Listen, talk, discuss. Don’t (always) argue.

One of the academic programs I’m involved with on campus is the Political and Civic Engagement Program, which is similar in structure to the Liberal Arts and Management Program.

One of the primary tenets of the program is to foster growth in citizenship skills, such as the cultivation of civil public discourse. As I sat in a discussion for the senior section of the PACE program, I realized something: civil political discourse is something we are missing almost entirely in our current political climate.

As a society, we know how to argue, and we know how to argue well, but we aren’t very good at talking to one another.  As human beings, part of the way we take in information is to fit our experiences into our existing understanding of the world.

As a child, when I saw a four-legged furry creature, I probably called it “kitty” or “doggy,” though it may well have been a sheep. I had too few structures to work with. Eventually, though, we grow to incorporate new ideas by expanding our understanding of the world.

So what does that have to do with discourse?

If you begin a conversation with the traditional talking points of “This is why I’m right, and this is why you’re wrong,” I am going to subconsciously place our interaction in the mental box of previous interactions labeled “stuff I disagree with and don’t have to listen to” and shut down mentally. 

You repeat your standard lines on the issue. I actively combat them, brush them aside or simply ignore them because that’s how I’ve successfully dealt with interactions like this in the past. In this kind of “communication,” no one learns anything or broadens his or her understanding in any way.

We’re left doing the same intellectual swordplay we have learned from the time we were very young: thrust, dodge, parry, slash and repeat. We get better at making our arguments, but often fail to pick up any additional insight as to the other person’s perspective.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I think we can have these discussions in a way that is more productive for every party involved.  First and foremost, we must begin by changing the way we think about political discussion.

We must move past the idea that the only conversation we can have is about what we believe. I think we can have a much more productive conversation about why we believe it. To illustrate, suppose I approached a friend about welfare assistance and, instead of the traditional talking points, I told him I believe in helping the poor as much as possible because I saw the devastating effects of poverty in my own community.

I am talking from a personal experience rather than simply offering my opinion. He might disagree, but he could talk to me about why he disagrees. Perhaps he has seen individuals abuse the system by taking unfair advantage of the support they are given.

Again, he would be talking at the level of personal experience. After this discussion, he and I will likely still disagree. Nevertheless, I can look at his opinion with a new found respect because I can see the underlying values and experiences behind his ideas.

This type of conversation won’t solve all our problems, or make us all agree, but I do think it can help us find a higher level of mutual understanding. If we have that, we’ve already made tremendous progress. 

— jontodd@indiana.edu