Transpartisan Inquiry

Credit: Petr Vaclavek – Adobe Stock

Partisans are parts of the political puzzle, offering partial insights and solutions. The parts are valuable but must interact creatively to address and benefit the whole. So help partisans become transpartisans, maintaining their ideological center of gravity while engaging in civil, productive interactions with the Other for personal and social well-being.

Related: 25 Feeling Heard, 28 Generating Shared Orientation, 29 Generative Interactions, 31 Healthy Polarity Dynamics, 32 Integrity and Authenticity, 35 Metabolize Polarization, 57 Story Sharing

Going deeper …

This is an edited version of the video on this page.

This comes out of my knowledge of American politics and to a certain extent the politics of European and other countries. In many places there are two major parties which tend to be identified with the Left and the Right. In a polarized system that tends to be a really good way to frame it. Most of the Left and Right parties have big grains of truth in what they are trying to say. But they are framed in ways that allow them to battle over who gets the power.

But I am coming from a collective intelligence/collective wisdom perspective, rather than a power perspective, and looking at the fact that these sides both have a vital part of the truth, if we can get them to not fight together, but to work together, to include the valuable parts of their insights into what gets to be actually done, things that actually make sense rather than wheeling and dealing behind the scenes which doesn’t actually have to do with substantive issues at hand, or negotiation, where people are trying to get the better of each other.

I’m looking for actual creative insights, creative interactions, where people are trying to address the whole: “What is the best solution for everyone in this situation, and what perspectives or resources do I have to help bring that about?”

In the United States there is a transpartisan movement. I don’t know to what extent it has expanded to other countries. It’s still useful as a concept. It’s not that they are trying to become the same kind of holistic thinkers, so much as coming from a position of “This is who I am, I am a Republican or a Democrat (in the United States),” or “I am liberal or conservative,” or “I am a Green,” or “I am a Libertarian,” whatever it is. “And although I am that, I really want to get where you’re coming from. You are so different from me, and I want you to get where I am coming from, and for us to look at that and deconstruct it a bit, and see what we each have to offer, and to try and learn from each other and be creative without ever giving up what we feel.”

This is very different from, “I want to change myself to shake off the partisan of frame of reference totally from my world, and become somebody who is simply seeking the common ground, the thing that will most commonly benefit everybody.” But it’s a very useful stance, and having whoever is partisan maintain this attitude, allows for people to actually work together across major divides and there’s ways to support that.