6 ms·

This is a key aspect of the struggle of civilization and not utopian at all. If we hope to change anyone's mind and reach a level of social consensus on anythin

This is a key aspect of the struggle of civilization and not utopian at all. If we hope to change anyone's mind and reach a level of social consensus on anything then it's imperative we make a safe space for everyone to think and have civil discourse. Knee jerk recriminations for essentially thinking is the recipe for entrenchment of positions and pushing people to the margins where they are more likely to mix with extremists. RBG and Scalia were a great example of how to disagree respectfully and not treat ideas as a personal threat but to engage with them with enthusiasm. I am with you in your quest to listen and give ideas their due and all people respect.

purrplexed 6y ago
Can't echo this enough. It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. You see so little actual discussion taking place any longer. Everything is rhetoric, it is tiring.
- munificent 6y ago
  > It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. Polarization has been increasing in the US for longer than that. Many of these tendrils stretch all the way back to the founding days of the US, but I think the real uptick of this modern flavor is hate started with Newt Gingrich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_political_polarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_politica...
  - watersb 6y ago
    Ralph Reed: toxic as a kid at University of Georgia, still toxic today. My judgement may not move the conversation any further. I'm too emotionally wound up. I could do without the personal experience of the community which spawned this artificial divide. But then again, it's all I have, so I might as well use the hard lessons as well as the good times. Never been in the same room as the founder of the (so-called) Christian Coalition. I hope. Grew up in Athens Georgia around that time, it was considered a small town. It wasn't all bad, but it took thousands of miles and decades of years before I could enter a Christian Church without wanting to run away.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Disclaimer: this is my perception. Many will disagree and many will downvoted, but I want to put it out there in case it resonates with anyone and generates good, enlightening conversation. I hope people read and respond in the same spirit of good faith. Perhaps Newt was a catalyst in Washington, but I think the broader cultural change was less related. Even as a lifelong liberal, I recall the 2000s as being a period of liberal snark toward conservatives, especially in the media and on the emerging Internet (I know some will argue that conservative policies are horrible so they deserved to be treated this way, but such arguments miss the point of civility: you debate bad ideas; you don’t attack people). It wasn’t the sort of ruthless display we see today, but it was relentless and it went on for more than a decade. Conservatives generally maintained decorum, but eventually the dam burst and the resentment cascaded over and Trump arrived on the scene to personify the middle finger that many on the right wanted to give to those they felt mistreated them for so long. None of this is meant to impute blame or innocence on anyone, but to serve as a framework for understanding how we got here as that is prerequisite for getting black to a healthier state.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      None of this is controversial or offtopic. Looks like the downvotes just proved your point. Folks don’t even respect a fellow liberal try to engage in a completely reasonable and civil way, forget any hope of them respecting a conservative. The ironic part is that you allow a partial pass due to bad conservative policies, but during the time period to which you refer, the liberals were anti-gay marriage (DOMA anyone?) and ramming through “tough on crime” laws that they now decry as racist.
      - tspike 6y ago
