By LeRoy Lawson
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Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, and Roger Fischer
New York: Penguin Books, 1999
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You”re Deluding Yourself
David McRaney
New York: Gotham, 2012
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power
Robert A. Caro
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012
“Pride goeth before a fall.”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
“Just who do you think you are, anyway?”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall see God.”
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When I started reading the books for this month”s column, I didn”t have a theme in mind. After all, these are a pretty disparate bunch: a book about difficult conversations, a book about how we think about ourselves, and a biography of one of our most interesting””and exasperating””presidents. At first blush, they seem to have nothing in common. When I closed the last one, though, the theme was apparent: the tie that binds is humility.
Real Dialogue
I read Difficult Conversations when I was in the middle of a controversy that could have been a chapter in the book. We were all talking too soon, too loudly, too much, and too ignorantly. Lots of talk””almost no real conversation. We got nowhere.
As the fellow said, talk is cheap. Conversations””real dialogue which involves both talking and listening””costs dearly.
I”ve been asked to mediate a few church fights. Is there anything more vicious, except for family fights (which in a real sense are what church fights are)? A lot of grief could have been avoided if the members had read Difficult Conversations. And paid attention.
Here is some of the good advice the authors offer, each point worth pondering:
“¢ Stop arguing about who”s right.
“¢ Don”t assume they meant it.
“¢ Abandon blame.
“¢ Problem-solving: take the lead.
“¢ Listen from the inside out.
“¢ Take responsibility for your contribution early.
“¢ Remember that our assumptions about another”s intentions are often wrong.
There”s more, much more. The best advice, though, when you can”t avoid a difficult conversation, is to remember that you could be wrong, as incredible as that sounds.
Of course, it takes some humility to admit it.
Really Smart?
I don”t have to tell you what David McRaney”s You”re Not So Smart is about. His title gives the whole book away. He presents his case in 48 succinct chapters. It”s pretty compelling. For the most part, he writes, whatever you”ve been thinking is wrong.
Why aren”t you so smart?
“¢ Because your memory is simply not reliable””you make it up as you go along, not remembering an event so much as remembering your last remembering of it, and remembering through your own cloudy filters. (This explains why you and your spouse don”t recall the same events the same way. You are convinced your spouse has a faulty memory; she or he, of course, knows you”re the one who can”t get it right.)
“¢ Because you look for evidence to confirm what you already believe, and not necessarily to learn the truth.
“¢ Because you place too much trust in authority. If Fox News (or MSNBC) says so, it must be so.
“¢ Because you are captive to groupthink.
“¢ Because you have a self-serving bias. (Are all those friends you claim on Facebook really friends?)
“¢ Because you have deluded yourself into thinking you have more control over your surroundings than you actually do.
“¢ Because you encourage self-fulfilling prophecies.
“¢ Because you are persuaded you are acting rationally when in fact your emotions are in full control.
“¢ Because, in a nutshell, of a failure of humility.
These bullet points look pretty dull. There”s nothing dull about the book, though. The author, not a psychologist but a journalist, knows how to translate the data of scientific studies into layman”s language. He can tell a good story. You may not like his conclusions, you may take offense at his too-blunt vocabulary, you may even cringe at some of his painful anecdotes, but you won”t be bored.
And if you believe what he writes, you”ll feel a little more humble than when you began.
Really Complex
The first president I remember is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dwight Eisenhower is the first one I paid any attention to (except for Harry Truman when he fired General Douglas MacArthur). The first election I voted in was Nixon vs. Kennedy in 1960. My candidate lost. No matter. Whether my candidate wins or loses, sooner or later I am going to be disappointed.
Robert Caro”s The Passage of Power, the fourth volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, his massive study of one of the most powerful, most popular (when elected in 1964), most effective, and ultimately most disappointing presidents in American history. This book covers the years of his vice presidency and first year in the White House, following Jack Kennedy”s assassination.
Born and reared in the hardscrabble hills of West Texas, Johnson scratched and clawed his way into Texas politics and from there to Washington, where he rather quickly became the most powerful majority leader of the United States Senate ever. Way back in the beginning of his career there were rumors of corruption (Did he in fact buy his first election?), rumors that never left him. A newspaper investigation into his fabulous wealth (this man who had been a modestly paid politician all his life) that could have toppled him from office was abruptly called off when Kennedy was shot. The bullet that killed the president probably saved his vice president from disgrace.
Thrust so suddenly into the presidency, Johnson initially did everything right. He deftly maneuvered Kennedy”s program through Congress, strong-armed Kennedy”s men (most of whom treated Johnson with barely concealed contempt) into remaining in the administration for the sake of the country, and allayed America”s fears when conspiracy theories were rife. Johnson displayed extraordinary political skill in championing civil rights and directing relief to the nation”s disenfranchised. What saddens the reader, though, is that everything about the man was outsized: great compassion coupled with a cruel streak. He was a master manipulator of men””and truth.
Caro will document Johnson”s precipitous fall from grace in volume five. You don”t need to read that one to know what”s coming. All the harbingers are here.
Presidential reputations are prone to revision. Some early ones have been reversed (Truman, for example, was reviled by the end of his term and is now considered one of our near greats) and others revised (Kennedy, still glamorous in the popular mind, was not really as effective as we once thought). Still other presidents were appreciated more in retirement than in office (Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush). Two stand out as tragic figures: Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, actors in a Greek tragedy who brought about their own destruction. Biographers will keep on probing the depths of their complex psyches as long as America”s chief executives are studied.
And Caro”s biography will be required reading for them.
Caro traces Americans” loss of reverence for the presidency to this man. “While much of the damage was inflicted by Richard Nixon, Johnson”s successor, it was under Johnson that the damage began.” The author believes Johnson”s transition from restless, resentful vice president to resourceful, effective, unelected president was the best period of Johnson”s life. For a year he was able to hold in check the self-destructive elements of his personality. “And by doing so, by overcoming forces within him that were very difficult to overcome, he not only had held the country steady during a difficult time but had set it on a new course, a course toward social justice.” If he could have continued to exercise such self-control, Caro believes, volume five would be a much happier read.
As I said, the theme is humility.
LeRoy Lawson is international consultant with CMF International and professor of Christian ministries at Emmanuel Christian Seminary. He also serves as a CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editor and member of Standard Publishing”s Publishing Committee.
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