Conflict and even mild disagreement is frequently accompanied by this Frequently Voiced Objection:
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My reaction to political issues is that people act too much like squabbling children. The world is a big enough place. As a nation, we have enough resources to go around. If people just got along, incivility would disappear.
True, but that’s a very big “if”—so big that it’s hard to point to any political system in human history that resembled a harmonious family for very long. The fact is, each human being is unique, which means that each of us has different needs, interests, purposes, and ideas of what’s desirable. That in turn means that the need for exploring differences, taking stock and examining our options never really goes away, even in the best of times. At EnCiv, we believe think that civil discussion is an especially good way to go about that.
Not only that, but by turning a blind eye to the differences that exist among us, we’re leaving it others to shape the policies that affect us, policies which may threaten our democracy by fostering discord, disunity, and even hate. If we pretend that all is well rather than talking through our differences, we also lose the opportunity to use our differences as fuel for mutual learning.
*Adapted from Adolf G. Gundersen and Suzanne Goodney Lea, Let’s Talk Politics: Restoring Civility Through Exploratory Discussion, Chapter 3.
