David Brooks & Peter Block: How to Know a Person

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.  This episode is the Abundant Community Conversation from September 14 where Troy Bronsink speaks with David Brooks and Peter Block about David’s new book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. This event was produced in partnership with Designed Learning, Faith Matters Network, Abundant Community and Common Change. These conversations happen on Zoom and they always contain poetry, small groups and an exploration of a particular theme.

The next conversation is on October 26 with Parker Palmer. You can register here.

The recited excerpts came from Reverend Ben McBride's book, Troubling the Water: The Urgent Work of Radical Belonging. You can also check out our previous conversation with Ben here.

Peter also has a new book coming out in November that you can pre-order now. It's called Activating the Common Good: Reclaiming Control of Our Collective Well-Being.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation. 

Transcript

Ben McBride:  people sometimes think of belonging as, the feeling of comfort. When we are accepted, the sense of fitting in.

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Ben McBride: but when belonging means simply acclimating to the status core of the cultural majority. it stops being true. Belonging blogging can't just be the comfortable and happy feeling we might get as we nestle down with people who are just like us

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Ben McBride: if we think that we've missed the point. Radical belonging means cocreating with the perceived other to widen the circle of human concern.

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Ben McBride: And what makes it truly radical is that it means doing this, even when that very person or group seems to be working to constrict our circle of human concern. Radical, belonging, pushes us to imagine a world where the circle of human concern is big enough to include every one

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Ben McBride: like the well-meaning person you are, you might be asking. okay. So what do I do to create a world where all can belong? I believe that's the wrong question. Each of us should be asking ourselves.

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Ben McBride: who do I need to become?

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Troy Bronsink: Thank you, Ben, and welcome everybody to today's conversation with abundant community. With David Brooks and Peter Block.

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Troy Bronsink: My name's Troy Bronson, and I'm stepping in today for Reverend Sashama Austin Connor, she is come down with Covid and asked us to share that with y'all and so I'll do my best to hold this conversation with these 2 folks, and really with all of y'all

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Troy Bronsink: so that we can start to practice some of what Ben just described, and what we've appreciated about this conversation over the years. You've got a opportunity in your chat to and you can see folks are already posting there. You can. Let us know where you're from. What are the things that kinda stick out to you? Maybe even

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Troy Bronsink: as ben was reading, or, as we hear each other talk, what words phrases stick out to you, and I'm gonna invite you first just to take a breath and catch up to this moment. So if you're if you're here right now, I can see the 3 of us.

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Troy Bronsink: But but maybe when you came in you saw the gallery first. Just kind of notice the room around, you

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Troy Bronsink: notice. Why, it was important for you to show up. Why did this feel like a significant place to put your

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Troy Bronsink: time and attention this hour

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Troy Bronsink: and we're really excited that you join us so thanks for being here. And David Brooks, Peter Block.

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Troy Bronsink: thank you for being a part of this time. And

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Troy Bronsink: we were gonna just jump right in. You guys know a little bit about hopefully. If you said yes to this invitation, you know a lot about each other. And then Peter and David know quite a bit about each other, and we're excited to kinda jump into that. So David, you're Brooke, that this coming out here how to know a person in the first part of it. You describe. This this notion of

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Troy Bronsink: personhood, and seeing the person the importance of seeing an individual. And I thought both of your work really spend some time on this.

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Troy Bronsink: the power of the exchange when you're present with someone. and I thought you might begin a little bit with

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Troy Bronsink: what seeing Peters work has done for you. And then,

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Troy Bronsink: what being seen feels like

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Troy Bronsink: those are 2 different kind of questions, right? A little bit of what it is to observe, but then what it is to be witnessed, because we're not just talking about the 2 of you all we're talking about this room and the world in which we're in, how that happens for all of us so a little bit about seeing if you will. Yeah, well, my main job is, I'm a political columnist. And I was noticing that a lot of problems I was writing about had an underlying problem, and it was about the tears in our society.

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David Brooks: The you know, we've all know about the rise of depression, the rise of suicide. The 54% of Americans say no one knows them well. The number of people without close personal friends has quadrupled this century. And so there's a relational crisis. And I just wanted to understand, what is this crisis? And how can we make it? A world in which people actually do feel seen. And so I was stumbling around looking for how to understand this problem.

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David Brooks: And I came across a very important book right here. And I came across Peter's work.

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David Brooks: And that really was the solution. And so one of the things I've tried to do with my coming book which is, have no person the art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen. I tried to say, Okay, we all know the importance of relationship and community.

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David Brooks: But how? What, specifically, does that mean? What specific social skills do you need in order to see another human being? And I walk people through the process from the first gaze

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David Brooks: to the intimate knowing of a spouse or a friend or somebody. You really know very well, I just walk people through the process, and I'll just start with the first step, which I think is important to me, and that first step in seeing another is the gaze. When you meet somebody for the very first time, they're unconsciously asking themselves a question.

