Politics and the Broken Heart

“I propose that what we call the ‘politics of rage’ is, in fact, the ‘politics of the brokenhearted,’" says Parker Palmerin an interview in the November 2012 issue of The Sun.  I was introduced to Palmer during my teaching years and have read his books on education and vocation.  I was surprised to see that his latest book is about politics:  Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.

The ideas presented in The Sun interview are a different take on our current dysfunctional system, and I’m not sure what to think.  I am going to look for the book.  Below are a few more quotations from his interview:

If Americans don’t understand that radical Islamic terrorists are heartbroken about what’s happening to their people, we’re missing the point.

Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering…When individuals don’t know what to do with their suffering, they do violence to others or themselves—through substance abuse and extreme overwork for example.  When nations don’t know what to do with their suffering, as with the U. S. after 9/11, they go to war.

 [S]uffering is an aquifer on which we all draw. 

 When I’m talking with people whose views I regard as wrong but not evil, I need to ask myself: Am I here to win this argument, or am I here to create a relationship? 

 Big problems are solved by a million little solutions.