Polarization in American culture is nothing new. In fact, it seems to built almost intentionally into our two-party system. For a very long time now, many of us have assumed that are basically two answers or “sides” to issues and questions in our public discourse. But we are now more polarized than at any other time in our nation’s history since the Civil War. And with the obsession this current Presidential campaign has had with negative ads, rather than talking about positive proposals to solve problems, it looks to get even worse in the coming months.
But our broader culture need not cave to how its media and other public institutions present the world to us. We can resist. Based on my experience working to push back against polarization, I published an Op-Ed with the Seattle Times describing five relatively simple practices that may help this effort:
• Humility. We are finite, flawed beings and are prone to making serious mistakes. We need to enter into discussions and arguments with this at the very front of our minds — not only in being comfortable with someone challenging our point of view, but also reserving the right to change our mind when our argument is shown to be problematic.
• Solidarity with our conversation partner. This involves active listening, presuming that one has something to learn, and (if possible) getting to know them personally beyond an abstraction. Never reduce another’s ideas because of their gender, race, level of privilege, sexual orientation, or social location. Similarly, never reduce them to what you suspect are their “secret personal motivations.” Instead, give your partner the courtesy of carefully responding to the actual idea or argument that she is offering for your consideration.
• Avoiding binary thinking. The issues that are seriously debated in our public sphere are almost always too complex to fit into simplistic categories like liberal/conservative, religious/secular, open/close-minded, pro-life/pro-choice, etc. Furthermore, it sets up framework in which taking one side automatically defines one against “the other side” — thus further limiting serious and open engagement.
• Avoiding fence-building and dismissive words and phrases. It might feel good to score these rhetorical points, but doing so is one of the major contributors to our polarized discourse. Let us simply stop using words and phrases like: radical feminist, war on women, neocon, limousine liberal, prude, heretic, tree-hugger, anti-science, anti-life, and so on. Instead, use language that engages and draws the other into a fruitful engage of ideas.
• Leading with what you are for. Not only is this the best way to make a convincing case for the view you currently hold, but this practice often reveals that we are actually after very similar things and simply need to be able to talk in an open and coherent way about the best plan for getting there.
Based on my experience with Gen Y, I’ve been very hopeful that many of these practices could gain a stronger foothold as they come into their own. But many of the e-mails I’ve received in response to the Op-Ed have me heartened that other folks are on board as well. From the National Institute for Civil Discourse, to the Compassionate Listening Project, to Focolare Dialogue, there are many powerful movements out there that are resisting polarization.
Let us go confidently, then, into the fray: resisting the polarization that has so damaged our ability, not only to solve our problems, but simply to love one another.
These are nice reminders. I wonder, however, if you also have more specific advice for devout Catholics, or evangelical Christians, for whom certain beliefs are essential to the faith, and where adherence to the faith is essential to one’s relationship with God, or to the salvation of one’s soul. These religious faiths often encourage the conviction that the faithful enjoy privileged access to truth, and that those outside the faith are more susceptible to the workings of sin, their fallen natures, the darkness of this world, and even Satan. Religious convictions (or, more carefully, certain fairly common religious convictions) seem to pose special obstacles to reasonable, non-polarizing dialogue.
Hi Craig…hmm…this is a real concern. But shouldn’t it be balanced by equally important convictions that we are finite, sinful, flawed creatures? If we have privileged access to the truth (and those of us who believe that God’s truth is written on the hearts of every human being would at least need to qualify this claim), isn’t one of those important truths our own limitations and failings and the love of God despite those limitations and failings?
Furthermore, I don’t see this kinds of religious exceptionalism in play in our public sphere very often. (Certainly not present the way it was 15-20 years ago.) If anything, the significant bias against (explicitly) religious truth-claims in our secular institutions (media, education, etc.) is at least at damaging to open and honest exchange, isn’t it?