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David Brooks: And these questions are, Am IA person to you? Am I priority to you, and the answers to those questions will be made in your eyes before they're made in your mouth. And so the model for me and I'll just close with this little story is, I was down in Waco, Texas, interviewing a educator named Larue Dorsey, this 93 year old lady, and she presented herself to me as a stern disciplinarian. She was a teacher, and she said, I love my children enough to discipline them, and I was a little intimidated by her.

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David Brooks: and we have a mutual friend in Waco, a guy named Jimmy Darell, who's a pastor who has a church called Church under the bridge, where he serves the homeless.

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David Brooks: He walks into the diner, sees us there, walks up to Missus Dorsey, and shakes her way harder than you should shake a 93 year old, and he says, Missus Dorsey, Missus Dorsey, you're the best. You're the best. I love you. I love you.

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David Brooks: and that turn Mrs. Dorsey from the stern disciplinarian into a bright eye shining. 9 year old girl, all of a sudden.

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David Brooks: and that was the power of Jimmy's gaze when you call when you cast attention on somebody, you are creating something in that person. And what's important about Jimmie's gaze, and what it has to teach us

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David Brooks: is that Jimmy's a pastor. As I said so when he's looking at a person, any person

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David Brooks: he he's looking into the into someone made in the image of God. He's looking a little into the, into the, into the face of God.

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David Brooks: He's looking at somebody with a soul of infinite value and dignity. He's looking at somebody so important that Jesus was willing to die for that person.

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David Brooks: Now you can be a Christian, or a Jew, or an atheist, or agnostic Muslim. I don't really care.

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David Brooks: But looking at somebody with that level of respect and reverence, is an absolute precondition for seeing others well, so that that would be my first step toward seeing another person.

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Troy Bronsink: Hmm! That's beautiful, Peter. How have you

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Troy Bronsink: met the gaze of others? And how's that affected you?

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Peter Block: Well, here, here we are together. you know, and it's interesting that

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Peter Block: I think

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Peter Block: what you're doing is making a concrete. By the way, you are, David. the way you show up. You know you're you're

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Peter Block: you're kind of you're you're a blessed anomaly. You said your basic job is a political columnist. I think that's just what you do.

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Peter Block: I don't think that's your basic job.

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Peter Block: And III see you being a weaving and a healing force

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Peter Block: and having a large platform to do that in, and met. Many people use that platform for other things like their ideology, their belief system. And I just so

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Peter Block: appreciate that fact that you're an advocate for our humanity and the books you write, and and even the way you fulfill your political column

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Peter Block: is always healing in its way.

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Peter Block: You know you, you and II so appreciate that. And the fact is, you have found a following in a listening

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Peter Block: for the gays you bring upon this nation. And and II just so

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Peter Block: appreciate that. And I wanted to say that to you. It's nice to say it to you kind of in person. I guess this is in person. And and what what does that all mean to you, David? What what are you up to?

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Peter Block: That's

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Peter Block: having you integrate these 2 worlds, the human, the healing, the gaze, seeing each other on the one hand, and then to be in the middle of the wound.

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Peter Block: On the other hand.

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Peter Block: how do you bring that together? And with

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Peter Block: what matters to you about what you're up to?

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David Brooks: Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. I feel seen because II do.

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David Brooks: I do. My job is political commentary a lot of the time. But that's not really what matters to me. What matters to me is the kind of thing we do together. We do. Which is talking about community talking about relationships. I just think our as a society, we're over politicized and under moralized.

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David Brooks: and we to spend too much time on politics and not enough things that really matter. Say that again slowly, so I can absorb it that we're over as a society. We're over politicized and under moralized. So we don't talk enough about how to ask for an offer, forgiveness

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David Brooks: how to build a friendship

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David Brooks: if you're going to break up with somebody, how do you break up with them without destroying their heart?

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David Brooks: These are a little more relaxed. And it seems to me we don't teach our kids these acts, and as a result, a lot of them are are leading less happy lives

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David Brooks: as we want than we want. And my project, you know I'm not an extraordinary person. But I am a grower, and I do grow

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David Brooks: a. And so I was really struck a couple of things by what Ben read to us the first was, of course, I was reminded of Ralph Ellison's Invisible man, the first passage of which really is the quintessential description of what it feels like to be invisible in his case because of his race, where he has a sentence in there that people don't see me. They see reflections themselves, they see my environment, they see their own projections, they don't see me.

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David Brooks: and that really is what society has done. And then the other thing then, you said was, Who do I need to become? And and that's really that's really the journey. I guess I'm on. I hope we're all on

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David Brooks: that. It it's like, what kind of person do I wanna be? And II try to be a grower, and I hope that by frankly being I started out pretty aloof and emotionally unexpressive.

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David Brooks: and hopefully by being more vulnerable. I'm a little closer to being a full human being.

