Courage Needed to End "Zero-Sum" Thinking

There are some words best left unspoken. If the so-called “N-word” just popped into your head, that’s a good word to forget but not the one I meant.

The word I had in mind is “dialectics.” I’ve watched many a pair of eyes glaze over at it’s mention. Most people have heard it but have only a vague idea what it means -- and no desire to learn more. I promise to keep it simple.

In our contentious culture, we tend to look at life as a contest of opposites in a zero-sum game. If one side increases, the other must decrease. This balance sheet thinking leads people to a cynical world view expressed in phrases like “it’s either you or me,” and “us vs. them.” For every winner there has to a loser, and as bluesman Howlin’ Wolf famously said, “I’d rather go to your funeral any day than have you come to mine.”

In the world of opposites, people hold to their opinions like God had etched them on tablets of stone. To have their positions threatened is to invite anger, depression and a general sense the universe is tilting out of kilter. I had that feeling recently when reading about the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant, who for almost 20 years was paid less than her male counterparts despite having more experience. When she learned she’d been cheated she offered to settle for $60,000 from Goodyear. The company said no and Ms. Ledbetter went to court, where a jury awarded her $223,776 in back pay and more than $3 million in punitive damages.

But eventually the case went to the Supreme Court and the company won on a technicality. Congress then tried to correct that technicality, but enough senators saw it as bad for business and blocked "doing the right thing."

I say “doing the right thing,” because I believe even the people who scuttled Ms. Ledbetter’s chance for fair treatment knew she had been treated unfairly. I don’t think they did it because they are just mean, hate women, or hate women taking “men’s jobs.” I think they got caught up in the world of opposites. To threaten their pro-business, traditional gender roles world view is to threaten the very ground they tread. In other words, they are afraid and immobilized.

The same day I read about Ms. Ledbetter I’m listening to some jazz vocals by Ann Hampton Callaway. She doing a Stephen Sondheim song called No One is Alone. If you’ve been around at all, you know that’s a crock. Lots of people are alone with no one to care about them. Some are even more alone than Ms. Ledbetter felt when the Supreme Court and Congress let her down. But as I listened I thought, “that’s how it ought to be, a culture where no one feels abandoned, a place where if you fall someone will catch you.” Then I’m thinking, some people oppose that culture. They oppose medical care for children, and social security, and fair treatment for Ms. Ledbetter. Didn’t we grow up hearing about the New Deal and the social compact? Now I’m the one feeling angry, afraid, and ready to fight rather than have the secure ground beneath me begin to quiver.

Do you see where I’m going with this? On one side in America, the pro-business, personal responsibility gang. On the other, the social covenant folk who say the culture should make sure life is safe and fair -- that no one is alone. The result is two sides locked in a war of opposites. Which brings me back to dialectics, a formula for moving society forward that says, “have hope; life is not a zero-sum game. We can take the best of both sides and form something new and improved.” But progress requires the return of good will, and that can’t happen if we continue to hole up within our fearful skins. Which is why we need God, or at least faith in a truth bigger than ourselves. On our own we'll never find enough courage and humility to break the stalemate.