How passions over the things that divide us can be reconciled

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In a desperate attempt to escape what seems to be our pretty dark shared reality, I went to see “Gladiator II.” The escape worked for a couple of hours. Then, just as the final credits were rolling, I snapped back to real life and had an insight that may help shed some light on the completely uncharted path we seem to be on.

Minor spoiler alert: Right before those final credits, the movie ends on the outskirts of ancient Rome with a fierce battle between warring sides. One side wins, but no one escapes massive carnage.

As the lights in the theater came up, I wondered: “What happens now?” How do the survivors step over the carnage, go back into Rome and somehow work together to fix a city left in disarray?

The parts about “two sides” and “massive carnage” sounded, at least metaphorically, eerily like the divisive battles we have lived through this year, in this country and so much of the rest of the world.

A few days later I was talking to a wise person who made a disarmingly simple and completely relevant point: “If you can’t find common ground, start with shared ground.” The warring armies outside Rome may not find the same purpose just yet, but they can start by trying to coexist.

Maybe that says in post-election America we should just suck it up and try to get along. That made some sense, at least for a few minutes, until I remembered that the issues dividing us are so deep, and now so cultural, it’s almost impossible to see where we would compromise.

I, for one, will fight like hell to keep women from losing basic rights, immigrants from being separated from their children, the guardrails of democracy and justice from being torn down. I won’t stand by while the clock is turned back on the fight to protect our climate or the long-delayed racial reckoning.

And I’m pretty sure those who disagree with me on all that are equally unwilling to bend. The passions and divides are so entrenched it seems unlikely we’ll just compromise on everything to create a mushy middle that can satisfy everyone — or even anyone.

Where does that leave us? Shared ground can be about temporary, short-term survival but probably only buys us a little time. Will common ground ever be possible with the passion behind some of the issues we face?

I believe it is, and in fact those passionate beliefs could actually be our salvation. Increasingly we see early glimmers of unlikely coalitions that don’t break along the typical right-left continuum, especially on complex challenges like schools, public safety, climate and more. Even issues that have traditionally been highly polarizing — abortion, gun safety — are now creating coalitions of very strange bedfellows.

They didn’t come together by muting their passion but, instead, by passionately coming to the same conclusion through totally different perspectives.

An example to watch: Few groups seem farther apart right now than corporate leaders and social justice activists. Can they find common ground fighting mass deportation? One “side” finds it morally wrong; the other sees it as devastating for businesses dependent on immigrant workers. Different lens, same conclusion.

If we find a way to align with someone from the “other side,” if only temporarily on one specific issue, we begin to see each other as more than just the enemy.

Yeats wrote that “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” And when the center cannot hold maybe it’s time to re-center.

If this can happen, if we can at least begin to break out of the rigid camps we find ourselves in today, it’s 100% clear that the last place you will feel these political plate tectonics shift is in a hopelessly polarized Washington. That may be fine, because true realignment almost always begins closest to community. That may be especially true if the new “states’ rights” administration shifts more power locally; it’s a lot easier to make change in one state than in 50, and having 50 different approaches to the same challenge creates opportunities for even more nuanced re-sorting.

We Minnesotans know this from watching lakes thaw in the spring. Melting doesn’t start in the middle of the lake; it creeps in from the shore, slowly opening up cracks that move out into the newly opened water until, finally, the center cannot hold.

I have no interest in seeing another “Gladiator” sequel. We know how it ended for Rome: not well.

We have other choices.

We can go back into our own Rome and keep throwing each other to the lions. Or, instead, each of us can find one thing that matters to us. With passion, we can then find someone else usually on the “other side” whose own passion leads them to the same conclusion through a different lens.

Even if that happens in the smallest of ways on the smallest of issues, it’s one step past shared ground to the true common ground we so badly need.

R.T. Rybak is CEO/president of the Minneapolis Foundation and a former mayor of Minneapolis.