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Health & Fitness

My Back-Story: How, Why "Language" and "Words that Work" First Came to My Attention

Language should be used to co-create an inclusive world rather than the divisive , exclusionary world advocated by fear-mongering Tea Party in Republican pollsters/pundits.

My 13-year-old daughter and I were talking about school work last night. She has me re-reading "Frankenstein", "Wuthering Heights" and other of the Romantics.

I laughed silently when she used the phrase "back story" to refer to the unknown part of someone's life story that may serve as a relevant guide to their work (: in her case, we were talking about the scandalous and sad lives of Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe and Lord Byron).

I offer this piece to add to my own back-story and the issue of language. I am fighting against the use of words that work to fractionalize America. As Thomas Friedmans and Michale Mandelbaum point out in their very timely book, "That Used to be US," the United States has become paralyzed and is, and has, declined slowly — almost imperceptibly. We must stop that slide.

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Since I hope to add value with these pieces, I thought it might serve a purpose to share a piece I wrote for agribusiness a few years ago to help with the "public debate" (or, if you prefer. the screaming match) over the topic of food. (yes, I was blessed to be able to act as a consultant to most of the large agribusiness seed, chemical, and equipment companies for two decades: not always on what now would be considered the "politically correct" side of the argument either). This is what I wrote for my peers and clients in agribusiness.

I believe this is the same struggle we face today as the Tea Party and other factions of a very divisive Republican party manipulate opinions with "words that work." Here is that piece. I hope you can by analogue follow the me "on the way to..."

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Like many of us, I am deeply bothered by the current public debate about food, food production and safety. The traditional, and newer "social" medias have taken this very, very complex issue and lumped together factoids about "feeding the world," "clean air," "global warming," "genetically modified crops," and the very sustainability of our planet. Doing so only made things worse and certainly more confusing for most listeners. A great deal of positioning; a good deal of shouting; not much listening and working together going on there, so far, in this public debate.

Agribusiness cannot allow itself to be dragged into a public brawl such as the one we've recently watched — and still are watching — about Health Care Reform and The Public Option. These issues surrounding agribusiness and farmers, are among the most important topics of today because we all are involved in food and clothing and environmental issues. Yet, journalists such as Michael Pollan, Paul Roberts and notable world citizens, such as Vandana Shiva, are inciting their audiences and special interest groups, mostly through fear and "adjustment" of the facts.

In contrast to these divisive voices, Peter Senge, of Fifth Discipline fame, offers a much more tempered approach, deeper and more thoughtful and quite a bit more challenging to each of us in his newest book, "The Necessary Revolution."

Crafting a sustainable solution can, and will, not result from singularly slanted, or otherwise distorted preaching. These interrelated problems can only be corrected through a creative learning process. Rather than creating an atmosphere in which a true long-lasting solution can be crafted, these activists see only one way: their own. Instead we need to work together. Education and communications will play a huge role in shaping the outcome for many of us. It will take hard work.

We lose all chance to shape the future, however, if we allow those outside agribusiness to shape the public debate or if we yell and/or complain about what they are doing. We need to listen. We need to practice what Stephen Covey suggests: "seek first to understand, then to be understood." We also need to build a dictionary that guides this conversation and mutual learning. All of us need to shape the language and use words that unconceal, together with living, active metaphors that reach across the gap between sides, pulling them into our conversation.

Keep this truism on a Post-It: "...those who define the debate will determine the outcome" Frank Luntz, What Americans really want ... really). It's time to re-tell, or to tell anew, the story of farming, of how the world is fed and clothed, and what it will require when there are 9 billion people on earth. It is time for us to educate the rest of the world about farming, agriculture, tillage practices, land and water conservation, seeds and chemicals. If we shape the conversation, without rancor and with a complete and easy-to-comprehend story, which helps reveal the truth in its complexity, everyone will come out ahead. Then we can move ahead proud of our stewardship and assured of a sustainable future.

But remember, "It's not what you say; it's what they hear" that matters. If agribusiness addresses these same sometimes-difficult-and-admittedly-complex subjects through education and communication — the ones the extremists have distortedly made visible — so that our fellow citizens of the planet can help better understand the reality, the rancorous, drama can subside; constructive conversation, dialogue and trust can be built; and, we can craft a sustainable future together. That future will renew the social contract. Then we can walk our talk proudly. Old consultant adage, however: easy to say, harder to accomplish.

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