Thank you for the thoughtful response. The convictions that we are finite, sinful and flawed should, at least in substance, be shared by Christian and non-Christian alike. That is, we can all agree that we are each susceptible to shortsightedness, irrationality, and a variety of moral and epistemic errors. My concerns arise when people begin invoking special sources of error, or of relative invulnerability to error, to explain their differences of belief and conviction. Now, I might have a hard time giving a fully satisfactory definition of what I mean by “special sources,” but I expect there is a principled difference to be drawn between the sources of error and epistemic privilege that we all acknowledge (e.g., egotistical concerns, ambitions for political influence, scholarly expertise in the relevant field) and sources that we cannot reasonably expect everyone to acknowledge (the influences of Satan, sinful opposition to God’s authority, divine revelation).
You may well be right about recent improvements in the public sphere with regard to religious exceptionalism. That said, I’m not convinced that there is a significant bias against explicitly religious truth-claims in the media or in education. Religious truth-claims are notable for their practical significance not only in the religious person’s life but also in history, cultural, and politics. Religious truth-claims are for this reason highly salient. I generally expect the scrutiny of a truth-claims to be proportionate to its significance. What I sense, however, is that in media and education (not to mention in politics) religious truth-claims receive special protections from the scrutiny they might otherwise be expected to receive. In K-12 public education, for example, influential religious truth-claims are remarkably safe from direct, explicit scrutiny. If nothing else, it is still considered rude and hostile to intentionally expose a pupil’s religious beliefs to scrutiny in front of the classroom. Or, even if a specific pupil isn’t selected out, it is still considered inappropriate to for a public grade school teacher to lead the class in directly examining the merits of religious truth-claim, no matter how sociologically significant that claim happens to be. Similar things, I think, could be said in much of our media. In higher education, religious truth-claims are under-scrutinized (relative to their sociological significance) largely because they are just ignored. Whether this is a bias that acts in favor of such claims or against them is open to debate. At the university level, for instance, it might be that religious beliefs tend survive better when they don’t come up for direct scrutiny (possibly this would be because such attention they would receive would be inordinately hostile; it might, however, be simply because particular religious truth-claims–like particular non-religious claims–tend to appear less plausible when exposed to in a classroom environment whose varied participants host a diversity of alternative views. My own peculiar views tend to feel more plausible when I am in places where everyone else happens to share them).
Craig, the ignored part is most certainly more harmful than helpful. True-claims based on explicitly religious traditions are in the process of being marginalized in the public sphere. They belong “in Church” rather than in public. However, true-claims based on other traditions (utilitarianism, liberal-individualism, Marxism, etc.) are full and open players in the public debate, and do not get so marginalized. They become the de facto methods of political reasoning–even for religious believers. (We see this time and time again as intra-Church debates are often actually debates between these traditions rather than about Church tradition or doctrine.) These “secular” traditions also work from faith-based first principles, and the bias against traditions which admit their faith-based starting point is real and harmful.
Hi Charlie– Thank you for this clear, cogent, and compelling statement of a very important need in our discourse. I wholeheartedly agree with the principles you state. I wanted to raise two questions that we might ponder further.
One, what happens if a particular interlocutor or side of the debate does not acknowledge these principles, and flagrantly violates them? I am thinking here of the critique of “Broderism” that has come up – that is being “balanced,” the media has ceased to be evaluative, and therefore one side is able to get away with constantly polarizing claims and actions. If they are called on it, they then accuse the other side of being “biased.” Put bluntly, when does our responsible to call a foul override our attempts to take seriously the positions of those with whom we disagree?
Two, what are the limits to humility and solidarity? I could use the typical extreme examples: Nazis and racists. But leading with what we are FOR (assuming the beliefs are substantive) is going to mean that there are certain things which we are AGAINST, out of deep convictions. There is a tension between humility and holding convictions – I take Jesus to be the standard for Christians on these matters, and his standard is a very difficult “rhyme to spot,” to use Bill Spohn’s wonderful phrase about how we make analogies from narrative to particular moral problems. Because we accept Jesus as the standard for humility, and yet we recognize that he engages in some fairly sharp polemics. I have two thoughts off the top of my head on this: one, the role of compassion – of entering into another’s suffering, I think, is a very important point of difference. It seems as though the Pharisees are unable and unwilling to do this, and that it is valuable in many instances of social debate, over poverty and immigration and abortion and gay marriage. If we hold a moral position and are blind to the suffering of those with whom we disagree, there is a problem. My second thought is that it is unavoidable to look honestly and try to understand if we share some basic moral convictions with our interlocutors. If, for example, we genuinely share an account of human dignity, or of social and environmental responsibility, we are more able not only to develop shared action on other things, but to learn from our disagreements. But I think there is a line – tentative but real – where we come to recognize that perhaps opponents do not share such genuine convictions. At that point, I am not sure how there can continue to be solidarity in a fully mutual sense – only perhaps in an eschatological sense, in hope.
