Free to Learn

Dinner Table Dynamics: "Sour Grapes"

November 23, 2021 Santa Fe College Season 1 Episode 6
Free to Learn
Dinner Table Dynamics: "Sour Grapes"
Show Notes Transcript

As we conclude the series Dinner Table Dynamics we hope that you have found useful and relatable conversations you can carry home with you for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and beyond. For our final episode, two Santa Fe College Ethics Bowl participants, husband and wife team, Paola and Brian talk about playful rivalries turned sour in Sour Grapes. The duo discuss labeling and mirroring tactics to bridge the divide between opposing views. How and why we identify with groups or "tribes" and how does that association relate to others that have differing loyalties? 

Sound clip:  Paola Sullivan from 08:49 to 09:08

The Center for Applied Ethics & Humanities at Santa Fe College (SF) promotes the values of honesty, integrity, and civility, as well as individual, social, and global responsibility. It fosters appreciation for ethical reasoning and encourages and supports active engagement with ethics and humanities in our communities – in thought and action, (((In Word And Deed))). This podcast, a product of the center, features SF faculty, students and alumni engaging in dialogue around critical ethical issues. The first season, "Dinner Table Dynamics," features current and former members of SF’s nationally ranked Ethics Bowl team and fellows in the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership. They encourage listeners to practice civil discourse as they head home for the holidays, and into extended family discussions. Learn more at sfcollege.edu/ethics. Share your thoughts (and actions) with @santafecollege using #InWordAndDeed.

Ann Thebaut  0:03   

Hello and welcome to In Word and Deed, a podcast produced by the Center for Applied Ethics and Humanities at Santa Fe College. I'm Ann Thebaut Professor of Philosophy here at SF and in a moment, you'll hear from some of my students who have participated in Ethics Bowl over the years and a few who are fellows in the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership, which is committed to reducing polarization by teaching students to connect across political differences. This desire to connect is increasingly on our minds as we think about being around family over the holidays, and the prospect of sitting down to have discussions with people we don't always agree with.  Today, husband and wife team Paola and Brian talk about playful rivalries turned sour in our last episode. Sour grapes. 

  

Brian Sullivan 0:54   

Alright, welcome to the sixth episode of this podcast. My name is Brian Sullivan, and I'm joined by my lovely wife, Paola Sullivan. And if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself.  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan  1:04   

Thank you. So, I am a non-traditional older student. I spent a year at Santa Fe College, doing my a program in the family, Youth and Community sciences transfer to the University of Florida where I'm currently in my third year, I had joined Ethics Bowl and where we won the Mid Atlantic last year and the two year bowl went to Nationals which actually ranked us in forest in the nation. And I'm also a senior fellow at the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership at the J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. And I currently own a marketing business called the Third Eye Collective, but I'm looking forward to reading a series of children's books on spirituality and awareness. 

  

Brian Sullivan 1:50   

I tell you what our child is looking forward to read those books. As I said before, Brian Sullivan, I attend Santa Fe College in my second year here with hopes to transfer into University of Florida and then after that, after I get my undergrad going to law school. Fun fact about me is that I've been to over 40 countries in this beautiful world of ours, and with hopes of going to all 50 states and to have been to 50 countries by the time I'm 50. So that's a goal of mine.  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 2:23   

Hefty Goal.  

  

Brian Sullivan 2:24   

Yeah.  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 2:24   

We've got a ways to go.  

  

Brian Sullivan 2:26   

A little bit. You more than me. So today, today's podcast, we're gonna be talking about sour grapes. And when that doesn't when it doesn't work. Yeah, when it doesn't work, or when you know. So, Paula, why don't you go ahead and break down for us what sour grapes is because maybe some people have heard the saying, but they don't really understand it. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 2:47   

Yeah, absolutely. So sour grapes is really this expression that we use when someone put something down in negative way, or makes it out to be unimportant solely because it's unattainable to us. There's actually a fable but it comes from Aesop's Fables. He was a Greek storyteller, The Fox and the Grapes. There was this fox that sees a juicy bunch of grapes hanging from a vine and yearns to have them after several failed attempts to reach the grapes. The Fox realizes he'll never get them and walks away. But in an attempt to save his reputation and cure his smarting ego, the fox says the grapes were sour anyway, so I never really wanted them. So, what's the moral of the story here, Brian? 

