Lessons From Ginsburg
Most things in life are more important than politics.
It’s been just over one year since Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away.
Since her death, I have gone down a wormhole reading stories about her ‘unlikely’ friendship with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
On paper, Ginsburg and Scalia were opposites. Ginsburg was more introverted, Scalia was extroverted. Ginsburg was an activist, Scalia was an originalist. A Democrat and a Republican.
Yet despite different views, they remained true friends.
Judge Jeffrey Sutton told a story, that I love, about his last visit with Justice Scalia, saying:
As I got up to leave his chambers, Justice Scalia pointed to two dozen roses on the table and noted that he needed to take them down to “Ruth” for her birthday. [Sutton] pushed back, “so what good have these roses done for you? Name one five-four case of any significance where you got Justice Ginsburg’s vote.” “Some things,” Scalia answered, “are more important than votes.”
I think that is a beautiful definition of friendship: Giving of yourself to someone else without asking for anything in return.
Even if you completely disagree with them (and I will be the first to say, I'm not good at this. But I'd like to be).
Because at its core true friendship isn’t transactional.
If Scalia would have given roses in exchange for votes, well, that is no longer friendship.
If a term of their friendship was a precondition on a mutual agreement on issues, again, that is no longer friendship.
This is exactly the strategy that Abraham Lincoln deliberately built when deciding his cabinet - he filled it with people who would disagree. As Doris Goodwin puts it, "a team of Rivals.” Individuals who were opponents. And as a result, he was a better president.
In the end, like iron sharpening iron, I believe that these Scalia and Ginsberg were better off from having each other.
While this was happening on the Supreme Court, the opposite was happening in our homes. Following the 2016 election, 40% of Americans said that the election had hurt a close personal relationship, according to Rasmussen Polls.
This bums me out. Because I think we have all seen or felt the effects of an election hurting our personal relationships.
And I think we can all sense that this number has seemed to grow with time.
Eugene Scalia, the Secretary of the Department of Labor, once said:
“What we can learn from the justices, though — beyond how to be a friend — is how to welcome debate and differences.”
I completely agree with this.
And in a world that feels like it is becoming more and more divisive, we have an opportunity to be a North Star for a respectful debate discusses the issues.
And the benefit we have: we are fighting for something very important and meaningful. We are championing a miracle which has done more to reduce poverty and increase life expectancy, within our lifetime, than anything ever in the history of the world.
We live in a time of a lot of emotion. Anger aimed at national politics. Frustration in Illinois of electing corrupt government officials.
And regardless of what is happening in the news, we should take the great example of Ginsburg's and Scalia's friendship to heart. We must remember the value of our relationships and how to welcome debates and differences.