Just some thoughts – great work on this.
Hi David…I tend to think of these as general principles rather than exceptionless moral norms. 🙂 However, with regard to your first point, nothing about what I said is inconsistent with being critical. In fact, it presumes that we will “call fouls”…we just need to do so in very different ways–ways which allow us to actually hear a response and in a way which assumes (until and if we are proven wrong) that we have something to learn from that response.
And, yes, being for things does mean that we will be against some things…but this last point does not claim we should not be against things. It means that they should flow from what we are for…and what we are for should be the lead story. I often tell my students that “the Church wants you to have great sex.” It is a good laugh line, but it also is an effective way to turn the tables and get them to think about what the Church is for rather than it what it is against. (And the fact that it gets laughs shows what a terrible job we have done of leading with what we are for.)
Finally, being in solidarity doesn’t mean that we will have common ground necessarily. It means a whole host of things, including (again) assuming that we have something to learn (until and if we are proven wrong), and also taking our interlocutors’ claims at face value (until and if we are proven wrong), not using personal attacks in being critical, etc.
Charles,
Earlier I had followed your usage of the term “truth-claims.” Now you write of “true-claims”. I was more comfortable with your former phrase, as it contains no commitment as to whether or not the claims in question are true. From now on, however, I’ll just refer to “claims,” with the late admission that I’m not sure how to distinguish truth-claims from mere claims.
I think you are entirely right in suggesting that, as a general point, a claim that gets discussed in the media and in the university often gains, through that discussion, a more favorable status in the minds of the populace. This is true especially of claims which few people currently happen to believe. Take for instance the claim that iron has the atomic number 26, or the claim that accessible diamonds exist in vast numbers, but that European and American Jews are, through financial motivation, keeping their location a secret. The first claim is well-founded and true; the second claim is ill-founded and false. Both claims are currently not widely believed/appreciated by the populace. This would suddenly change if either were more widely discussed in the media and university.
The situation is importantly different for claims that already enjoy widespread public acceptance or support (despite receiving little attention in the media and in our universities). Take for instance the claim that eating carrots will improve one’s vision, that handling toads can give you warts, or that it is particular danger to swim after eating. Since a lot of people already believe these claims, despite their not being particularly well-founded, the popular acceptance of such claims is likely only to suffer from greater critical exposure in media and education.
Religious claims already enjoy widespread acceptance. At least some of these claims would suffer from critical exposure in media and education. I think it remains an open question whether greater attention to religious claims generally in the media/eduction would have a net positive or negative affect on the status that such claims currently enjoy in the populace.
Your supporting points, about consequences to our methods of reasoning, are good and full of interest to me. Noting just one point of agreement: I also think that everyone suffers when we fail to realize that traditions and policies that have come to be viewed as “secular” can also be legitimized from faith-based starting points.
I was reminded of the importance of “solidarity with our conversation partner” during the recent flap over President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment. Clearly, Obama meant to say that everyone who succeeds does so both because of his or her own initiative and because of others who help or create the environment for the success. The wording was certainly unfortunate and misleading, but no fair minded person could possibly assume that Obama meant to deny the role of their talent and hard work. I can’t imagine any American politician holding such a belief.
Those who blame the President for disadvantaging business by his handling of the Recession also believe that government plays a role in the success or failure of individuals. The “we built it” v. “the government built it” binary just doesn’t capture reality.
The conversation resulting from mutual misunderstanding between parties has been unhelpful, because we all believe at some level that our success results from a number of factors, some of which we control, others of which we don’t.
Yet there are differences between Obama and Romney and their supporters on how much government does or ought to do, and how much people ought to be taxed. That is a debate worth having but we can’t have it unless we engage each other’s real arguments, have the humility to know that we can learn from each other, and maintain hope that conversation can lead to problem solving.