Hi Joe,
I read your last article where you gave a woman advice on how to deal with her boss who keeps cutting her off in meetings. I think you gave some good tips, but you also mentioned that she may be talking too much as an option for what the problem is. Don’t you think by saying this that you are doing the same thing the boss is doing? To me, it comes across as another white man telling a woman how to act.
Keeping it Real
Hello Keeping it Real,
I really appreciate your question and the invitation for me to “keep it real”. I think if more of us had the courage to hold one another accountable in a respectful and curious way, we would have less arguments, fights, breakdowns in communication and therefore fewer opposition. As I always do when someone brings attention to something I’ve said or done, I take time to contemplate and consider their perspective. So, thanks for that opportunity.
My intention with my response to “Shut Down” in the last article was to give her different ways to look at the situation to help her arrive at the clearest perspective. When someone shares a situation with me, I must keep in mind that they can only offer me their perception of what is happening with only a few sentences to do so. As a mediator and peace advocate, I have to consider that this is not enough to get a complete picture.
In my book Fierce Civility, I discuss a pattern that many of us have where we quickly listen to the facts of a situation, or we read a post on social media. We often unintentionally add our interpretation of the story based on our own life experiences and draw our conclusions or judgments based on that. I talk extensively about how our internal polarizations color how we perceive reality. For instance, we seem to very quickly pick a “good guy” and “bad guy” in challenging events; this unfortunately sets up allies and adversaries before we even get a chance to gather the facts.
Having worked for many years with organizations around the world focused on addressing gender justice, I am very aware of signals where women are marginalized and oppressed. When I read “Shut Down’s” depiction of the story, my first quick reaction was to conclude that this is an example of a man putting a woman down. So, I had to make the pivot from my biases to remembering that my “interpretation” can only be confirmed as true when I take the time to investigate further.
This is what I am noticing is often forgotten in the process of getting to the truth of a situation and also a fundamental cause of our extreme polarization; which is a breakdown of civil discourse and inability to get to inclusive and fair solutions to our current problems. While our assumptions may be true, we will resolve issues faster and with more lasting results when we can still be curious, give others the benefit of the doubt, and remember that we all have the right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
I believe that objectivity is an effective tool for solving problems. This helps me get to the root cause of the issue and break my polarizing way of seeing things. Yes, it is certainly true that women and other marginalized people are commonly shut down and disempowered in male dominated-cultures and environments. Additionally, it is also true that people in general take up a lot of time in meetings with their words. Both can be, and are, true.
I made sure not to interpret, judge or accuse in my previous article, and tried my best to objectively name the behavior. In doing so, I offered an opportunity for consideration that the problem may be that she is “taking up too much of the meeting with [her] words…”; this may or may not be true. Yes, this is a risk for me to suggest because of the depth of pain and trauma that women often experience. However, I feel that limiting the potential roots of the problem may actually be contributing to our inability to have effective conversations. I felt it worthwhile to take that risk.
So, Keeping it Real, while it certainly can look like I am hindering someone’s voice, my intent is to offer an alternate course of events (that it may be true that she takes up a lot of time in meetings). Through both fierce and civil dialogue, we can seek out ways to solve our problems, and perhaps we also can all grow and deepen relationships.
Please keep keeping it real,
Joe
Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Check out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.
Have a question for Joe? Send an email to AskJoe@fulcrum.us.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.