Reframing of ideas
As I have suggested in addressing major differences in the domain of information and domain of intentions, it is sometimes appropriate to take an entirely different approach when working with diverse (and often fervently held) ideas. We can keep the diversity intact and allow the differing ideas to clash and even compete with one another. I offer an example of this reframing as described by Mary Rodgers—the daughter of Richard Rodgers, the noted Broadway musical composer (“Oklahoma,” “Carousel”, “Sound of Music”, etc.). Along with her mother (Dorothy Rodgers), Mary was invited to write a book offering the perspectives of both mother and daughter. In her remarkably autobiographical account called Shy, Mary (Rodgers and Green, 2022, p. 361) offers the following description of the working relationship with her mother:
“The differences [between the two of us] were not just generational, though Mummy was sixtyish and I was not yet forty. They were also attitudinal. She was East Side; I was West Side. She had an orderly life with no children underfoot; I was basically Mother Hubbard. She was grand; I was anti-grand.”
I am reminded of the differences between J.S. Bach and his sons. They were both generational and attitudinal (regarding the audience to be served and style of music to compose). While Papa Bach and his sons didn’t collaborate on a any music, Mary and her mother did work together—and the work did work! (Rodgers and Green, 2022, p. 361)
“Despite that, our working relationship was good. She was unfailingly respectful of me as a writer, perhaps understanding that I provided a use ful contrast to her very correct but not wildly imaginative style. She had such a highly developed and serene sense of taste that you could mistake it for originality, but she didn’t have any fun with words. They were like pieces of furniture to her, to be put in the right place and left there. When she told a joke, it was someone else’s.”
Mary goes on to describe the way (“dualogue”) in which they wrote the book together despite retaining their major differences in perspective (Rodgers and Green, 2022, pp. 361-362):
“To emphasize the contrast between us instead of watering it down, we had to find a way of collaborating while remaining distinct. Writing together directly would have left us with what Steve (Mary’s dear friend, Stephen Sondheim, the noted composer of Broadway musicals] called a “muddle in the middle.”* After trying a few ideas, we finally came up with one I referred to, in my half of the book’s introduction, as a “dualogue”: a text that’s continuous but “in which we interrupt each other, frequently in some chapters, less frequently in others, with comments, embellishments, occasional gentle gibes, and a few arguments.”
The differences between Mary and Dorothy were not hidden in the book they wrote. Rather, the differences were highlighted (Rodgers and Green, 2022, p. 362):
“To distinguish between our voices, though a deaf dog could have done it, we had the bright idea of printing her portions in black and mine in brown.”
The remarkable dualogue between Mary and her mother produced a quite successful book (“A Word to the Wives”). The differences between these two remarkable (and quite independent) women were never resolved –in the book or in real life—though Mary reported that their relationship improved temporarily while they were working on this book together.
