I know things aren’t going well when I can’t bear to watch the news. Ordinarily, I thrive on newspapers, radio and TV. Even before I became a journalist, I had to know everything that’s going on everywhere, and why. I hate to miss the “News Hour” and “Washington Week” on PBS, the “Capitol Gang” and “Reliable Sources” on CNN, and the Sunday pundits. My favorite, for its irreverent humor, is NPR’s Saturday news quiz show “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.” It finds the goofiest, most improbable stories and the most ill conceived quotes, and seems not the least bit intimidated by political correctness. Well, I guess if the gods of the airwaves have given Bill Maher a second chance, they wouldn’t yank an NPR quiz show.
I gave up long ago on local TV news: the if-it-bleeds-it-leads mentality of crashes, clashes and the car chase du jour. Even the news-you-can-use is useless when it’s just 30 seconds of dueling health studies and the great diet debate.
This week, it was homeland insecurity: duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal your windows and vents against what? A poison gas attack? Anthrax? A dirty bomb? I use duct tape to seal the insulation on my water pipes in winter, but it won’t even plug a small leak in a dryer hose. And if it actually did seal the windows and vents, wouldn’t you suffocate? Next week we’ll see a story about someone whose duct-taped house exploded from built up gas fumes.
But lately, I find I’m laughing less and getting angry more. And it takes a lot to get me angry. I’m actually pretty tolerant of opinions different from my own. I just don’t like being lied to. And I can’t believe we’re getting the straight story from our leaders, who seem to circle the wagons at the first hint of opposition. And they have this clever way of discrediting anyone who dissents or even posits an alternate course from the one they’re pursuing. It’s unpatriotic, we’re told, to question the wisdom of the call to war.
Well, it’s precisely because I am patriotic that I’m questioning and dissenting. It’s because I love my country that I hate to see the rest of the world losing respect for it. I’m neither a politician nor a statesman nor a diplomat. But I’ve learned a few things about the value of tact and diplomacy.
Unlike author Robert Fulgham, I didn’t learn everything I need to know in kindergarten. I didn’t even begin to get it until I was well into my adult life. No one told me it goes way beyond the golden rule. No one told me that to have a friend you need to be a friend. That it’s always better to ask than to tell. Oh, and that free advice is seldom taken.
That said, and at the risk of sounding smug, I will share what I learned after kindergarten that might be useful to those who are trying to lead.
If you act childish, you will be treated like a child. (Calling world leaders nasty names is childish.) If you want respect, learn to respect others. Listen to their opinions; find whatever points exist on which you can agree. (That’s what NATO and the U.N. are for.) Try to understand why they disagree and, most of all, what they fear. If they are poor, don’t flaunt your wealth. If they are weak, don’t flaunt your strength. If you have the opportunity to help, do it, but don’t keep score. No one (particularly the French) wants to be reminded they owe you something.
And just because something (like democracy) works for you, doesn’t mean it will work for someone else (like an Arab country). It’s really not your way or the highway. When goodwill is extended to you (like it was to us after 9/11), don’t squander it on self-righteous condemnation.
Remember, no one appointed you the arbiter of good and evil. Don’t thumb your nose at those who worked hard to craft treaties, alliances and accords on difficult problems (like climate change, sustainable development, nuclear proliferation). Above all, resist the impulse to be smug about your good fortune. It can be gone in a heartbeat.
Oh, there were a couple of things I learned in kindergarten that still apply. There are leaders and followers. But even if you’re in front, you’re not the leader when nobody is following. And it’s no good having all the toys if no one wants to play with you.