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David Brooks: and I'm gonna name drop. This is impermissible. But I'm gonna do it because it's a proud moment for me. So I've been lucky enough twice in my life to be interviewed by Opro. and they were 4 years apart.

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David Brooks: and after the second interview Oprah, after the taping, she said to me, you know

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David Brooks: I've never seen anybody change so much. You were so blocked before.

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David Brooks: and that was like a proud, momentary cause, like, Okay, I'm trying to be open, and and she should know she's Oprah, like she's the expert. And so that was, that was, that's what we're trying to. How who do I need to be? Ben's question is the right one.

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Peter Block: That was your your bar, Mitzvah, your second, just to pick up on Ben. Then I think

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Peter Block: I love what you said.

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Peter Block: and I love the title troubling the water, and it's nice.

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Peter Block: And where, like mindedness is the opposite of our humanity, it's in the way of our humanity.

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Peter Block: and it's a good marketing strategy cause. Whenever I buy something, people say, Well, other other people like you have bought this, and they're right.

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Peter Block: But as far as being together, it's about welcoming the stranger. And I feel that David and your

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Peter Block: in the story line that runs throughout your writing and your in your work on public work.

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Peter Block: Is a welcoming of the stranger. There's a forgiveness in it which is the very different than the traditional journalistic story line.

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Peter Block: There's very few headlines in your employer's paper.

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Peter Block: and I have affection. I consulted with the New York Times for a few years trying to keep the family together. Okay, with Arthur and Michael and people like that. So I but th, that headline does not talk about forgiveness.

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Peter Block: It does not talk about humanity. Even the most positive headline hints that there's something wrong with us and keep reading to find out.

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Peter Block: And I just think, for you know that is, you are welcoming

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Peter Block: what Ben is talking about. We we need the stranger. We need the other to find out who I am, otherwise I'll never be surprised.

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Ben McBride: Well, you know one of the things that that really strikes me, too, just to say a quick word. You know what you're saying, David, around this notion of seeing. I do think it's super important, because we can't get to that shared humanity unless we find a way to lean into that practice of seeing, and, as you were saying, it took me back to some of the learning that I've been doing from South African culture and one of the indigenous languages. Zulu. Their greeting is actually bona, which means, I see you.

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Ben McBride: But then the response to see Kona, because you see me, I am now here which really unpacks what you're lifting up that people's story and lived. Experience doesn't actually enter the space until we do this

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Ben McBride: unknown

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Ben McBride: agreement with one another that I'm going to see you. And I'm gonna bring your experiences, even though they're very different from my own into the space. And we get to have that coexistence when we do that common work together.

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David Brooks: And I would I would that it's a profound thing that is in that language, because, seeing someone is, it is a creative act.

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David Brooks: I see you. I call you into being. I see potential in you. You see, potential in yourself. I see you you light up

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David Brooks: and so it's it's really something that brings forth life.

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David Brooks: And you know, social range is is the fun part. I mean, I I've learned even now I'm used to be a guy who puts these headphones in my ears on the train or on a plane, or wherever I was. Now I'm more likely to have a conversation.

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David Brooks: and it's way more fun. It's just way, more fun. And the people I meet are not always my cup of tea frankly.

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David Brooks: but I've learned to ask some questions, and and I've come to like I'll go to a party, and I'll think I'll leave the party, and I'll think how many people there asked me a question.

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David Brooks: And I've learned that, like, only about 30% of of people are question askers. They're perfectly nice people. The rest. They're just not curious about you. And one of the things I've learned from Peter, which II wanted to name was how great Peter, is it coming up with questions?

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David Brooks: And I put some of them in my book, some of my favorites there a lot what is the no, or refusal, you keep postponing.

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David Brooks: What if you said yes to that? You no longer really believe? In what forgiveness are you withholding? What gift do do you currently hold in exile? These are all great questions.

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David Brooks: and the quality of our conversations is going to depend on the quality of our questions

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Peter Block: and questioning somebody is a moral act, and I'll close with one little quick story.

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David Brooks: Oh, well, I'll continue. Nyobi way is a friend of mine who teaches eighth grade boys in New York, as well as being an Nyu professor.

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David Brooks: and she was teaching them how to ask questions. And so she says to the eighth grade, boys.

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David Brooks: Okay, you ask me anything, and I'll answer truthfully.

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David Brooks: And so the first question was, Are you married?

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David Brooks: And she said, no

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David Brooks: second question.

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David Brooks: are you divorced? Yes.

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David Brooks: Third question, do you still love him? She's like Whoa? And she said, Yes, and the fourth question, does he know? Fifth question to your show to your kids? No. And so kids are nominal and asking questions, they go right for it. As adults, we get a little shy and we pull back, but so that that skill of asking questions is yet another skill that we don't teach enough

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David Brooks: to each other. But it it is. It's another social skill.

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Peter Block: you know the

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Peter Block: the questions are powerful. Some questions are more powerful than others. and all the questions about what got you here are not very powerful.

