Politics and the Broken Heart, continued

After yesterday’s post, a friend wrote this:

 “I can see that many idealists in this country are brokenhearted, and consequently become very negative and angry.  But that doesn't necessarily mean that they are right, any more that the KKK was brokenhearted and subsequently very angry with the passage of civil rights legislation.  Muslims may be brokenhearted that the West wants to give women equal rights, and thus become very angry.  But being brokenhearted doesn't necessarily mean that your solution is the right one.”

This perspective worried me—I was afraid that I had chosen Parker Palmer’s quotations without enough context.  I never thought he was saying being heartbroken made your behavior correct.  I assumed he meant that if you want to communicate with people who have very different political views that you do, you need to understand where they’re coming from, and it may be from a broken heart.  Many of the ways we discuss (or argue) issues don’t work because we ignore the broken hearts, our own and others.

I was taken by Palmer’s choice of the word brokenhearted.  It sounds old-fashioned, and I seldom hear it used.  I wouldn't use that word to describe much of my own experience, but maybe I should consider it.  It has a poignancy that could be useful.  Am I brokenhearted by certain political perspectives?  Maybe.