{"id":6835,"date":"2016-11-01T07:25:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T11:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2016-11-01T07:25:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T11:25:57","slug":"needing-friends-who-differ-from-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=6835","title":{"rendered":"needing friends who differ from us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-1463778996521-da8b6f00dacf\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I wish I had personally penned the below. I did not, but it is one of my favorites. The wisdom shared is poignant, especially in a world where we far too easily (and sadly)<\/em> justify omitting respect due to differing opinion; we aren’t always kind to those who think differently than we. Hence, as it first appeared on Salon in 2011, NY Times Magazine and GQ contributing writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner offers\u00a0the following, excellent piece. It\u2019s a little long, but well worth the read, in light of the election, one week from today\u2026<\/p>\n

Janet and I would likely have never met, save for the thing that unites so many women across divides of income and age: fat. We met in a weight-loss group. There were six or seven of us in that group, but Janet and I were drawn toward each other. I liked her refusal to lie about what she\u2019d eaten or rationalize it. She liked my tenacity and optimism. She handed me a business card that said her name, followed by \u201cPh.D., Housewife\u201d and contact information. Clip art of an American flag appeared on the next line.<\/em><\/p>\n

Beyond our weight-loss goals, we had little in common. She lives in Beverly Hills; I live in an area just beyond it where the potholes are reminiscent of Sarajevo and the government is broke. When we met, Janet was just closing up shop on reproduction, and I had just gotten married.<\/em><\/p>\n

But for all the things we don\u2019t have in common \u2014 and the papery, crumply things we do \u2014 our main difference is our political affiliation. Janet is a lifelong, passionate Republican. She does not pretend she is just a fiscal Republican, or just a Republican for Israel, as so many in our Jewish community are. She is a real, live, voting Republican. She likes Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. She admires Sarah Palin. She is for the defunding of NPR and Planned Parenthood. She is against \u201cObamacare,\u201d and she is for parental notification of abortions. Right now on my Facebook page, I have linked to a New York Times article on how women\u2019s rights are being violated by South Dakota\u2019s new abortion laws. Janet has just posted on hers \u2014 I\u2019m not kidding \u2014 video footage of her and her husband at target practice.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the beginning, it didn\u2019t matter. We were more concerned with our own mutual war on body fat. And we soon found on the periphery of weight loss the other things we had in common: a love of books and science, a hatred of hysterics. After I gave birth to my son, so far from my own extended family, her children became a local version of cousins: They marveled at his every new word, they imitated his walk, they donated the books they aged out of. Our husbands began to socialize. Before we knew it, our families were, well, family. Word got out that Janet and I were spending time together.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know she\u2019s a Republican, right?\u201d whispered another member of our weight-loss group after I took her card. It was meant as, well, what, exactly? A warning?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, I had known. Her daughters\u2019 names are Liberty, Honor and Victory, the latter named at the time we invaded Iraq. (Her son\u2019s name, inexplicably, is Bernard.) She owns a bust of Ronald Reagan and cried when he died, proving that she, perhaps alone with Nancy, had remembered that he was still alive. There is a bumper sticker on her very, very large SUV that says \u201cREPEAL,\u201d and I believe it refers to the healthcare bill.<\/em><\/p>\n

Janet and I refer to each other\u2019s political parties as \u201cyour people,\u201d but mostly, we try to stick to the things we have in common: budgets, schools, child-rearing. Janet wore a Tea Party shirt to my last birthday party, and my birthday present to myself was to not ask about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard not to talk about it at all. When you live, say, on a coast or in a very blue state, you grow accustomed to being surrounded by people who believe like you do. You get to thinking that the only people who would dare contradict you are ignoramuses. Meanwhile, I began directing all my anger toward the Republican Party at Janet. On the day that Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood, I found myself furious at Janet, just Janet, as the face of all that was bad in the world. Feeling sad and deflated, I wandered over to her house, unable to look her in the eye, asking her why? How? To what end?<\/em><\/p>\n