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Peter Block: because we think that's who we are, and it explains nothing. Okay, it's just a good story which which you prove to Oprah

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Peter Block: cause. In 4 years you came back, and Oprah probably brought you back because she heard something that changed in you. And and so the questions like the ones you read, or ones that no matter how you answer, you're on the line.

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Peter Block: no matter how you answer, you're vulnerable. And so the questions that evoke true vulnerability in the moment

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Peter Block: is, what remind me

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David Brooks: that I'm not alone, and I think that's what you represent, David, when you're in a community asking these questions, does anybody ever say none of your damn business, or do they want to share? First, I break them into small groups.

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Peter Block: The group of 3 is a sacred circle. Cause 3 is inherently father's son. Holy Ghost. It's it's

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Peter Block: and I tell them I ask him the question, but I never monitor, and I never find out. Did they answer it?

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Peter Block: And if people say I didn't come for that, and I get that a lot specially middle aged white men. Okay, I didn't come for that, both you and I when we were still before we found our voice.

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Peter Block: and I said, I know you didn't come for that, and I want you to stay.

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Peter Block: And the fact that they are become the other, they become the stranger.

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Peter Block: Join a small group. I didn't come for that. Yes, and don't say anything. Just say I pass. And so even people who don't want to answer the question are always welcome.

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Peter Block: But then, in a small group people and the other, the other caution is, don't be helpful. So you're advocating a world where I give up my help

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Peter Block: in exchange for my curiosity, and give people 12 min in a small group

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Peter Block: who chose to show up for anything. Okay?

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Peter Block: And ask them. The question was to know you've been postponing, and they fall in love with each other. How long does it take to fall in love? About 12 min 14, if they're slow. What they discover is that they thought they were crazy and they're not.

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Peter Block: They thought they were alone, and they're not. And that's what your work, and then is. An affirmation, is there's nothing wrong with you.

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Peter Block: and that's with the gaze I love. The gaze is a painting about the gaze, and that artist in painting that had the feminine look upon us in a way that they'd never had before. And I think the gaze is

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Peter Block: is the point. And

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Peter Block: and then you can bring these questions anywhere. Cause the asking of the question is powerful, it doesn't matter how you answer.

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Troy Bronsink: So, Peter, the this, when you're introducing these questions, you you that 1 point you said

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Peter Block: it doesn't matter that you when you said. But I want you to be here. If you're willing to be here. That invitation, that vulnerable. you are welcome here, and you're only talking to people that showed up.

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Peter Block: Yeah. The fact they showed up is everything. Now, if they want to be a jerk into showing up. But they're in the room.

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Troy Bronsink: Yeah. So to say, I want that publicly in front of somebody, and to ask them put yourself into a vulnerable position instead of say you should stay, or I'm gonna leverage what I've got here. And it, it's a it's going into that vulnerable space.

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Troy Bronsink: What vulnerable questions

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Troy Bronsink: have opened y'all up

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Troy Bronsink: like they they would like. What kind of question is someone asked. That's moved you to a place of leaning in further to know them or

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Peter Block: to feel yourself in their presence. Yeah.

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David Brooks: yeah, I guess for me, I would say, it's the questions that force you to step back from the day to dayness of your life, and see your life from 30,000 feet.

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David Brooks: And so those are things like what cross roads are you at cause? Most of us are at a crossroads. Why, you we're not thinking about. And then somebody asks, I have a friend who was at a job interview, and he was the one being interviewed. But he turned around to the interviewer, and he said, What would you do if you weren't afraid?

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David Brooks: And she started crying because she wouldn't be doing Hr. At that company if she wasn't afraid. And and you know, II used to teach at Yale, and I would ask my kids. What would you do if you weren't afraid? And they would, some of them would say, wouldn't be Yale. It's not the right school for me, but I need the prestige.

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David Brooks: And so those questions like that. II you know I my wife, makes fun of me for this, but I once

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David Brooks: at a dinner the middle of a dinner party we were hosting, asked, How do your ancestors show up in your life?

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Troy Bronsink: Are you kidding me? We've all been influenced by our ancestors, and I kid you not this morning that coffee? There was a little bit of a joke with some friends about me stepping into. Do this, and at some point the question of ancestors came up, and I get to win a bet if I get to ask this, and you just walked right into it, David. So I'm gonna trust the moment right here. What? What does ancestors mean to you?

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Troy Bronsink: What does the ancestors mean to? Who are the people that show up in the presence as you're coming alive in the world that help you feel the swell of of this is my, this is my work to be in this moment.

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David Brooks: Yeah. Well, the most immediate is my my grandfather is my most immediate ancestor who really helped raise me.

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David Brooks: He was an immigrant. He gave me that immigrant mentality.

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David Brooks: and I'll tell an embarrassing story about myself at the end of his life. We're our family was not the kind who said, We love you. We don't. We don't say that at the end of his life, as he was dying.