        The clearest example of this that I have personally experienced was in a discussion a few days ago about the fires in Oregon. A state senator had his house burned down, and my suggestion that we shouldn't be celebrating this guy's misery brought a level of vicious attack I was completely unprepared for. Like, I get it, it's ironic- he opposed a climate change and wildfire bill and his house burned down. What really scared me though was realizing I don't think the reaction would have been much different if he himself had burned to death in the fire.
  - trynewideas 6y ago
    Specifically Newt around Vince Foster's death. You can trace the roots of a lot, a _lot_, of today's utter partisan obstructionism and foolishness — mainstreaming fringe conspiracy theories with the explicit and openly espoused purpose of wedging the other party regardless of its goals — to Gingrich making Vince Foster's death an unending headline news story. I mean christ, Trump _still_ brings up Vince Foster.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    It started with Goldwater, with Nixon and then Gingrich being two major milestones as it developed.
  - trothamel 6y ago
    It's John McCain's fault. Not because he was bad - he wasn't. He was an honorable man. So honorable he got rid of earmarks, the allocation of funding to particular projects. The result of this being that there is very little reason for people to cross the aisle. Previously, you had to keep working with the other party to keep the gravy train on schedule. Now? For bonus points, ask if the cost of gridlock are higher or lower than the cost of the earmarks.
clairity 6y ago
it's not just about listening to ideas. if it were that easy, we'd already be more socially cohesive. it's about subtler things like real empathy, where you can actually see and follow the chain of reason someone takes to get to a position, however outlandish you think that is at the outset. it's about holding contradictory ideas in your head at the same time, constantly, about everything, rather than retreating into your warm and cozy ideological corner at every dissonance. but it's also about not simply giving in to the outlandish because you want to create a safe space. that means calling someone out for what is usually some form of aggression without alienating or offending, putting real social capital on the line, and requiring self-restraint, courage, a bit of charisma, and more. and then you have media organizations like npr itself, nytimes, and twitter actively trying to play both sides, instigating while also trying to claim the moral high ground, feeding divisiveness. it's hard, and takes active, willful effort from (nearly) everyone.
- Clubber 6y ago
  If you really want to find a compelling starting point for the state of our current public political discourse, you may find it in the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Rush Limbaugh's first radio broadcast airs in 1988 which introduced "anger-tainment" as a very profitable political news model. As time passes, this new business model affected every news organization in one way or another, to various degrees, willingly or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
  - clairity 6y ago
    i'm not sure the (repeal of the) fairness doctrine is a prime culprit, but i'm open to hearing a fuller perspective. more to the point, i just heard a real example of the kind of empathy and compassion we need by nba hall-of-famer isaiah thomas on tnt's "the arena" airing right now, of all places. it was in relation to LA county sheriff alex villanueva calling out lebron james to put up money for the recent shooting of two sheriff deputies in compton. this is a powder-keg issue here in LA right now. the knee-jerk reaction would have been to put down the sheriff for an unreasonable emotional outburst, but isaiah basically extended his hand and narrated how he understood where the sheriff was coming from, even if the demand was not exactly well thought out. that's really hard to do in the moment, and my respect for isaiah just rose significantly because of it.

