The profound animosity in the presidential election cycle underscores a deeper pattern in American politics and community life: We are polarized into groups of the like-minded. We see the world from our own distinct perspectives and tend to reinforce our beliefs by surrounding ourselves with others that act, think and look like us. In this fragmented environment, the media we access tends to reinforce rather than challenge our perspectives.
As the chasms between us grow, communication across the divide becomes increasingly difficult. We not only misunderstand but often disdain those that hold different values and beliefs. We rarely interact and when we do it is typically hostile. We make generalized insults and stereotypes of those on the ‘other side’ and demonstrate very little interest in understanding our counterparts.
One consequence of this state of affairs is that it is difficult to find consensus on important matters of public policy. One need only look at the gridlock in our public institutions — from congress to our local municipalities — to find evidence of this. The problem is that it is hard to engage in effective deliberation to find pathways forward if parties cannot first have healthy dialogue that involves civil and insightful conversations.
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The Frenemies Project at Virginia Tech is exploring how facilitated dialogue among individuals that hold negative perceptions of, and would rarely interact with, each other can foster mutual understanding and respect, and increase social capital.
A recent workshop — supported by the Virginia Tech Institute for Society, Culture and the Environment — brought together eight students and faculty that hold strong opposing positions on the issue of immigration. They were asked to engage in an exercise that had them take on roles with positions opposite their own. That is, participants with negative views of immigration were given the pro-immigration role and vice-versa. Immediately following the exercise, the participants stepped out of role but remained in pairs, sharing their own stories and opinions, and reflecting on the exercise experience. The group came back together to debrief.
The experience increased empathy and mutual understanding, which suggests that healthy dialogue is possible. In surveys, participants reported improved opinions of those that strongly disagree with them on policy issues like immigration. Many also reported feeling more confident that discussing issues like immigration with those that strongly disagree with [them] can lead to some sort of agreement around how to move forward. Interestingly, virtually all participants felt strongly both before and after the exercise that it is important that elected government officials sit down and deliberate with those that they strongly disagree with on policy issues. This suggests that even those with strong opinions would like to see politicians try to work together. Congress, take note.
The conversations with and among participants suggest that their level of mutual understanding increased, along with their appreciation of the underlying roots of each other’s perspectives. “I’ve always viewed […] the other side’s argument [as coming] from emotion and our side’s from logic, [but came to] realize that [we are] using a lot of personal experiences as well”, said one participant.
Most participants ultimately left with the same fundamental opinions on immigration as they came in with. However, many noted that the humanization of their counterparts made them feel both more compelled to find compromises and that some sort of common ground might be possible. “If you think the other person is completely foreign, […] you immediately dismiss their argument because you don’t view them as even a real person sometimes, you just view them as a set of ideals that you don’t agree with,” said a participant, adding that “when you make it more normal, and make it something that maybe you could find a middle ground, you feel you have to make them more like a human being, like okay, this is someone I don’t agree with everything on, but I can find a few things that I agree with; it’s not just these ideas are wrong; it’s this person — we can find some common ground here.”
While this workshop group was too small for the results to be statistically significant, it suggests that there is substantial value in bringing people with opposing opinions on policy issues together for dialogue to increase mutual understanding and initiate discussion on creative solutions. The Frenemies Project will continue to organize further sessions around policy matters in an attempt to illustrate that healthy dialogue is both possible and valuable.