President Joe Biden is likely communicating in a way not traditional for the president of the United States. However, President Biden is a good example of an understanding of communication in consciousness.
Biden has trouble with his words, doesn’t he? He can likely be compared to a blind person who uses his hearing more to find his way.
Both tone of voice and body language are aspects of communication that Biden is likely using to communicate. Those aspects are being ignored by much of America as we communicate on the internet. A person Biden’s age will likely have honed those skills more. He exhibited that presence during his State of the Union address on Feb. 7.
Perhaps you believe that bipartisan cooperation is not possible. In the 2019 to 2020 biennium of Congress, 812 of 854 bills passed with at least one Republican representative or senator voting yes. That means that 95 percent of the time legislation in Joe Biden’s presidency was bipartisan. Perhaps you still believe that bipartisan cooperation is impossible. Read on.
The House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress was established by House Resolution Six on Jan. 4, 2019. The committee was tasked to study, investigate, make findings and hold public hearings while developing recommendations to make Congress more efficient, effective and transparent.
Over the course of four years, it managed to adopt more than 200 bipartisan proposals. How did that happen? The short answer is that the panel’s members created an alternative culture of equality and cooperation much like the past use of “regular order” in Congress. The committee had equal numbers, six Democrats and six Republicans, who needed a supermajority to pass the 212 proposals. Everyone had to participate, didn’t they? Almost everyone had to agree on the proposals, didn’t they?
Socrates began to create a better understanding of communication long ago, didn’t he? There was no internet at the time. The citizens of Athens met in person mostly. Socrates is not known to have written anything down, is he? He is, however, the creator of the dialectic which encouraged love in communication, didn’t it?
What is love in communication? Everyone is encouraged to begin each dialogue with a tabula rasa, a blank slate.
Following that, everyone involved is requested to demonstrate that the information to be explored has the same meaning to each participant. They had to know that each person was understanding the same thing to be discussed, didn’t they? That discussion generally led to a resolution of the issue. All of Socrates’ work was successfully completed in the presence of others who could share both vocal tone as well as body language, couldn’t they?
You see, even though he is 80 years old, President Biden is still adept at negotiations. Even though Socrates began his dialectic nearly 2,500 years ago, love in communications continues to be the most effective way of resolving issues, doesn’t it?
Joe Biden reminded the Republican Party that he wants to work in a bipartisan manner to successfully continue to guide the nation toward bipartisan resolutions to the nation’s issues. Our nation should never be about conservative, liberal, Democratic, Republican, right wing, left wing or any other singular point of view.
Democracy requires cooperation and compromise, doesn’t it? Isn’t 812 of 854 bills passed with at least one Republican representative or senator voting yes a success? Isn’t bipartisan success 95 percent of the time something to be lauded? Isn’t that what a successful democracy is designed to do?
A democracy, in order to thrive, resolves issues cooperatively in a bipartisan manner, doesn’t it? Resolutions can never be about individual or partisan points of view, can they? Communication is therefore always about finding a common point of view which represents more individuals than not. The USA’s union will remain viable only through cooperation. Long live America’s love in governance.
The opinions expressed above belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of the Boulder City Review. They have been edited solely for grammar, spelling and style, and have not been checked for accuracy of the viewpoints.
Eric Lundgaard is president of the Aquarian Theosophy Foundation and a former mayor and councilman of Boulder City.