  

Brian Sullivan  3:34   

Oh, man, letting the ego get in the way. The Fox let his ego get in the way and he didn't have confidence in himself. And that's rule number one. And the rules of life, Brian Sullivan, always be confident. And that's not being confident always in your successes, but being confident your failures and he should have been able to admit to His other fox friends or you know, the other rabbits, whoever else it comes across and be like, hey, I wasn't able to get these grapes. Maybe you guys can I'm not sure how they taste but you know, and that's how you should go about us. Instead of letting the ego get in the way and just bashing it because you can't attain it or can reach it. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 4:10   

Yeah, I think it's very natural for us to dislike, despise belittle or scorn something that is not within our reach. Maybe like a family member who doesn't understand our point of view. Right? So, let's talk about point of views and maybe what happens at the Thanksgiving like awkward conversations that Thanksgiving dinner table. 

  

Brian Sullivan 4:33   

Yeah, so I mean, we got the holidays coming up. And with Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner. You're going to be probably coming across those hard conversations that you're going to have with family and family members. But you know what else is going to be there? Sports. So, with sports, you know, you have your sports teams and people are pretty fanatical. I mean, that's, you know, short form of that as fans of their sport teams. So, you know, Paul, I think you're a fan of a team that have the, what are they called again? 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 5:03   

America's team. Proper term, the legal terminology is America's team. The Dallas Cowboys. Yeah. We are going to be watching them that Thursday for Thanksgiving because of course, I don't think your team's even relevant enough to be on a Thanksgiving Day game.  

  

Brian Sullivan 5:21   

Yeah, I mean, that's because they choose not to, you know, but by the way, everyone listeners my team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you know, reigning Super Bowl champions right now. So, I don't think the Cowboys have that and over two decades, 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 5:34   

Well, I don't think, I, I didn't even think that the that the Buccaneers existed until Tom Brady put them on the map. So, I really, I mean, he really carried that team. 

  

Brian Sullivan 5:44   

Remember when Tony Romo cried because he couldn't hold a field goal. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 5:47   

I would have cried to I was right there with him don't remind me about that. I was miserable. 

  

Brian Sullivan 5:52   

So, as we go through this, you you'll as you've just heard, you'll have these discussions with family members and it could be about sports like we just did, and you know, in all funny games in the entertainment world, like we like to jive each other and you know, ridicule the other team of your opposing rival or just another team in that sport. But what about when that transcends that and goes into were things that can affect us in our everyday life when it comes to laws, rules, politics?  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 6:21   

Absolutely.  

  

Brian Sullivan 6:22   

How would you define this when it comes to tribalism, Pola? 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 6:25   

I think in order to break down tribalism, we have to first break down and define tribe. Tribe is a group of people that really feel connected to each other in sort of like this meaningful way because they share something in common that really matters to them, like culture, ethnicity, religion, and even your favorite sports team. So, this commonality really binds us together binds us into this group that really allows us to make the distinction of us in the group versus them not in the group. tribalism is then this sort of pattern of attitudes and behaviors that we adopt when we identify with our tribe. In a nutshell, we use us versus them to make normative judgments. Like we're good, they're bad, we're wrong. I mean, they're we're right, they're wrong. We're worldly. They're unworthy. So, when these judgments support our behaviors, how we act how we respond, in essence, our moral psychology becomes very group oriented. 

  

Brian Sullivan 7:28   

You get really lost in your own tribe. Yeah. Instead of being able to, you know, have the understanding of diplomacy and learning about the other tribe, that could be your neighbor. So, when I'm deployed overseas, you know, you have to take that serious, right? So not everything is fun in games, there are serious situations where we have to act in a serious manner. And like we take things seriously when it comes to diplomacy when states talk with other states and I'm working that those are serious things. But at the same time, it doesn't mean you can't understand someone else and their perspective and what they're coming from understand that culture. I mean, that's, that's a, having those conversations can be a serious thing. Learning about someone is a serious thing. So, in my travels, I have learned that people are just human beings. I mean, I've been to six out of the seven continents. Haven't done Antarctica yet. That's life goal. But what I've seen and understand these cultures, because I don't just go for a day at a time I go for a month before we were married, weeks at a time, sometimes months. And so, I've learned that people in all reality are just people they're going to act now there are cultural differences, but in the human species, we're all going to be the same. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 8:47   

Absolutely. Though, we've all experienced awkward conversations at the Thanksgiving dinner table right the family member at the table who voted for Trump or even the family members who aren't vaccinated and don't understand why they can't come to Thanksgiving. Increasingly, neighbors stopped talking to each other friendships and families are being torn apart because of tribalism. I think if we stay tribal, it'll be brutal. It can be ugly, and it can be even violent sometimes. And it doesn't really have to be this way. But I mean, have you had any sort of run into tribalism yourself, Brian? 