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David Brooks: He said. He told me he loved me for the first time and I was too emotionally constipated to tell tell them I loved them back.

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David Brooks: and that that's a moment that lives in shame in my life. I yeah, I guess I can. Well, I'll say it's a Bernard Levy. II love you and Eric and and then to go a little more distant. You know I grew up in a Jewish home.

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David Brooks: and so there are some obvious things that come with from being Jewish. You were the people of the books, or pretty studious

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David Brooks: for us arguments as a form of prayer. And so we tend to argue with each other. And then the final thing is.

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David Brooks: thousands of years ago Jews were these obscure people in a distant part of the world.

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David Brooks: and they subscribe to a faith that said, the history of the world and the universe pins around you, and that covenant

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David Brooks: was audacious. It's an audacious claim. but it puts you under moral pressure to that. There's some responsibility to keep improving, to show up for the world.

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David Brooks: And so I think some of my restlessness comes out of that 2, 3,000 years ago. That history that's been, that is continued, and I'm a big believer. If you go around the world. You go around the country things that happened hundreds of years ago

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David Brooks: shape how people vote, how they dress, how they think, how they talk. We are products of history. And so that ancestor question is a precious one, too.

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Peter Block: Yeah, Peter, how would you answer that? Yeah. Well, in Africa they have these these wooden sculptures with nails in them.

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Peter Block: Alright. And

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Peter Block: I saw one I was going to buy it, but it scared me too much.

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Peter Block: and I said, what are those nails for? They said, well, that's our job is to absorb the wounds of our ancestors

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Peter Block: so they can rest in peace.

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Peter Block: and I have felt that my job

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Peter Block: in part was to heal the wounds of my father.

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Peter Block: who died too young and too distressed. and I take that on, and I and I my one of my questions of God is I, you know, one of the questions I love is, what's the question? If he had an answer to it. Set you free.

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Peter Block: and my question is of God. II feel I was given an invoice, and this is part of being Jewish I was. I was given an invoice and said, Okay, now that I've given you birth, you owe something.

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Peter Block: Yeah. I wanna ask God.

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Peter Block: have I paid my bill yet, and I kind of my head says, Well, maybe you have, because I'm you know. But then, what? The body doesn't think so and so so for moments like this

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Troy Bronsink: powerfully put the body doesn't, doesn't think so like the body is remembering the wounds both of our own childhood. And then, as that's carried through in the environment around us. And of course, through our families and ancestors.

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Troy Bronsink: I'm curious. We're gonna go to a small group to ask a question, and and I'm curious if y'all would help me shape the question. And it it sounds like it is the question that was, what is the question that has been yours to answer what has been the lingering question in your life that in a sense your ancestors couldn't answer.

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Peter Block: they answered it with their life. But how is it that we answered with our life? So help me shape that question, please, and that's your question, David. What would you be doing if you weren't afraid.

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Peter Block: Now see, to ask them to do that is to help them connect with each other. It's not to ask them, what do you think, with David and Peter and Toio saying.

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Peter Block: That's 2. That's that's more than 30,000. That's 140,000 out there. But to ask them, what would you be doing if you weren't afraid? Now, David, what question would you offer?

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David Brooks: Hmm.

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David Brooks: Well, we had talked earlier about a question. What question do you need answered to to set you free?

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David Brooks: And III thought, that's a pretty good question it asked you to think about. In what ways are we bound? Whether it's by fear, by convention, or whatever

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Peter Block: beautiful

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Troy Bronsink: beautiful. So that so we're gonna go into small groups for the next

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Troy Bronsink: 12 min here. And Darren, you wanna explain any of the tech with that?

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Darin Petersen: Enjoy your time. If you get lost in a virtual hallway. just log back into the same link that you came back in, and we'll get you back into your small group for those of you that are slightly frightened about the small group. This is time for you to use the bathroom.

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Troy Bronsink: No, it's not. Show up and be scared. Just keep. Be scared with each other. That's good.

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Troy Bronsink: beautiful! Thanks. We'll be back with David and Peter in a moment, and enjoy your groups. Here

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Joey Taylor: I am, the

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Joey Taylor: and then when I fade out. That's your cue to go, Troy. All right. I'm gonna spotlight you and and Greg.

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Joey Taylor: Alright. Here we go. Everybody else can be muted.

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Darin Petersen: Joey. 1 s here, play a song, and then it's in. Go to them.

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Troy Bronsink: Yeah, right?

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Darin Petersen: But when do I bring people back

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Joey Taylor: as soon as I press? Play right now. Okay, it'll give a 30 s when a warning to them. Okay, hopefully, there's a phone.

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Take you out. Yeah. Made the same again. baby back

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all you want to do, baby on the street. Political. your new

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da bad. It's gone. I'm tired to pull.

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Stretch me out like a rubber bed. My life with your hair.

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stress me out rubber wreck!

