"Newsroom" scene: Telling people what their moral priorities should be angers them

When we righteously speak as if others should share our political views and priorities, we'll drive them away.

This is an excerpt that appears in both my books Defusing American Anger (written for all Americans) and How Contempt Destroys Democracy (for a liberal/anti-Trump audience). It features a scene from the Aaron Sorkin TV show The Newsroom that I think did a good job communicating something important about toxic political conflict.

This excerpt is located towards the end of a section where I’d reviewed some of the ways that we can grow increasingly unreasonable in how we approach conflict (e.g., distorted views of the “other side”). But I wanted to emphasize that conflict can grow increasingly toxic and team-based based on truly held, passionate convictions. Sometimes it will be just a single issue we really care about that results in us being passionate supporters of one “side” or another.

Here’s the clip, if you want to watch it first, but the transcript of it is in the excerpt:

Excerpt from chapter “We can be angry about things we care about”

In all this talk about skewed perceptions and unreasonable team-based thinking, we should also remember that people can have passionate and deeply held convictions that make them behave in team-based ways. For some people, all it might take for them to behave in a team-based way is to see their political opponents as posing a threat to things they care about — or maybe even a single thing they care about.

A scene from the fictional TV show The Newsroom highlights the power that specific issues can have over us — and also how condescension can divide us. In an episode titled Bullies, the news show anchor, Will McAvoy, interviews Sutton Wall, a black, gay character who’d worked for the real-life Senator Rick Santorum, who’s against gay marriage. (This scene was loosely based on a real interaction that took place on the news show Hardball.) Here’s that scene from The Newsroom:

WALL (the guest): [Santorum] doesn’t find me disgusting.

MCAVOY (the anchorman): Yes, he does, and he certainly thinks you’re less than a man.

WALL: No, he does not. [...]

MCAVOY: In order to arrive at the conclusion that homosexual love is something less than heterosexual love, you have to begin with the premise that a homosexual is something less than a man. That’s inescapable. And so I’m asking you to explain to me why you would work for a man who believes that you’re inferior, that you’re damaged, that you’re ill, unnatural, a threat to children, unfit to serve in the military, unfit to be a parent, and unloved by God. [...] I’m asking you, sir—

WALL: Stop. Just stop. I believe in the sanctity of life. And if that word is too vague for you, then look it up. I support the senator because of all the candidates in the field, I believe he is the only one whose passion on the issue of abortion equals my own. And I believe he has the skills to make a fantastic president.

MCAVOY: I’m not talking, that’s not what I’m talking—

WALL: You will not interrupt me again, sir! I am more than one thing. How dare you reduce me to the color of my skin, or my sexual orientation? There are people who look just like me, thousands and thousands, who died for the freedom to define their own lives, for themselves. How dare you presume to decide what I should think is important? Yes, when it comes to equality for the gay community, Senator Santorum is wrong. But I am far more insulted by your highhanded implication that I need your protection.

MCAVOY: Sir, I certainly was—

WALL: Shut up, I’ll let you know when I’m finished! I came on this program because Rick Santorum believes that the right to kill an unborn child is not inalienable, and I stand with Rick Santorum, and I stand with the Catholic Church. I am not defined by my blackness. I am not defined by my gayness. And if that doesn’t fit your narrow-minded expectation of who I’m supposed to be, I don’t give a damn, because I’m not defined by you either. So get this through your head: I don’t need your help.

Here we can see that both characters have points. McAvoy has a point that Wall is supporting a political leader whose beliefs seem to be majorly at odds with his own. But Wall has a point that people can care about some things more than other things. Wall can perceive Santorum’s stances on some things as bad, while also seeing that badness as not nearly as important as the badness of other things.

And Wall resents being told what his moral priorities should be. It’s easy to see why that would make him angry; it would make many of us angry.

In the context of our divides, it helps to see that not everyone on the other side is enthusiastic about everyone and everything on their side. Sometimes they may just have a few things they really care about, and those things inform their political decisions. When we act as if our views and moral priorities should be held by others, and when we treat others as stupid for not seeing things the way we see them, we’ll amplify their anger at us.

[…] The fact is that we all have our own personal views about where harm is being done and who’s doing it. And when we see harm being done, it’s easy for us to grow angry, judgmental, and to lash out. It’s easy for us to insult and demean the people we think are doing harm. It’s easy for us to start perceiving the world in us-versus-them, good-versus-bad ways.

Even as I have my own views of who’s doing harm on various issues, I also think that how I engage with other people is of the utmost importance. How we engage with each other is, as far as I can tell, of more importance than my or anyone’s opinions on what harm is being done. This is because we’ll always have various disagreements about the harms being done around us. (For example, some people will think my criticism of gender identity ideas means that I’m the one doing harm. Sure, I think I’m right — but so does everyone with a strong belief about something.)

It’s clearly easy for rational, compassionate people to reach very different views about what’s harmful and what’s not harmful. It’s clearly easy for rational, compassionate people to be confident in their beliefs. This leads me to this conclusion: I should try to treat people I think are doing harm as I would want them to treat me if they thought I was doing harm.

This doesn’t mean that I can’t try to persuade others of my views or work for things I believe in. It just means that I’ll try to engage with people I think are doing harm in ways that don’t amplify the conflict for no good reason. It means I’ll try to engage with people who disagree with me in depolarizing ways.

That can be very challenging. But that is what we must ask of ourselves if we want to be a part of building a less toxic culture.

That was an excerpt that appears, in different forms, in my books Defusing American Anger (for all Americans) and How Contempt Destroys Democracy (for a liberal/anti-Trump audience).