Most people, regardless of political, religious or other group affiliations would agree that we are living in a time of poisonous polarity. We are becoming two Americas, each angry with the other, and neither trusting the other’s basic humanity and good intentions. Locally, one only has to read the letters to the editor in the Greenfield Recorder to understand that Greenfield residents experience discord, sometimes debilitating discord, with their friends, fellow workers and neighbors. This results many times in the formation of opposing “camps” to debate with the “other” in an attempt to “win the argument.” The argument can be local, such as downtown parking regulations or whether Greenfield should permit the building of a Walmart big box store, or nationally, the “big one” being liberals vs. conservatives on our president’s policy and actions.
As Amy Chua observes in her new book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, humans are tribal. “We need to belong to groups. We crave bonds and attachment, which is why we love clubs, teams, fraternities, family. Almost no one is a hermit. Even monks and friars belong to orders. But the tribal instinct is not just an instinct to belong. It is also an instinct to exclude.” Writing from a national perspective, she states that “Race has split America’s poor, and class has split America’s whites.” The tribal instinct is all about identification.
Greenfield Conversations is a new group that grew out of the Hands Across the Hills cultural exchange that happened last fall and spring in Leverett and Fletcher County, Kentucky. This group wants to listen and learn how to dialogue – not debate – with people in the community who have opposing beliefs about important community concerns and perspectives. We are concerned about our sense of community, which sometimes feels fractured. We don’t often get a chance to really understand why people whose beliefs are different than ours feel the way they do. We would like to engage in honest and open dialogue with each other, and really listen– and be listened to – about what we value most and why.
This local group is networking with a national organization called “Better Angels” (www.better-angels.org/about.) Launched in 2016, Better Angels is a bipartisan citizen’s movement to depolarize our divided nation. By bringing red and blue Americans together in a six-hour facilitated process, it is building new ways to talk to one another, participate together in public life, and influence the direction of the nation. Few adults are willing to sign up for a process that is intended to change their minds.
On the other hand, people are more receptive to a process in which they can offer their thoughtful response to questions like “What of the other group’s stereotype of you is true, and what is not true?” Or “What of your group’s platform is good for America?” Or “Where in your party’s platform are there gray areas for you where you are not certain?”
Through a structured dialog process, we can learn how other people think on an issue and why. Listening (not debating) is the only ground rule. At the end of the process of exploring three questions, the participants are invited to consider forming an alliance to work together to re-create the experience for others in their community. On the website you can listen to a 12-minute video of participants sharing their experience at the conclusion of the process.
“I joined this process so that the Red side would have a voice in this process/dialogue,” says George Gohl, chairman of the Greenfield Town Republican Committee. “One side does not have all the answers or solutions, and I think we as a community need to work together to find common ground. I would like fellow Reds to join me in this dialogue with the Blues” who has volunteered to be the “Red organizer” for the upcoming event.”
Polarization is threatening our democracy. This process of meeting and exploring our differences can help preserve what is sometimes hard, but always essential in a democracy.
Forty of these exchanges were held nation-wide in 2017; Better Angels wants to hold 400 in 2018. We want Greenfield to be one of those events! We want to participate in depolarizing our society. Please contact us if you would like to be a participant in our next Community Conversation sometime this Fall. We welcome participants of both Red and Blue persuasion. Blues can call 413-774-5952. Reds call 413-773-9260.
Sandra Boston is a long-time Greenfield resident, psychotherapist, and community organizer.