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15085245520: My!

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Troy Bronsink: Now you broke my heart.

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took all my dreams, tore them all apart. Honey. do you recall wavy

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your eyes. Days

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new.

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It's gonna take some time to get. Oh, yeah. it's all right.

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Oh, I'll get away, baby.

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Darin Petersen: Alrighty. Welcome back everyone. I hope that you enjoyed the conversation. We want that conversation to continue. You can continue into the chat. And so if you were in mid thought, and you're interrupted. Please continue that

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Darin Petersen: within the chat, and we'd like to be able to welcome Troy and Greg back, and then David and Peter Troy. It's all yours.

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Troy Bronsink: Great. Yeah, we're Greg plays here. Just think about how the

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Troy Bronsink: what struck you during our time to get during those 12 min you had together. Joey was playing that song about how we feel stretched. And there's a whole lot more to that. But just let yourself be recognize how you fell in love with the folks you were with.

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Troy Bronsink: So the question here you could put in the chat is like what struck me as I was listening to folks talk about the questions that would unlock them. So we'll listen to those. Read those together as great place here.

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Okay, no.

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Greg Jarrell: Oh.

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la, la.

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Greg Jarrell: la.

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Troy Bronsink: thanks, Greg.

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Troy Bronsink: as you guys are reading this, some of what I see here the the power of

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Troy Bronsink: being present, the way that that gives a sense that we're in something together. It like brings out a possibility that there's something that's happening together. There was that anticipation.

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Troy Bronsink: I wanna I want more. That's that leaning in. I want more. And the freedom to do that. David, in your in your book you talk about the politics of recognition, which I think, in a sense, is kind of the opposite of that. It's the closing down of

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Troy Bronsink: my connection to the other. By, you know, verifying my own point, those pieces. And and so I think the question I wanna ask is, how has connection?

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Troy Bronsink: Reversed that in you? How have you noticed in a connection where it's reversed, the sense of closing down.

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David Brooks: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, I was emotionally sort of stress shut in. And I've been on this journey to to open. And Peter and this community has certainly helped me on that journey, and I got to a point. Not only the Oprah reminded I had. I was at some conference, and the Moderator told us to look into the eyes of the stranger next to us and sing a song into their eyes. And if you had asked me, do that 5 years ago my head would have exploded. I just like hate that kind of instant intimacy.

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David Brooks: but I did it, and I survived it. Why do you think we hate it.

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Troy Bronsink: Hate that kind of innoc?

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David Brooks: Because fear of emotion, fear of intimacy, fear that somebody won't like you.

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David Brooks: Maybe emotion has hurt you. And so you you don't wanna show it.

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David Brooks: Maybe you're emotionally avoid. And in my business I think politics. I'm sitting here in Washington, DC, the most emotionally avoidance space on the face of the earth. And so, you know, empathy

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David Brooks: is 3 things it's first mirroring the emotions of the person in front of you. And to do that, you really have to be comfortable in your body because emotions are held in the body.

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David Brooks: and then it's mentalizing. It's using my own experience to try to understand your experience. If it's your first day in your job, I think that go. That was my first day on the job. and then third, it's a performance. It's care

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David Brooks: like Conmen are really good at understanding other people.

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David Brooks: but we don't call them empathetic cause they don't care. And so it's if I'm writing a thank you. Note for a gift you've given me. My first instinct is is to be me folks and say, Thank you for the gift. Here's how I'm gonna use it.

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David Brooks: But to me a more empathetic thing to do is to say, thank you for your intentions in selecting this gift for me.

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David Brooks: and so thank you for your mind set in trying to look into me, to see what would be a good gift for me. And it sort of gets you thinking about the other rather than about yourself, and I've had to learn that

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Troy Bronsink:  Peter how have you found?

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Troy Bronsink: care! Unlock you, or unlock the room when somebody moves from the

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Troy Bronsink: the the self perception of here's what I'm trying to get across for wanting to

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Troy Bronsink: learn or tell you to. I have some care, and I'm curious about you.

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Troy Bronsink: Have you seen that unlock the room?

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Peter Block: You know. I think

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Peter Block: it's possible to create a structure and a context

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Peter Block: to people are waiting to have the conversations we're talking about. David even closed cautious people, because that's not who they are. You know you're in rooms. Any questions? No, and as soon as a break is called, everybody's got something to say.

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Peter Block: and I think we there's a politics of the room.

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Peter Block: Or are you doing that? Even as as a political commentator.

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Peter Block: that to me you're you can create structures that allow people to do what they came to do, even though they never would have said that.

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Peter Block: So it's not so much just how did it happen to me. But how do we structure it for others? And that's what you do with your writing, David.

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Peter Block: and I feel in your in the way you choose to write your columns.

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Peter Block: you're reconstructing journalism.

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Peter Block: Okay, that's amazing. It well, welcome to being a Jew. You're reconstructing journalism. Okay, anything smaller. And I know I would not have paid my invoice.

