How can we discuss difficult issues?
by Michael Clyburn
People are much more alike than they are different. This holds true for the most disparate pair of people you can imagine – a yak farmer in Tibet and a Wall Street titan; a black man in the middle of a riot carrying a TV out of a store through a broken window and the conservative sitting in his comfortable home condemning what he sees on his TV. We are all flawed and fallible humans who have family we love and friends we have a lot in common with. Mostly, we all want happiness for those family and friends, and when they suffer, we suffer along with them in empathy. We want to provide for our children and hope they have a better life than we have had.
We are all human, and humans need community – really, in the long run, we thrive in no other setting. The family we are raised in is our first community, flawed as it is, one parent or two, rich or poor. A century ago, two centuries ago, here in the United States, we mostly stayed in this community no matter how far we wandered – connected to multiple generations of our family and expected to help any member that needed our help. As adults, we are also members of a wider community, consciously selected or not. Two centuries ago, that wider community was often the town we grew up in, a community where everyone knew each other and knew your parents and grandparents.
Here in the 21st century, it is estimated that 84% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas (cities with populations of 100,000 or more.) Extended families have been replaced by nuclear families for many of us, likely a large majority of the population. In urban settings, people often find communities of choice to replace the communities of family.
And yet,the opening statements of the previous two paragraphs remain true: “People are much more alike than they are different.” and “We are all human, and humans need community.” What I am searching for here are ways to keep these two facts foremost in mind when we engage in discussions of societal issues with those who disagree with us. I do not have any answers today, but I have links to others working on the problem. My posting of these links does not mean I am endorsing any organization, or that I agree with everything on their website, or even that I have delved deeply into their site or their work at this point. But I have seen enough to think they are helping facilitate civil discussions and I want to explore their work.
Shared Pool of Knowledge 