PeterArgus

Thank you!

btw, it struck me that something I learned while writing my second book may apply to the Red Bush/Blue Bush struggle we are in.

Back in the 1980s I wrote a book on long, happy marriages.

I interviewed close to one hundred such couples at length.

Some of them were having a hard time. One in particular, I remember, a working class couple in Northern California, was struggling with job loss, the husband’s clinical depression, and the conflict between the two of him these losses had caused.

But they still characterized themselves as happily married, and their marriage as strong, and it sure looked that way to me.

As I listened to them, what leapt out at me was the fact that both the husband and the wife could tell me exactly what the other person was unhappy about in exactly the same terms the other was going to use when it was his turn to talk.

These couples were in conflict, but they were united in their understanding of each other, and of their situation.

I think it’s fair to say they had a “shared narrative.”

I saw that over and over again; I think I saw it in every self-identified happy couple who was not currently very happy at all.

I think it’s possible my husband and I have “crossed over” into that state. (I hope so.)

We disagree, and we’ll continue to disagree for the foreseeable future. He will vote for John Kerry, I will vote for George Bush.

But we now understand each other’s positions (again, I hope so); we know the fears that haunt the other. At least, we’ve made a start.

We do have a shared narrative, now, certainly about Kerry (stunningly incompetent campaign) and also about the role of the Vietnam War in this campaign.

We also agree that George Bush is a 4-star smirk-face. (That was the wife’s complaint Saturday night, btw.)

In these threads I’ve been pressing the case that our country, or at least a good 50 to 60% of our country, needs to “reach consensus” on Vietnam.

Roger and various commenters see this as a pipe dream, and I’ve been inclined to agree.

But it occurs to me that it may be possible to reach a preliminary consensus on Vietnam without reaching a shared agreement on every last detail, or even on all of the issues Vietnam involves.

My husband is now, suddenly, expressing to me many thoughts on terror, on the WOT, on subjects as specific as why we have not had suicide bombers here in America.

I had no idea he’d given these subjects so much thought, and I find myself enlightened and persuaded by what he has to say.

We part ways mainly on the goal of transforming the Middle East.

He thinks George Bush’s transformation policy is horrifically dangerous.

I don’t know what I think about how dangerous it is (he could be right); I believe, with Bush, that the status quo has become untenable, and that liberal democracy is safer than dictatorship and not impossible for Arab countries. So I’m willing to take the risk.

That’s good enough. We’re “on the same page” about the danger we face; we disagree only on the question of what to do about it, and since I have no idea whether George Bush’s policy will work, I don’t need to fight about that.

I think there must be some such partial consensus possible on the subject of Vietnam, too, at least for the 50-to-60% of people we need to establish a consensus.

I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s possible.