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Peter Block: Okay, and and you do it by finding threads that we can all hold on to in the most difficult and polarized of situations. How do you stay on, distracted

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Peter Block: by the polarized world that you've chosen to put yourself into.

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Peter Block: So I so appreciate the fact that

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Peter Block: you're be. You're remembering what journalism can and should and might become. Yeah. Well, earlier you mentioned, I think, one of the problems with maybe my newspaper. But all of journalism is that we have a broken theory of social change, which is, we think, if we point out what's wrong, then we've done our job.

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Peter Block: Wait, wait, wait, wait, stop! Stop! Say that again. I'm I'm a slow learner. So if you say it twice, our theory of social changes, if we describe what's going wrong. We think we've done our job.

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David Brooks: We don't need to say the solution. We just say, here's the problem, and there you go. We're journalists, that's it.

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David Brooks: But and so I've tried to write about Peter to write about people I call weavers, who are just community builders who are building trust and community who have dedicated and taken responsibility for something in their neighborhood or for the homeless in their neighborhood, or for the kids in their neighborhood, and their stories are so inspiring and gripping, and often people have lived these tremendous traumatic lives that they've channeled into a gift.

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David Brooks: And yet I can't get my colleagues to write those stories very often and frankly. I can't often get the audience to listen, but I'll say one good thing about journalism. It forced me to be a questioner. I mean, our job is to ask strangers questions. That's what we do. The interview was what we do, and so in the book I try to

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David Brooks: could digest some of the things I've learned how to be a good question, but also how to be a good conversationalist.

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David Brooks: And so, for example, just a couple of them. Is be allowed listener

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David Brooks: when some I have a buddy when somebody's talking at him. Name Andy Crouch. He's like one of these congregants in a in a Pentecostal church. He's like, yes, Amen! Preach.

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David Brooks: and I just love talking to that guy. He's like a loud listener. Don't be a topper.

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David Brooks: If you tell me a story

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David Brooks: about your own kid, you're having trouble with your adolescent. Don't say oh, I know what you mean my own adolescent is also having problems.

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David Brooks: No stay in the other person. I'm not. Don't shift back to my problem. Let's stay with your problem.

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David Brooks: Another one I heard from a mediator was, Keep the gem statement in the center. So if you, if my brother and I are disagreeing about our dad's healthcare, there's one thing we generally agree on. We want what's best for a dad, and that's the gem statement.

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David Brooks: And if you keep the Jim statement in the center of a disagreement. You preserve the relationship.

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David Brooks: And so you know, we talk about about coming, you know, building connection relationship. But it's a skill. It's like carpentry or any other skill. You have to learn the craft of it. And there are these micro social skills that are involved in that

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Peter Block: that's beautiful. And and they're easy.

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Peter Block: That's what's tragic is just so blank, simple, and what I call the the gem at the center is the common good. So I just finished a book called Activating the Common Good. And I, my intention is to bring this relational wisdom

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Peter Block: into the domain of activism

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Peter Block: cause. Right now we associate activism as a journalistic venture. What's wrong? What's wrong? And we're waiting for those people to change.

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Peter Block: And they're not going to change. You know, the top, the leader at the top. And I

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Peter Block: that's why to me.

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Peter Block: the kind of the the mission I would I'm on with you is to take what they called human interest in journalism, and make it news

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Peter Block: and take the news and call human interest. And what Biden did yesterday put that in the middle of the paper in case you like, Joe

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Peter Block: put in the front of the paper. The weavers and the people, you know. that are reconstructing the way we live. And I just think

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Troy Bronsink: that's what you're that's what you're doing. And you found a way to do it and get away with it. So I'd like to invite you all to practice that right now. You know, in the same way that we went into groups of 12, those 12 min groups and folks were able to experience that I'd like it if you 2 of y'all would vulnerably would be willing to experience that. Not because we're particularly looking to lift up 2 more authors, and just keep talking about it from the idea level. But

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Troy Bronsink: even in this hour, when we first jumped on the call together, as folks have come in. There have been experiences that Peter and David that you've had, and ways that it has awakened to you both the your place in the world, but also like the gift that this other person is. And I wonder if you'd be willing to to do that right now to share the gift that the other has been for you

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Troy Bronsink: in this hour together, and then we're gonna ask folks to do that together as well. But

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Troy Bronsink: We maybe we start with with Peter. What is would you be willing to say to David the gift that he has been to you in this time. What the transformations that's unfolded for you is in this time.

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Peter Block: Wow! Hi, David, I

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Peter Block: I just am so touched by your humanity.

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Peter Block: and you've taken the.

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Peter Block: It's just that it

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Peter Block: it's it's it's in every breath.

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Peter Block: every example.

