By Chris Satullo
Back on my hobby horse.
When I write here from time to time about the pressing need for and enduring value of civil dialogue, I can feel the eye rolls. I hear the grinding of your teeth, all you angry, exhausted liberals out there. I read the sharp comments on Facebook.
I get the skepticism.
So, this time I bring not just exhortation, but evidence.
It has been my privilege, these last four years, to help run an effort called Can We Talk?- a series of short dialogue forums bringing together college students (as well as, sometimes, faith communities and civic groups) to discuss top-of-mind national issues.
These events test whether enabling people to experience – even for just two hours – dialogue based on sound principles can make a difference. Can it open a sliver of daylight in closed minds? Can it better equip people to handle difficult conversations at home, at work, at church, at book club, online or around the holiday table?
So far, the evidence says yes – though that follow-through piece ain’t easy.
The largest, most sustained and rigorous of Can We Talk? efforts has been carried out in association with a University of Pennsylvania program called the Red and Blue Exchange (RBX). Founded by the Gambas, a family with a three-generation-deep love of Penn and an equal commitment to viewpoint diversity, RBX has sponsored dialogues that have brought together more than 400 students from more than 25 campuses. (RBX is part of a larger Penn initiative aimed at cultivating holistic civic virtue, called SNF Paideia.)
The students show up (nowadays on Zoom) for a variety of reasons. Some are assigned. Some are looking for help on how to bridge a divide with someone they care about. Some are thirsting for a way to talk about relevant things that don’t follow the strict and judgmental scripts prevalent on their campus. Some are just curious.
By the evidence of RBX’s post-forum surveys and focus groups, most leave pleased and surprised, sounding a little like Miranda in The Tempest: “Oh, brave new world, that has such people in it.”
Here’s some of what the students – from Penn and Drexel and Wheaton and Villanova and George Mason and Northeastern and Cairn and Oberlin – have had to say:
I absolutely loved it. The best political discussion I have ever taken part in.
Extremely beneficial. Regardless of what political view anyone had, every student had an opportunity to say what they felt. I am super grateful that I was part of the conversation.
I learned the benefit of active listening.
Exactly in line with what the world is in deep need of.
This was also honestly the first time I was given the opportunity to talk about my political opinions on current situations in a safe environment with complete strangers. It was incredibly interesting.
This was the most enjoyable virtual event I’ve attended in the Zoom age.
I want to work in a mostly male-dominated field, and after experiencing this forum, I now know how to go about voicing my opinion when surrounded by men.
I loved the ground rules. I am drawn to replicate this in spaces that I lead.
I really think I made some friends for life even though I disagree with some of their viewpoints.
When they sign up for a forum, students tell us how they’d describe their political leanings. The majority say liberal. The next biggest chunk is moderate. A smaller group says conservative or libertarian. Over the four years, the number saying socialist has grown steadily.
So, yeah, nothing there to undermine the view that campuses tilt mostly left.
That said, in breakout group discussions, students often discover surprising levels of disagreement over topics such as “defund the police,” pulling down statues of historic figures, even cancelling student debt. And they learn, with the help of our simple ground rules and the guiding hand of our adult and student moderators, that they can explore those disagreements candidly without the discussion collapsing into pained silence or accusatory epithets.
They also sometimes discover, to their surprise and delight, that other young people who disagree with them on a heartfelt issue don’t actually have horns and hooves; are actually people they can like and respect. And that, amazing thought, this kind of conversation can be fun.
After these two hours, as you’ve read, students feel they leave with something valuable, with new tools and insights. To be honest, though, they also tell us that when they try to apply those tools out in the real world, results are mixed. Other people – their expectations formed by the shout-fests of cable TV, the performative outrage of Twitter, or the scripts of cancel culture – sometimes resist playing by our ground rules. This world we weave for a brief time can be hard to replicate.
A single two-hour event is only an opening, a glimpse, not a solution, not a revolution. That’s why I’m sharing the student responses, to crack the opening up a little wider, to spread this different template more widely.
We’ve having another Can We Talk? at 7 p.m., March 25, on Zoom. And another on April 15, same time. If you have any college students in your life, let them know about it. They can sign up here.
Or if you have a community or church group where you’d like to sample the magic yourself, let me know at canwetalkphilly@gmail.com. It could even be a small group of friends who are having a hard time talking about what’s happening to our country. We’ll see what we can do. Zoom makes it easier.
If you’re wondering what exactly these principles and ground rules of civic dialogue Can We Talk?-style are, I’ve laid them out previously in this space.
To give you a taste of how we try to coax people to “begin with story, not position,” to “acknowledge the pebble in your shoe” and to “bring other voices into the room,” here are examples of prompts from past forums that students told us fostered the most lively, surprising, meaningful conversations:
- (From February) Recently, we’ve seen campaigns to eliminate statues, monuments or building names etc. that honor figures from American history who some now see as having been guilty of oppression, injustice or harm against certain groups of Americans. In San Francisco, among the names that will be removed from city public schools for this reason are George Washington, Paul Revere, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant. How do you think your way through these questions of whether to remove a statue, a monument or a building name?
- (From last October) Have you ever cancelled someone – whether someone you know or a celebrity? Looking back, does that still feel like the right thing to have done? Have you been cancelled yourself? How did that feel? Did it lead you to make any changes in your views or behavior?
- (From last October) Philadelphia is reeling from yet another painful incident of Black Americans dying at the hands of the police. “Defund the police” has become a rallying cry for some. What do you understand that phrase to mean? What do you think should be done about policing and criminal justice in America?
- (From last spring) You just named an issue so vital to you that it will help you decide how to vote for president. Is there any part of what people who disagree with you on this issue say that makes even a little bit of sense to you? Do you ever hear something where you think, “Well, I can see your point”? Similarly, is there anything about your own position that causes you any tiny bit of doubt or unease, sort of like a pebble in your shoe?
The pebble in my shoe about civic dialogue is the worry that it’s too late, that the things I practice and share will be far too little and too late to pull us back from the brink we peeked over on Jan. 6.
What do I do about that pebble? Keep testing whether more and better work in the vineyard of dialogue can make it go away. If I’m annoying with it, I apologize. It’s just that, to me, democracy is worth being a bit of a pest.
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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia