I was talking to a student in my writing workshop Saturday, and she was deeply upset, as she has been for awhile,  and concerned about the politics of polarization gripping the country.

I said I had an idea, I was going to write a series of articles on the blog saying I thought everything President Trump and his movement is doing is right, and is good for the country. I wanted to stand in his shoes and see the world from his point of view and that of his supporters.

She was shocked, she said she couldn’t believe I would even think of doing that. And then, she smiled and said, “oh, I get it. You just want to write about it, you want to shake people up.”

Maybe she’s right, but I hope she gives me more credit than that.

I’ve been living with animals for some time now, and I learn something from them almost every day.

I have noticed over the years that animals are never polarized, they live in harmony except when it comes to food and survival, the herds and flocks and families of animals do not live in disagreement, they might have to harm other animals to survive, but they are never polarized, they never act out of differing ideologies or opinions.

They never make moral judgments about one another. And in so doing, they seem more and more to be more moral than people to me.

I told my student I wasn’t trying to shock or be controversial, but sometimes, when I can’t bear to watch the news, or listen to another person tell me how much they hate the left or the right, or list outrage after grievance, I think about an old Quaker practice for dealing with conflict: assume that everyone is right.

It is as shocking an idea to people in our time as it is impractical and impossible in our fractured society. But it is good for the soul, it is a powerful spiritual exercise, it calms the spirit and teaches empathy and compassion.

And who knows? Perhaps it could spread like a meme or virus across social media.

In the larger sense, of course, idea is true. Everyone thinks they are right. And from their own point of view, they are right. I’m not God, I can say what I believe, but I can’t say who is right and who is wrong.

In our country one  half of the people are continuously telling the other half that they are wrong, everyone seems to have their own truth and their own facts and their own sense of right or wrong.

We have lost a common sense of good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral, just and  unjust. We no longer even make a pretense of listening to one another, or caring what people on the other side want or think. I have plenty of strong opinions, but I don’t want to be like that.

So I think the exercise for me will not be writing about President Trump or his followers – that is not my terrain – but paying some attention to the news and assuming everyone who disagrees with me is right, rather than assuming everyone who disagrees with me is wrong.

I want to think through what they are saying and why they are saying it. I want to have an ability to stand in other people’s truth and look for the light in it.

Everyone on the left, everyone on the right. Each person is telling their own truth, each person has a right to be believed and taken seriously, I want to see if I can broaden my view of right and wrong and  better understand what is tearing so much of the country apart.

In the center of moral consideration of human conduct, wrote the moral philosopher Hannah Arendt, stands the self. “If we strip moral imperatives of their religious (or political) origins,” she wrote, “we are left with the Socratic proposition. “it is better to suffer wrong than do wrong.”

It is better for me to be ad odds with the whole world than, being one person, be at odds with myself. Though shall never contradict thyself, wrote the philosopher Emmanuel Kant.

Where all are guilty, nobody is. Where all are innocent, everybody is.

The bad blood pouring through our world is contagious and disturbing, all good people are wearying from it, are worn down by it. I can only ground and focus myself, nobody else.  I will continue working to do that.

I don’t tell anyone else what to do, and I work as hard as I can not to judge people who see the world differently than me.  I also am surprised to find myself good at doing good. That has helped me keep a sense of self.

In my own life, I will continue to do good rather than argue about it, and work with refugees and immigrants, the Mansion residents, and my new and surprising passion, a community radio station in trouble.

I think it corrodes the soul to hate much of the time, and argue and seethe all of the time. I will do my duty and vote for people who share my values, and even work privately for some.

I don’t think anyone would be shocked by how I vote but I don’t have a need to share it on Facebook either or tell the world about it. It seems a private thing to me.

I am drawn to the spiritual exercise of assuming people are right rather than wrong. And pursuing the wisdom of animals and in my heart, by letting other people live as they choose to live without judgment from me.

I just want to try it.