Gentry
"Peninsula FYI"
November, 2004 |
Table Talk Gentry’s Christine
VanDeVelde offers some observations on the art of dinner conversation and
tips on what topics NOT to bring up at the Thanksgiving dinner table Don’t talk about sex, politics
or religion and don’t boast about your children. Those are pretty much the
time-honored guidelines for polite conversation. But, while one should
never boast about one’s children or anything else, I’d much rather attend
a dinner party where an earnest discussion of sex, politics or religion
took precedence over yet another analysis of whether you’ll find more
lavish ski lodging in Aspen or Deer Valley.
And while I consider asking questions about someone’s cosmetic surgery or
income verboten, I don’t really find it rude to ask someone what they
think about the future of Social Security. I do recognize that politics
are personal, but I love a spirited discussion about almost any aspect of
it and I believe it’s possible to have that without getting too close for
comfort. With a sense of humor and some command of the facts, one should
be able to serve up an honest, civil debate along with the Fred’s steak.
All evidence to the contrary lately. In case you haven’t noticed,
hostesses are having to invite the Democrats for cocktails on Friday and
the Republicans for supper on Sunday. At one wedding, the bride failed to
seat her tables with an eye toward who supported the war in Iraq and who
opposed it and guests at not one, but two tables stopped just short of
fisticuffs. When former presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan expressed a
dissenting point of view on abortion at a ladies’ lunch, one of her
tablemates threw a cookie at her and then threatened her with some tossed
china. I’d like to go back to the days when politics was a contact sport
only among those running for office.
What’s going on here? Noonan says the old incivility of politics has been
replaced with a new smugness that “carries with it a constant
justification for bad behavior in discourse that says, ‘I can be babyishly
aggressive, because you are being a bad person by disagreeing with me.’”
Author Fred Luskin, director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, agrees,
noting it’s a form of fundamentalism, where the person on the other side
of an issue is the enemy.
Here in Silicon Valley, according to Luskin, the hostility can run high,
not because people are angry, but because they’re enormously stressed. “We
live in a skewed environment. There is so much achievement and so much
wealth. It’s harder for people to recognize the smaller gifts and
pleasures,” he says. “People are working very hard and things haven’t been
going well in the last few years and almost everybody, when they’re under
pressure, becomes more prickly. Research suggests that when people are
under stress, their personality deteriorates a little bit.” That’s when
they start to hurl the china.
So, what can we do? Ideas are important and life just wouldn’t be as
interesting if we were reduced to inviting only those with whom we agree
to join us for a barbeque. So, here are a few suggestions for surviving an
election year. First of all, practice a little tact. I have fairly strong
views about most things, but probably only my closest friends know what
those views really are in any detail. So, exercise some restraint in
airing your opinions. As Emily Post says, “A tactful person says ‘It seems
to me’, not ‘That’s not so!’”.
If you can only expound on your own fixed point of view, don’t bring up
the subject of hanging chads. If things get heated, withdraw from the
conversation, unless you can argue without bitterness, bigotry or showing
off by putting someone else down. And, as a last resort, Letitia Baldrige
advises, “Learn to control yourself and change the subject.” Hey, how
about those Niners?
An interesting conversation about politics is possible, if you can
remember there is much that we all have in common, including, as Fred
Luskin notes, that we are fortunate enough to live in a country where you
are free to voice your opinions. And during this holiday season, certainly
we can all agree that another thing we have in common is that every one of
us has a lot to be thankful for. “Being more mindful about how much we
have to be thankful for is the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen for
calming people down and bringing perspective,” he says.
Here’s to an interesting discussion over the turkey and stuffing – and to
keeping it civil. Happy Thanksgiving… |
