Civil Political Dialogue: Let it Begin With Us.

Our country is becoming increasingly divided. We have politicians unable to work together, news people who seem only interested in ratings and voters who feel increasingly frustrated. How did we get here? More importantly, how do we get out?

It’s easy to blame the government or the media for this deterioration, but that let’s us all off the hook too easily. In a free society, the governments and media sources are mirrors of the people they serve. The dialogue around the water cooler and the postings on Facebook are, for the most part, not any more unifying than the rantings in Washington.

How do we change this?

According to Gandhi, things will not improve unless we are willing to “be the change we want to see in the world.”

So, let’s get started.

If I look honestly at my own behavior, I contribute to the problem on a regular basis. Most of my political discourse simply reinforces what I already believe rather challenging my thinking. I usually hang out with people who agree with me so that I can exchange stories and statistics that deepen my beliefs. It is fun to do this, but it comes at a price. As I listen to just one side of the story I become too convinced of how "right" I am and I start to regard "the other side" as being either misled or morally inferior. That type of thinking adds to the deterioration of our national conversation and causes me to occasionally feel alienated from dear friends and family members.

So, what can we do to change this? One option is to seek out friends who disagree with us who are willing to help me find a better way to have these conversations. If we can try to understand each other and search for common ground and shared understanding, it will take the edge out of some of our divisiveness.

If we are to achieve these lofty goals, we need some ground rules for civil discourse. I would start with the following:

1. Seek First to Understand: Neither person can respond to the other until we are both sure that we have truly heard the other person.

2. Speak the Truth: If we are going to make any progress at all, we will all need to be more careful about our commitment to the truth. (A discussion of how to find truth and objectivity will be addressed in another blog.)

3. Be Kind and give each other the benefit of the doubt: For this to work, it is critical that we avoid personal accusations. This sounds easy, but I think we fail at this often. Liberals who assume conservatives lack compassion for the poor and conservatives that assume liberals are morally inferior routinely violate this rule.

4. Seek Common Ground: When I am working with clients, the first thing we do is talk about their "big picture goals" and common goals. This usually allows them to start the conversation by understanding that they really do care about the same things. I think the principle of starting with common ground would work well in political conversations as well.

Am I dreaming here? Can these conversations happen? Are you willing to be a part of this conversation?