The Shamrock Gift Co. sells a line of fun gifts decorated with colorful sheep called Wacky Woolies. These whimsical sheep, found in every Irish gift shop on towels, keychains, mugs, umbrellas, shot glasses, aprons, coin purses, snow globes and wristwatches, seem nearly as numerous as actual sheep are in Ireland. Their eye-catching colors are supposedly inspired by the sheep I ran into — not literally, but almost — on a remote road in Connemara in County Galway. Those wandering sheep were marked on their hindquarters with splotches of what looked like paint, so that even at a distance it was easy to see which flock any particular sheep belonged to.
The ancient practice of marking sheep, which can’t be branded, on their wool with a brush dipped in tar may have given rise to the idiom “tarred with same brush,” meaning someone who shares the sins or faults of another by virtue of association.
An example of being tarred with the same brush came up last month in Concord while I was attending a series of hearings on bills dealing with abortion. It was the first time that I had encountered a group of women dressed in the unmistakable red cape and white bonnet reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel (and current TV series) about a class of women who have lost their civil rights and been turned into breeding stock. Women around the world have used this dress in abortion-rights protests, but it was the first time I had seen it in Representatives Hall in New Hampshire.
I immediately mentally grouped these women together, yes, but that was because they were all dressed alike, not because they were collectively guilty of some bad behavior. What was disturbing was the implication — if you are familiar with the novel or the TV series — that those on the other side of the issue, whether male or female, represented the antagonists in the story. Where is the place for civil discourse in an atmosphere like that?
More recently, a small local business was tarred with the same brush because one of its employees, who also happens to be a state legislator, sponsored a piece of controversial legislation — and opponents of the bill responded by urging a boycott of the business where the bill’s sponsor worked.
It is fine to support or oppose any proposed legislation, but the place to fight that battle is in the legislative arena. If you don’t like a bill, work to defeat the bill. Don’t attack a business.
That kind of respect works both ways. A business owner, especially a small-business owner, needs to tread carefully in this kind of charged atmosphere. It’s hard, if not impossible, for a business to take a strong political stand that represents the convictions of every one of its employees.
While all people have a right to express their opinion, it’s important to realize that many people do not appreciate nuance or boundaries. The general public sometimes connects dots and makes associations — tars with one brush, as it were — even when no connection or association was intended. No one appreciates being wrongly associated with anything, and it is especially difficult to undo misinformation in an era when misinformation spreads at the speed of light.
There is, nevertheless, still hope for civil discourse.
This fall, at one of our state universities, two freshmen invited fellow students to participate in an exercise. About 20 people attended. Each student was given a marker to show a political affiliation — red for Republican, white for Independent, and blue for Democrat. The exercise started by pairing each participant with someone with a different color marker. They were required to talk with each other for a specified period of time, with the caveat that they could talk only about themselves and not about politics at all. When that set time had passed, they were allowed to talk politics.
One of the organizers of the event said that many people came up to him afterward and remarked how surprised they were at how much they had in common with their partner and how much they enjoyed getting to know each other. Taking the time to go beyond first impressions and dig deeper made a big difference.
This is a life lesson that a lot of us with more years of experience than college students could stand to emulate.
Last week, the same committee that heard all the abortion bills held a hearing on a controversial bill to allow terminally ill patients to ask for a prescription to end their lives. The hearing was conducted civilly, even though those attending held radically different opinions on the subject. That atmosphere of civility was helped by the fact that there was no theater going on in the audience at the same time. Everyone has a story to tell. It is not going to be the same story from everyone, but everyone deserves the chance to make the case for their opinion without being written off beforehand.
In the long political season ahead, my hope is that we can promote reasonable, civil discourse by learning from some astute college students how to take the time to listen before we speak — and avoid tarring others with the same brush.
Margaret Drye lives in Plainfield.