  

Brian Sullivan 9:21   

Yeah, I did with someone in the family. This conversation started over digital communications of text messages and through Instagram. So, with it, it was we both had stances on a particular subject in this subject. It was political, and it had to do with presidents and what stem from this so it starts with people in my mind how I was viewing it. Was he was making these stances of anything associated with Donald Trump. And so, I was like, well, you don't really want to take that stance because there's context in each one of those things. We can't say anything that's touched by Donald Trump is evil. That makes no sense to me in my mind with what he was saying, now he views my stance on like, hey, I voted for Donald Trump in 2016. So, then he's like, how can you vote for this person? He's so evil like, so everything I say of like, now because I voted for him is evil, but he just sees maybe things that are offensive to him that has been done either by him or things that he's been a part of. So there but that context that he just gave you was not known at the time because all we're doing because all social media is it doesn't allow the development really have a conversation because what we're doing right now, we're able to talk to each other, we're able to look at each other even if you aren't looking say it's over the phone, it's still allowing someone to speak you can hear tone, your feelings in it. You can feel emotions. Exactly. And you can't do that when you're just doing it over text because now, you're relying on the other person to interpret what you just texted how you meant it, and they're not gonna be able to do that. They're going to read it with whatever emotion they're feeling that time because whatever they're going through in that day is how they're going to read it at that time. Then we met in person, because we're family and you know, I believe in strong connection with the family. When you go to have a serious conversation with people and try to maybe call him out on things or maybe label things. They're going to be even more defensive when there's an audience. So, if you really want to understand someone and learn their perspective about something, try to do it in a personal, private area. Because when you do another people in here, it's not going to people are going to be defensive because now you're not just having a conversation with the person asking you have other ears and those people could have a different agenda than the person may be asking or if it feels like the person has emotion behind that. You can label the emotion so if someone was saying, you know, I'm a die-hard Democrat or Republican, I was born that I'm going to die that I lived it. You can, you can label that emotion. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 12:08   

How would you label that? 

  

Brian Sullivan 12:10   

You sound really passionate about being a Democrat or Republican. And then they'll probably open up like a, give you a good reason like, "yeah, I was raised that way", like you were raised that way? And if you keep your voice calm, and you don't want to give rise to your say, emotion, if you have really strong convictions that don't go along with that person, but you want to remain calm in your conversation, because you're really trying to find out about that person and their perspective. You're not trying to come into when you're trying to come into learn. Because you want to have a relationship that person mean we're going to be among family and friends during these holidays. We're not here to just be like, ah, forget that person. Never going to see him again and just walk away. You want to learn and be like okay, now I have an understanding why uncle Ricky is that way. He's he was raised that way. Okay, maybe there's certain things like he gave into his confirmation bias his entire life and he doesn't really know about it. How can I further this dialogue with Uncle Ricky more, to have him open up and maybe gain that understanding of my perspective? He could be you know, all about themselves. And sometimes you have to label that you have to label but Hey, Uncle Rick, you don't allow other people to talk when you're talking to them. You're really all about just yourself and then see where it goes from there. So that way, you can also then if you label that, and he just brushes it off, but you've already initiated it right? He understands some now in future conversations. Now if Uncle Rick is blasted drunk, you know, he might not remember so you got to do it again. Another time. I don't know if there's drinking in your guys' families, but on holidays there's drinking in behind definitely. Which can that's a whole ‘nother podcast conversation but with this one yes. I mean you can you can make that you can label it and it allows you also to be able to walk away because you're like hey, we're not seeing eye to eye or not IDI but you're not allowing me to conversate I don't feel part of this. I don't feel connected. It's just you. And those people. I mean, sometimes people are so we're all human beings. We're all going to be selfish at a time you might have had a rough day. It's also finding context of why someone is that way not just how they are, but how they are in that moment. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 14:20   