purrplexed 6y ago

Can't echo this enough. It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. You see so little actual discussion taking place any longer. Everything is rhetoric, it is tiring.

munificent 6y ago
> It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. Polarization has been increasing in the US for longer than that. Many of these tendrils stretch all the way back to the founding days of the US, but I think the real uptick of this modern flavor is hate started with Newt Gingrich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_political_polarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_politica...
- watersb 6y ago
  Ralph Reed: toxic as a kid at University of Georgia, still toxic today. My judgement may not move the conversation any further. I'm too emotionally wound up. I could do without the personal experience of the community which spawned this artificial divide. But then again, it's all I have, so I might as well use the hard lessons as well as the good times. Never been in the same room as the founder of the (so-called) Christian Coalition. I hope. Grew up in Athens Georgia around that time, it was considered a small town. It wasn't all bad, but it took thousands of miles and decades of years before I could enter a Christian Church without wanting to run away.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Disclaimer: this is my perception. Many will disagree and many will downvoted, but I want to put it out there in case it resonates with anyone and generates good, enlightening conversation. I hope people read and respond in the same spirit of good faith. Perhaps Newt was a catalyst in Washington, but I think the broader cultural change was less related. Even as a lifelong liberal, I recall the 2000s as being a period of liberal snark toward conservatives, especially in the media and on the emerging Internet (I know some will argue that conservative policies are horrible so they deserved to be treated this way, but such arguments miss the point of civility: you debate bad ideas; you don’t attack people). It wasn’t the sort of ruthless display we see today, but it was relentless and it went on for more than a decade. Conservatives generally maintained decorum, but eventually the dam burst and the resentment cascaded over and Trump arrived on the scene to personify the middle finger that many on the right wanted to give to those they felt mistreated them for so long. None of this is meant to impute blame or innocence on anyone, but to serve as a framework for understanding how we got here as that is prerequisite for getting black to a healthier state.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    None of this is controversial or offtopic. Looks like the downvotes just proved your point. Folks don’t even respect a fellow liberal try to engage in a completely reasonable and civil way, forget any hope of them respecting a conservative. The ironic part is that you allow a partial pass due to bad conservative policies, but during the time period to which you refer, the liberals were anti-gay marriage (DOMA anyone?) and ramming through “tough on crime” laws that they now decry as racist.
    - tspike 6y ago
      The clearest example of this that I have personally experienced was in a discussion a few days ago about the fires in Oregon. A state senator had his house burned down, and my suggestion that we shouldn't be celebrating this guy's misery brought a level of vicious attack I was completely unprepared for. Like, I get it, it's ironic- he opposed a climate change and wildfire bill and his house burned down. What really scared me though was realizing I don't think the reaction would have been much different if he himself had burned to death in the fire.
- trynewideas 6y ago
  Specifically Newt around Vince Foster's death. You can trace the roots of a lot, a _lot_, of today's utter partisan obstructionism and foolishness — mainstreaming fringe conspiracy theories with the explicit and openly espoused purpose of wedging the other party regardless of its goals — to Gingrich making Vince Foster's death an unending headline news story. I mean christ, Trump _still_ brings up Vince Foster.
- int_19h 6y ago
  It started with Goldwater, with Nixon and then Gingrich being two major milestones as it developed.
- trothamel 6y ago
  It's John McCain's fault. Not because he was bad - he wasn't. He was an honorable man. So honorable he got rid of earmarks, the allocation of funding to particular projects. The result of this being that there is very little reason for people to cross the aisle. Previously, you had to keep working with the other party to keep the gravy train on schedule. Now? For bonus points, ask if the cost of gridlock are higher or lower than the cost of the earmarks.

clairity 6y ago

it's not just about listening to ideas. if it were that easy, we'd already be more socially cohesive. it's about subtler things like real empathy, where you can actually see and follow the chain of reason someone takes to get to a position, however outlandish you think that is at the outset. it's about holding contradictory ideas in your head at the same time, constantly, about everything, rather than retreating into your warm and cozy ideological corner at every dissonance. but it's also about not simply giving in to the outlandish because you want to create a safe space. that means calling someone out for what is usually some form of aggression without alienating or offending, putting real social capital on the line, and requiring self-restraint, courage, a bit of charisma, and more. and then you have media organizations like npr itself, nytimes, and twitter actively trying to play both sides, instigating while also trying to claim the moral high ground, feeding divisiveness. it's hard, and takes active, willful effort from (nearly) everyone.

Clubber 6y ago
If you really want to find a compelling starting point for the state of our current public political discourse, you may find it in the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Rush Limbaugh's first radio broadcast airs in 1988 which introduced "anger-tainment" as a very profitable political news model. As time passes, this new business model affected every news organization in one way or another, to various degrees, willingly or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
- clairity 6y ago
  i'm not sure the (repeal of the) fairness doctrine is a prime culprit, but i'm open to hearing a fuller perspective. more to the point, i just heard a real example of the kind of empathy and compassion we need by nba hall-of-famer isaiah thomas on tnt's "the arena" airing right now, of all places. it was in relation to LA county sheriff alex villanueva calling out lebron james to put up money for the recent shooting of two sheriff deputies in compton. this is a powder-keg issue here in LA right now. the knee-jerk reaction would have been to put down the sheriff for an unreasonable emotional outburst, but isaiah basically extended his hand and narrated how he understood where the sheriff was coming from, even if the demand was not exactly well thought out. that's really hard to do in the moment, and my respect for isaiah just rose significantly because of it.