Axar.az presents an article, “An Answer For Anne” by John Samuel Tieman.

Phoebe and I spent two weeks and change in Spain and Portugal. I was the tourist. My wife attended the biannual conference of the International Psychoanalytic Association. After the conference, on our next-to-last night in Lisbon, we attended a party. Lots of talk about Freud and Bion and Lacan, and the world of psychoanalysis.

I talked to Anne, an American psychoanalyst who's spent four or five decades now in Paris. At one point, she said that she wanted to talk politics, but felt somewhat inhibited. I told her that, humble as my small office is in my City Council, I am an elected American politician. I talk politics all the time. Several others joined us. We spoke of, among other topics, how the spread of authoritarianism seems inexorable. Then, perhaps an hour before the party broke up, Anne asked me something that has stuck with me. I've asked a hundred times, 'When we talk of politics, when did we stop talking about love?' Anne helped me figure that out. Because Anne asked, simply, “What gives you hope?”

The day after I got home, I attended a meeting of our Storm Water Commission here in University City, an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. In addition to the scientists and engineers who comprise the commission, about ten or so other citizens and civil servants were present. The discussion was well-informed and at times erudite. So what gives me hope? These people give me hope. These citizens, my neighbors, who gather to analyze and solve a problem, give me hope.

A quick disclaimer. I'm not naive. I'm not grateful for all my neighbors. A few are fascists. Others can be disruptive for no real end. There are even those who are contemptuous of their neighbors. Such folks, however, are by far the exceptions. Nonetheless, it's painful and makes me sad. So what gives me hope?

I can’t remember when I didn’t know the Sabols. My mother grew up across the street from Allen Sabol. Mr. Sabol was an aerial gunner during World War II. He fought the Nazis and was a prisoner of war. A real war hero. After the war, he served on our city council and volunteered for more civic activities than I can list. He was a devout Orthodox Jew. He helped establish a small synagogue just across from a park here. He was a friend and a neighbor. Phoebe and I are still friends with Allen's daughter, Laurie. He passed in 2014 at age 92. “What gives you hope?” Allen Sabol gives me hope. My community thrives because of neighbors like him.

Next to Anne sat Antonio. I said to Antonio, a Portuguese – really, I bragged to Antonio – that my country put a man on the moon, built the interstate highway system. He said I was “arrogant”. I've thought about what Antonio said. He's right. The moon landing, the highways, these are just things. Things don't give hope. People give hope. Allen Sabol gives me hope. My neighbors at the commission meeting gave me hope. Why? Because these folks are democracy, and what they do, that's the republic.

So, Anne, what gives me hope? No tyrant can remove the fact that folks must ultimately live side-by-side. Intimacy gives me hope. A city council, a commission, I find hope in this most intimate level of the democratic republic. At the international, national, and state levels, the movement toward authoritarianism seems inexorable. But at this, the most intimate level of the republic, democracy will prevail so long as we are guided by the ways of love that are embedded in civic dialogue. There will be disagreement, anger, and aggression. These can be useful when done respectfully. The habit of dialogue is the habit of love, and democracy is a political expression of love. As long as neighbors approach their mutual needs with dialogue, with love, then tyranny will always lose. Think of that. Tyranny, which is contempt, will always lose. Dialogue, which is love, will always win.