Undisturbed is definitely I think to interject here. It's really important that sometimes you actually set the boundaries with other family members and letting them know hey, we're going to have a private conversation and would really appreciate that. We are undisturbed without you know, no distractions. Please don't come in. Please just let us have you know this time, 

  

Brian Sullivan 14:41   

You know, and so our conversation evolved to a very civil discourse that our ICDP fellows would be very proud of. And a shout out to Professor Ann Thebaut for being a very guiding force in our lives. So yeah, and this conversation that I had with this family member, it was in person and in private. And then we're able to hear the emotion of the other person we're able to read their facial expressions reveal able to ask questions right away, because that's something you can always do if someone logged on or they're not logged on in the digital space. But when you're in person, you're able to have the Ask return dialogue going. So, it allowed us to then ask questions to further, you know, exemplify what their stance was on something, or the context of like, why are you that way? Or why do you have those beliefs or why did you vote this way? Because just being coming from the end, I really want to applaud the other person that was in the discussion with me, because they did, they wanted to understand why I voted for Trump in 2016. And I explained to him I wanted to understand why he had feelings. So, with such conviction against Trump and maybe what I perceived as everything that he touched, and without understanding we had a better appreciation of each other because then I understood that he wasn't just it was just more of him joking about certain things but to me some of the jokes went personal. And but that's how I read it. That's how I interpreted the same thing went for him is like how can you he just saw the face value. He didn't understand everything else of why I did this. So, it really it really developed into something good and our relationship actually became stronger from that.  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 16:34   

Yeah, and I can definitely second that because it was very interesting. We are we allowed you guys to have your space or private space to have a conversation since we knew it was happening. And it was really beautiful. I mean, everyone's always holding their breath. Of course, it's a very tense situation when both parties return to the dinner table, but when you know they're smiling and laughing. It's always a huge sigh of relief. But what happens when you don't get that smile or that laughter? 

  

Brian Sullivan 17:05   

I mean, like anything. I think you have diplomacy of coming out this again and again. The conversation isn't just a onetime thing. We're all going to be around our family and our close friends and we might disagree. That's okay. People should have their opinions. I mean, that's what we learn here at Santa Fe College and what we learned in ethics pose, we should all be able to have our beliefs and our opinions about things and we want to be challenged with those. So, when we get challenged, it allows us to either look up and verify what it is we're saying because we want to be factual and what we talk about, but it also allows the other person to hear that and maybe have them research to show us research and like, okay, wow, I didn't know this. It opened your eyes and it opens your perspective on things and it allows you to grow and flourish more. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 17:51   

Yeah, I really think that, another moral of the story for the story of The Fox and the Grapes is that even though he easily walked away a bitterly, I think it takes as you had mentioned before it takes more strength and courage to walk away with your dignity and your and your pride and to know when you haven't really crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's in a situation. 

  

Unknown Speaker 18:18   

Yeah, I think that's something that needs to be spoken about more in our society is being able to have the pride to admit when you're wrong, the pride to MIT when you have failed because it's okay to do that. We grow from it. So, it doesn't really get talked about that much. And it'll be interesting to see how we evolve as a society, with the social media companies and hopefully some changes coming down the road. But I think another topic we need to talk about is that you're not always in the conversation. Sometimes you are listening to the conversation being had by two different family members and you have to facilitate it because you don't want it to get out of control. And you want them to be able to have that civil discourse with each other. So, what would you do Paula like say a family member a family member B. You start to see a conversation things get heated. What would you how would you interject into that? 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 19:13   

