pace to meet up with a countryman from home. Even though we are strangers to each other, we have at least one common trait: our American identity.

Sometimes I talk with Americans I stumble upon in foreign countries for a while, sometimes I don’t. Regardless of how our relationship progresses (if at all), we almost always view each other as Americans rather than Republicans or Democrats or some other member of a political party. Why? Because in a foreign state, we cling to raw similarities. If I’m backpacking through Italy and happen to meet someone from California, just our common citizenship is enough to spark a human connection. The Californian might have completely different political views, values, goals, and dreams than I, a Washingtonian, may have, but it doesn’t matter. And we don’t even talk about that stuff anyway. We talk about the journey, places we’ve visited, experiences we’ve had, and maybe a little bit of our lives back in the USA. But not usually about politics. The bottom line here is that we regard each other as Americans, because in a foreign state just our common citizenship is enough to forge a bond.

Here’s the kicker. Currently, in the United States, we are in a foreign state. I don’t mean “state” like a country, I mean “state” like a political climate. Where’s the prosperity? The progress? The economic well-being? The social harmony? This isn’t the America I’m familiar with. Why? Because our country has been ravaged by partisanship, corrupted with extremist views, and ideologically split down the middle like Berlin in the Cold War.

If we – citizens and Congress – can recognize that our country’s state of affairs is foreign due to reckless partisanship, we can realize that our common identity of being American is the starting point to returning to harmony (or at the very least parity). Being American also means having an interest in America. My interest may be different than yours – perhaps you think helping other countries is in America’s interest, perhaps I think adopting a non-interventionist policy is in America’s interest – but if we recognize first that we’re running the same race, perhaps we can get out of this foreign state, kick out the demagogues and demand sensibility in politics. When we do, we can do our precious liberty justice by embracing similarities and respecting differences. To me, that’s what being American is all about. 

Phone, E-mail, Awkward Pauses and Humanity

Frequently, I'll browse websites for products and services. Occasionally, I'll have a question about the product or service. As often as possible, I will call rather than e-mail in hopes of getting my question answered. I prefer a phone call because I'm more likely to forge a real human connection, even if it's brief. I follow this same preference of communication with my friends, because most of the time my friendships are strengthened by stream-of-conscience phone conversations rather than perfunctory e-mails.

Here's the thing. In e-mail correspondence, people are generally brief, to-the-point, and professional. Cold. Part of this is laziness, part of this is e-mail etiquette. There is very little chance of discussing anything besides the purpose of the e-mail (to plan a date, to get confirmation of an event, to get a simple question answered, etc.).

But in phone correspondence, the possibility of a genuine human connection is much more viable. One of the principal pillars of phone etiquette is to avoid awkward pauses, silences and lulls. The conversation should always be flowing. When people follow this, more words are said to fill the air and avoid silence. When more words are said, there's more of a chance that commonalities can be discovered between the people having the conversation. When commonalities are found between people, there is a connection.

True, sometimes people are just as short and professional on the phone as they are in e-mail. And that's not bad, because it's another way to avoid awkward pauses: say what needs to be said and get off the phone. However, in e-mail correspondence, there is little possibility of the human connection at all. There is no need to say anything extra because there's no pressure to keep a live conversation going. You can take as long as you want to respond, and when you do, all you have to do is address the basic purpose of the e-mail.

In an e-mail, you're typing with a name through text. In a phone conversation, you're speaking with a person through voice/speech, and it's a live conversation. The former is almost devoid of real human interaction. The latter makes human interaction more possible.

IMPACT: With the advent of electronic communication, e-mail correspondences are ubiquitous. I think that "shoot me an e-mail" is more often said than "give me a call." This means that the aggregate number of human connections is arguably shrinking, which is not good for humanity. So next time someone gives you their business card, try dialing their phone number instead of querying their e-mail. You just might make a connection.