There’s something quietly radical about two people sitting down to talk.
Not debate. Not posture. Just talk.
That’s what I see in Talking It Over by Enoch Wood Perry, two men resting from their labor in a barn lit by warm afternoon light. One sits on a wooden chair, corn husk in hand. The other leans forward on a barrel, his posture marked by attention. There’s a horse in the shadows watching, half-spiritual, half-literal. The floor is strewn with husks, what’s left behind when the real work is done. Or maybe, when the next kind of work begins.
There’s no conflict visible, no climax, no drama. Just the deep discipline of conversation. The art of giving someone else your time.
And I wonder, lately, whether we’ve forgotten how to do even that.
At lunch today, I found myself in a familiar conversation, the kind that starts earnestly and ends with the same resignation I’ve heard too often. “Both sides are bad.” “All politicians are corrupt.” “Nothing ever really changes.”
It’s the kind of rhetoric that wears the costume of insight, but underneath is just exhaustion. And I get it. People are tired. The news is relentless. The systems feel broken. But there’s a difference between being tired and giving up. Between being critical and being dismissive.
The line that keeps ringing in my ears is this: “Both sides are bad.” It’s said so casually now, as if that alone explains the world. But it doesn’t explain anything. It shuts explanation down.
As Rebecca Solnit writes, “Despair is a luxury. People in positions of privilege can afford to despair because they won’t be as immediately affected by the consequences.”
This kind of blanket cynicism is seductive because it asks nothing of us. It allows us to throw our hands up, absolved of responsibility. But democracy doesn't die from disagreement. It dies from disengagement.
And that’s really what I’ve been feeling lately; not anger at people who disagree with me, but a deeper frustration with those who’ve stopped trying to understand at all. Who meet every political topic with a kind of performative eye-roll and say, “It’s all bad.”
To me, that’s not wisdom. That’s civic laziness.
And I don’t mean people are lazy in their lives. Most are working harder than ever. I mean lazy in thought. Lazy in curiosity. Lazy in the practice of citizenship that demands attention, study, effort.
James Baldwin once said, “Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” But I think ignorance, allied with indifference, may be just as dangerous.
We live in a time where political apathy masquerades as neutrality, and where cynicism is rewarded more than hope. And yet, the stakes remain unbearably real; for immigrants, for workers, for LGBTQ+ youth, for the planet itself. To shrug in the face of all that and say “both sides are bad” is not neutrality. It is a retreat from the moral imagination.
And that’s why I return to Perry’s Talking It Out. Because it offers a different image; not of disengagement, but of disciplined presence.
There’s something holy about the setting: the amber light, the rhythm of the composition, the shared focus of the figures. This is not just a barn. It is a democratic space. A place where thought is slow and serious. Where two people come not to win, but to understand. Where talking is work, just as meaningful as the husking done before it.
Wendell Berry, who has written so eloquently about rural life and citizenship, once said: “The care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.” That’s true of the earth and it’s also true of democracy. You have to cherish what remains. You have to do the slow work of renewal.
The men in Perry’s barn remind me of that. They aren’t tired because they’ve given up. They’re tired because they’re still here. Still thinking. Still talking. Still doing the work.
I think sometimes we confuse political awareness with having the right opinions. But opinion is cheap. Everyone has one. What’s rare now is listening. Real listening. The kind that risks being changed.
bell hooks called this “engaged pedagogy,” the practice of learning that transforms not just what we know, but who we are. And isn’t that what real citizenship should be? Not just voting once a year or griping about politicians, but actually living in relationship with ideas, histories, and people who challenge us?
We don’t need more people performing outrage. We need more people who are willing to sit in the barn and talk. Who are willing to ask questions. To study policy. To trace causes. To stay curious.
And I don’t mean people have to be experts. I mean they have to care enough to try.
When people say “both sides are bad,” what they often mean is “I don’t trust anyone.” And that’s valid. Trust has been broken. But you don’t rebuild trust by retreating into silence. You rebuild it by doing what these men are doing: leaning forward. Staying engaged. Giving time to thought.
Because when we stop talking, we don’t become free thinkers; we become passive observers. The shouting continues, the injustice continues, and we convince ourselves it’s all beyond us.
But the truth is: politics doesn’t only happen on Capitol Hill. It happens here. In classrooms. In cafés. In barns. In the quiet conversations we choose to stay in, even when we’re tired.
What I want to say, more than anything, is this: Don’t give up.
Don’t hide behind the phrase “both sides are bad.” Don’t let cynicism be your excuse. Don’t make a virtue out of checking out.
Because when you say everything is corrupt and no one is worth believing in, you’re not indicting the system, you’re absolving yourself of the responsibility to fix it.
And someone will still govern. Someone will still make laws. Someone will still shape the world we live in. The only question is whether we’re part of that conversation or just the husks on the floor getting trampled.