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Peter Block: even. You're bragging about Oprah. I forgive you. All of us. All of us want Oprah to know who we are. If you're seen by Oprah, it's pretty much all over. And and you the vulnerability. And you're laughing at yourself that way, just beautiful and just to factor here and smile on your face.

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Peter Block: What a gift! Thank you.

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David Brooks: You know I was just talking to Taylor Swift about you and II would say, Peter, for me. You've been wisdom and that, you know, we all talk about community. We all know there's an absence of community. But in your books and in your presence there were words to that. There's like a structure. There's a practice

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David Brooks: and understanding the practice. I'm just like sentences that you've written. Maybe years ago. Go through my mind from time to time, the one that leaps in that you change community by Ga. Gathering people in a room. Often people who used to be called the problem, and that community changes as the room you gather and changes and badly paraphrasing you, but

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David Brooks: so so many of these things I've inherited because I'm a bit of a bookish person I need.

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David Brooks: You know you name it, and you own it. If you can name something and show the concrete details, you can take a kind of mushy concept like community which is, could be sometimes in common parlance, it's just kind of mushy. You don't know what people are talking about

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David Brooks: and you've made it concrete by making it a practice and not just a concept.

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David Brooks: And so that that's just been so tremendously helpful. Your your books were Bibles for us as we were starting. We've and so that's that. It was just so helpful and so instrumental for us.

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Troy Bronsink: It's beautiful.

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Troy Bronsink: We're gonna turn this to the to the wider group now. And II would just add to what you both shared.

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Troy Bronsink: taking the time in this hour to to keep open like the the doors of your hearts have swung open, and then a question will come up. We'll move up to our head and explain that. And then one of you asks a question or or offers a little bit more, and it opens back to that place of

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Troy Bronsink: of allowing yourself to love and be loved. And

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Troy Bronsink: I know that's happened for others on this call, even though we've been zoomed in the 3 of us a lot. And so I wanna ask the rest of you on this call

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Troy Bronsink: how that, how the gift of someone else has opened the doors of your own heart. And so we're gonna do the same thing in the chat here, but in a particular way. Was there somebody in a room that you were with, and something they said, or a gesture they made

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Troy Bronsink: was there something about

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other experiences you had in this time, and particularly

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Troy Bronsink: thanking that person for the gift that they are. And

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Troy Bronsink: we're gonna just take maybe 2, 3 min here while Greg plays. What's the gift that you received in this time, and that please share that in the chat.

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Peter Block: you know, while they're doing that, David.

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Peter Block: your framing of the gem in the middle of the conversation. Well, one of those gems is talking about our gifts

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Peter Block: before the moment is over or before the life is over.

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Peter Block: You know II can't wait for my eulogy because I'm not gonna hear it. And and I, and I think that's part of what your you know. What you said is, I'm very grateful for, but

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Peter Block: the gift conversation is what's missing in journalism, and that's what you and I and others are. Gonna bring to it.

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Peter Block: instead of calling people by their needs.

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Peter Block: you know. Let's call them by their gifts, and

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Peter Block: it gets very practical. There's no such thing as a homeless person.

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Peter Block: That's not who they are. They just don't know where they're sleepin to night. And

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Peter Block: anyway. Thank you for that.

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Greg Jarrell: Hmm.

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Oh.

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Ben McBride: for centuries we've been told stories that some people in this world are less human than others.

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Ben McBride: These inherited stories are false and damaging, but they perpetuate the myths that we should exclude. Some people, take away their voices and opportunities and deny them belonging so that we can stay safe.

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Ben McBride: We've been conditioned to accept these stories, and we've chosen to adopt them as principles from our beliefs. But we have another choice. We can choose to believe we are radically interconnected, that we are deeply connected across difference, because we have the power within us to do so.

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Ben McBride: So let's start by redirecting our inclination towards self interest, to the notion of collective interests of all.

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Ben McBride: And we can do the work that's necessary to achieve this goal.

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Troy Bronsink: Thanks so much, Ben.

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Troy Bronsink: thank you both. David Brooks. Peter Block, thank you to everyone that helped with the production of this Joey and Darren and other folks. Wants you to mark your calendars for October 20 sixth, at 20'clock, where the next abundant community conversation will be with Parker, Palmer, and check things out at abundant community.com commongood, CC

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Troy Bronsink: designlearning.com faith mattersnetwork.org. and thank you for the ways that. you've been present and

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Troy Bronsink: showing up in this hour and the ways you've contributed.

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Peter Block: sometimes we like to just open up our mics now and say goodbye to folks and be able to chat so invite us to do that, and until next week until next time. Thanks so much.

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Jo Hall: II need that.

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Peter Block: Thank you. Thank you.

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You pick up and go.

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That's hide the show

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Troy Bronsink: you love to me.

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Show

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you

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Global Integrative Wellness Network: can't

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me cry

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each time you come you leave

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you. I can obey.

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It's

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saw

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cheryl barker: left everyone trying to console their aching hearts. seen by everyone. But yet you leave.