Finding a way to talk to each other without animosity and actually listen to each other as well
If Americans are to succeed in lowering the societal temperature in this polarized era and find a way to ward off the specter of irreversible national schism — which we Jews, as a small, vulnerable minority should fervently hope for — one of the first things they need to do it to find a way to talk to each other without animosity and begin to actually listen to each other as well.
In the journal Comment, April Lawson, director of debates and public discourse at Braver Angels, an organization dedicated to political depolarization, has an insightful article arguing for a way of going about that. A self-described Burkean conservative, Lawson explains the surprising premise of the program, noting alternately how
a variety of organizations have sprung up in more recent years to forge a kind of depolarization field, most of them sincere and well intentioned. But there is a bias in the soil: a Blue bias. (Blue = leans liberal; Red = leans conservative.) The vast majority of leaders, funders, and participants in the bridging field are Blue, and this imbalance dictates the approach taken to depolarization.
People interested in bridging often believe that the primary aim of bridging work is to get people on both sides to see each other’s humanity. Blues usually approach this through exercises designed to build the empathy of one group for the lived experiences and emotions of the other. For example, one group of people will be asked, “What life experiences led you to this view?” Or “What does it feel like to live as a [insert category] person in America?”
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