She told me she didn\u2019t believe government had any business funding it in the first place. That this isn\u2019t about abortion or hating women but ways the government doesn\u2019t need to be involved. She told me Planned Parenthood was well-funded and won\u2019t even miss the money. \u201cPlanned Parenthood will be better off without government funding and all the strings that are presumably attached,\u201d she said. \u201cI sometimes wonder why liberals, who are so enamored of the freedom to do any damn thing they want, even take government money when it constricts their freedoms.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I closed my eyes and breathed through what she was saying. Janet isn\u2019t Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. She believes what she\u2019s telling me, and she\u2019s studied the issues. That might be what is so difficult: She has the same education as I have, and yet she has made different decisions, decisions that are so counter to what I believe. Decisions I find abhorrent.<\/em><\/p>\n

And yet, I think having a Republican friend is making me a better liberal. We need friends who differ from us. It\u2019s easy to watch Republican extremism and think, \u201cWow, they\u2019re crazy.\u201d But when someone is sitting face to face with us, when someone we admire and respect is telling us they believe differently, it is at this fine point that we find nuance, and we begin to understand exactly how we got to this point in history. We lose something critical when we surround ourselves with people who agree with us all the time. We lose out on the wisdom of seeing the other side.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I moved to Los Angeles, the 2004 election had just finished ravaging the neighborhood. Friendships had ended over differences of opinions, a few marriages had learned what they were made of when one couldn\u2019t abide what hadn\u2019t been that big of a deal before 9\/11. And so when I met Janet, she was on the defensive. That first dinner at her house, someone brought up her Republicanism. I looked down into my soup, sure this was something we shouldn\u2019t talk about. I don\u2019t remember the comment, or Janet\u2019s reply, but I remember my husband asking why she\u2019d be friends with all these liberals \u2014 and yes, it was only liberals at the table \u2014 if she felt so strongly. Throwing her hands up, she said, \u201cI guess I lack the courage of my convictions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that. I don\u2019t speak for Janet, but I think there\u2019s something deeper at play. Janet\u2019s willingness to associate with so many liberal friends \u2014 though I know she seeks refuge in chat rooms and magazines that share her beliefs \u2014 makes her a better and more interesting person. She has her beliefs challenged constantly. She is more well-read and educated in her politics than most of the liberals I know. Too many liberals I know are lazy, they have a belief system that consists of making fun of Glenn Beck and watching \u201cThe Daily Show.\u201d Shouldn\u2019t their beliefs be challenged, too?<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a democracy, after all. Isn\u2019t it worth understanding a bit more about why approximately half the country votes differently than we do? Isn\u2019t it important that we understand why people \u2014 good and legitimate Americans, whose votes count as much as ours \u2014 like Sarah Palin? Isn\u2019t it crucial we figure out why any woman would want to defund Planned Parenthood, if only so we could then address the argument? Nobody benefits from sitting in a room, agreeing with everyone else.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last year, Janet sent me a gift subscription for the National Review. Maybe it was her way of trying, like I am here, to understand how we can be so different and yet the same. Maybe it was a wish, a kind of magical thinking, that if I knew what she knew, I would think how she thinks. It didn\u2019t work. In fact, I now often receive solicitations for causes and candidates I find objectionable. Every time I have to unsubscribe from something, tear up a brochure or tell someone on the telephone how disgusted I am with his or her mandate, I think again about how deep our differences run, mine and Janet\u2019s, and I wonder if this is all worth it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then I remember the things that don\u2019t get discussed in our debates \u2014 how she held my hand through a recent surgical procedure, rubbing it and distracting me the way a mother would, how she calms my fears about parenting, how she has been a family to me in a town where I have none. How that right-wing, gun-loving, flag-wearing, union-busting Republican still thinks, after all this time, and with so much information to the contrary, that I can lose and keep off weight.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help it. I love her.<\/em><\/p>\n

Respectfully\u2026
\nAR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish I had personally penned the below. I did not, but it is one of my favorites. The wisdom shared is poignant, especially in a world where we far too easily (and sadly) justify omitting respect due to differing opinion; we aren’t always kind to those who think differently than we. Hence, as it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “needing friends who differ from us”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event","category-current-issue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6838,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions\/6838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}