Absolutely. So, I think one of the biggest things that we've learned in ICDP is that the purpose of a discussion is to really learn from each other, and to come to a better understanding about what we all believe, and that we hope to really talk about topics that are really difficult to have so that you can build trust and essentially relationships, deepening those relationships. And sometimes that does involve you being the outsider. And that is actually a wonderful opportunity for you to step in. Instead of being the fly on the wall. It's really crucial because you can also be part of this sort of growth and evolution with these two individuals or multiple individuals. And it is the role of being the facilitator. And that word can be a little intimidating because I don't think I've really ever liked that word before ICDP. When you really understand the role of a facilitator. It's for you, you kind of get into this. It does require you to maybe raise your voice a little bit, raise your hand and get everyone's attention to say that you'd like to facilitate this conversation, that you see that it's going a little bit south, and that you'd love to be a part of it in a more, you know, democratic role or a more sustainable role. And you describe it by saying, you know, my role here is to really create a space so that we can have discussion that achieves you know, these purposes, and we're going to set up some ground rules. And ground rules can really be anything and they're going to change depending on family members and dynamics and only you know what ground rules are going to be best to set forth in terms of, okay, this is what the space looks like. This is we're gonna only allow X, XYZ amount of time per person. We're going to not name call, we're not going to you know, raise our voices and so when everyone can really agree to having to the ground rules, and initiating the conversation, it's really necessary that the facilitator just kindly remind people of this because when everyone agrees to something to sort of ground rules, believe it or not, it's like we're back in at recess, and really are paying attention to those ground rules. 

  

Brian Sullivan 21:39   

Yeah, sounds like you're a referee. Yeah. Now that that sounds amazing that you'd be able to do that for your family members or your friends. Because I mean, not everyone has that sense of a person that can you know, keep the conversation civil and to keep it flowing, not to make it stagnant or to have people dig their heels into to allow maybe they don't know the style of what we're talking about. And you can now be like, oh, it sounds you have strong feeling and conviction about this or it sounds like you really trying to find a certain word here, a belief on something, right.  

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 22:15   

So, it sounds like you're using the mirroring and the labeling as facilitator as well. So, we kind of just showed you there how we can absolutely use those tools, not only for having the conversations yourself but for also facilitating the role of, of the referee. I know sometimes we might yell at the referee, but at the end of the day, you know, the referee is right. They've made a call that is supposed to be fair to all parties involved. And I really think that I like that analogy that you threw out there. So, Brian, a little fun fact, Santa Fe actually sends the most students to the University of Florida. We live in Gainesville, Florida, and it's really hard not to get involved in this football town. We've only been living here for about a year and a half, but at least we can agree on one thing, that it's her favorite team, that they're pretty awesome. So, I have a question for you, Brian. What if our unborn child who will be born soon in the springtime decides to become an FSU fan? 

  

Brian Sullivan 23:23   

It as long as they be the best at whatever they are? It doesn't. It doesn't bother me and I'm sure it doesn't bother you. So, if they want to go to Florida State. They should, if that's where they want to go, just be the best you can be. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 23:35   

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the best stories and one of the stories that I want to write when our child is born is the story of the snowstorm. So, you, every day is a snowstorm. And every day you have to be prepared and ready for the snowstorm. So, you go out into the snowstorm and you have your gloves. You have your hat, you have your jacket, you have your snow boots, you have your snow, your snow packed, and you are ready for this blizzard that is just outside your house every day. And tribalism and having these conversations can very much be like a snowstorm, right? They can be very difficult and very challenging. And but not every day do you wake up 100% Ready for that snowstorm one day you can wake up and forget your snow boots and be walking out there barefoot. And other days. You see your uncle Ricky and he needs snow gloves and a snow jacket and he needs a lot more equipment than you do. So, you decided to give it to him. Right? That's part of the compassion. That's sort of the compassionate component of what it is to be human. And to really give a bit of yourself every day is a new day is a new opportunity to really have these difficult conversations to prepare yourself for these difficult conversations. And a lot of the tools that we presented today in terms of mirroring, labeling, even just being human and you know, not taking yourself so seriously, is part of that equipment, and that is preparing you for the snowstorm. And so, I think that our child hopefully will learn that they're gonna be the best, you know, prepared that they can be and if they're not, that's also okay. That's also okay. 

  

Brian Sullivan 25:39   

That's great. That's a great story. Can't wait to read that book. So just want to say thank you again for stopping by don't forget look into Ethics Bowl here at Santa Fe College. Also take a class with Professor Ann Thebaut, have your mind expanded. Thank you everyone for come and travel the world. Love each other and, you know, allow yourself to blossom a little bit and don't forget have conversations that are hard with each other and make sure you remember to mirror to label and to allow people to be able to talk in their safe spaces to make them feel comfortable to be themselves. 

  

Paola Romeo Sullivan 26:14   

We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving Day holiday filled with gratitude, love and the tools needed to have civil discourse have a great one, everyone.