by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
The extreme cold, snow, and overall harsh conditions across the United States during the past two winters of 2014 and 2015 really bring out the adjective “polar” as we described conditions to each other. Indeed, polar described it well.
The image of lumbering polar bears at the North Pole and tottering penguins at the South Pole conveys an equal picture: It’s really cold in both locations. Over this past winter it felt as though that cold descended upon us from both directions like the twisted ends of a taffy wrapper holding in the glob of cold so it couldn’t escape.
With that thought fresh in mind, the other day I held a regularly scheduled department meeting where I work at Xavier University. As department chair I do a lot of the leading, but before the meeting begins I enjoy and encourage socializing among the faculty and staff. We’re actively building a learning community, after all.
It just so happened that a faculty member and a staff member started talking across the table about the continued interest in the NCAA basketball ruling that college players could unionize, since a recent news update is keeping the topic alive. The comments were at the extremes. One person thought that college athletes unionizing was more than justified, and the other thought it was horrible. And that’s the way it went, back and forth. Neither person budged from his/her position and actually grew emboldened the longer it went on.
The room eventually filled up with all 11 persons, yet no one chimed in to this exchange. It was soon time to start the meeting and so the debating ended.
Afterwards I reflected about that experience and the word “polarization” came to mind. The entrenched position offered over and over by each debater made it clear that this wasn’t a dialogue, it wasn’t a conversation, and it wasn’t listening. Instead, it was just sticking to an opinion. If polarization means taking an opposite side, then I saw that first-hand. If polar also means being cold and frozen, then I saw that as well.
It’s so easy to freeze-out the other person. That takes zero effort. Things only melt when they’re above zero. But think of a “heated argument.” Things get hot and the temperature rises, but does that bring a thaw in feelings and positions? How do you really bring the extreme hot and cold together into a middle ground? Instead of a middle ground there must be a common ground somewhere. Maybe we need to make more of an effort to find where that is?
[Sr. Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio.]