A month into the semester, the students in the Critical Thinking class began to wonder: what can we DO to change people’s mind (viz. to make them adopt more enlightened views)? The professor answered at one point: people change their own minds, and what we need to do is to create an environment for that to happen. Regardless of whether this is sound advice (the professor is not sure herself), the question is HOW we may go about creating such a conducive environment. At the very least, quality civil discourse—especially with the ones who hold very different views—has to be part of the picture.
IS MORE CIVILITY WHAT WE NEED?
On Civility (Philosophy Bites podcast), conversation with Teresa Bejan, author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (reviewed here and here).
Here is a more focused conversation with Bejan about “Civility and Tone Policing” (Political Philosophy podcast):
Here is a debate about civility in “Polite Oppression” (On the Media podcast), in its entirety:
Especially these two segments:
(1) Teresa Bejan: The Virtue of Mutual Contempt
(2) Keith Bybee, author of How Civility Works: The Problem with Civility
Alternatively, here are interviews with Bybee (“Can Civility Survive?) and Bejan (“Tolerating Intolerance”), respectively, from PBS’s The Open Mind.
DOES ANGER HAVE A PLACE?
Here is a discussion of this subject from To the Best of Our Knowledge, prompted by the infamous Ford-Kavanaugh hearing. It asks whether anger can be a useful emotion:
Here is a TED Radio Hour collection of 5 different perspectives on how to rethink anger:
Here is another from On Point: “’Rage Becomes Her’: The Current Conversation Around Women’s Anger”
INFORMED ENGAGEMENT in CIVIL DISCOURSE
Jonathan Haidt: “The Psychology of Self-Righteousness” (On Being podcast), based on Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion and related projects.
“Dialogue and Exchange” (TED Radio Hour), with these two especially pertinent segments:
(a) Robb Willer: How Do We Bridge The Political Divide?
(b) Celeste Headlee: How Can We Have Civil Conversations With The Other Side?
IDEA DIVERSITY is MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
Listen to the episode “Idea Diversity on Campus” hosted by Arthur Brooks, former president of the DC-based conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
Here is Arthur Brooks making a conservative’s plea for us to “work together”:
Here is Elif Shafak on “The revolutionary power of diverse thought”:
Be HOPEFUL & INSPIRED
–the case of former white nationalist Derek Black
Watch Trevor Noah’s interview of Derek Black and Elli Saslow, author of Rising Out of Hatred: the awakening of a former white nationalist (reviewed here):
Or listen to Terry Gross’s interview with Black and Saslow:
And, even more powerfully, this interview with both Black and Matthew Stevenson, an orthodox Jewish schoolmate who invited Black to Shabbat dinners, where “friendship and quiet conversations transformed” Black—eventually anyways.
One can find more examples in Muslim filmmaker Deeyah Khan’s documentary White Right: Meeting the Enemy:
Finally, if you ever doubt the point of having “real conversation” with people not on your side, so to speak, or what it actually means to have such a conversation, check out this conversation with On Being’s Krista Tippett: