I’ve written in the past about the apparent need at this moment to relearn lessons of how to productively have a dialogue with someone of opposing views. In recent chats with students and faculty, there seems to be a growing consensus that role models of civil discourse between two people of conflicting beliefs are more and more difficult to find.
Indeed, students entering Georgetown increasingly are likely to have rarely witnessed such dialogue. They themselves have not developed the skills necessary to participate in such a dialogue. Conversely, they have read and maybe even participated in the harsh verbal interaction that exists on social media sites and in the comment fields of electronic media. They can witness daily the shouting matches embedded in the overlapping speech on news shows. Indeed, such events may discourage any attempts for them to enter into discussion with someone of opposing views (unless they merely want to mirror the shouting matches they seen).
As with many universities, Georgetown hosts controversial speakers, but they rarely have interlocutors. They do expose themselves to Q&A, but these tend to be single-iteration interactions. Students also see debates, where each side attempts to score points against the other.
What is rarer is two well-informed persons having a dyadic discussion on a topic of disagreement between them. They listen to one another, as evidence by their paraphrasing what they hear from the other, to verify their own understanding. They ponder the other’s thoughts and probe them for clarification. They may even say from time to time, “I never thought of it that way.” But they’d also politely say, “I don’t think I see it the same way you do. Here’s how I see the issue.” Or “I think we agree on that point, but not on another point.”
The discussion would be filled with evidence for their beliefs. Feelings might be expressed but not as valid evidence for a position, but as a measure of depth of belief. The density of emotional communication is kept low.
In the ideal-type of a family dinner, there are such discussions of issues of the day. When those are guided by wise elders, the younger set learns about active listening to the other’s talk. They gradually learn that such dialogues are effective vehicles for a collective search for the truth.
The Jesuit notion of “presupposition” is relevant here. The concept is that we should assume the other actor is behaving with good will. We assume that the other, as we too, are actively seeking the truth. We assume that they are open to new information and are seeking to process and integrate new information into their existing set of knowledge.
One wonders whether we could invite to campus twosomes of speakers who do indeed disagree with one another on some issue of general interest. Could we encourage them to model the dialogue behavior we’re seeking, for the benefit of Georgetown students? What topics would attract students to observe the modeled behavior? What rules of audience behavior should be encouraged? How could we evaluate whether the events indeed served their purpose?
Excellent idea. Some suggested pairings:
1. Bill Kristol and E.J. Dionne. They conducted precisely that type of dialogue on their panel at John Carroll Weekend in Boston last spring. Maybe we can arrange a reprise in Gaston Hall.
2. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). A pair of Georgetown alumni with especially strong bipartisan reputations and records. Durbin is a past winner of the GUAA Healy Award.
I like Roger’s recommendation about public speaking classes with the twist: each student practicing the presentation of opposing views.
Also, consider inviting speakers such as Ravi Zacharias and those with whom he generally debates to model civil debate on our campus.
How wonderfully timely this post is in our age of agressive hermeticism and public incivility. One solution is to make a course in public speaking mandatory for all undergraduates. Not just for the basics of the practice, but with a twist : namely, that tomorrow, I must defend the view of the opposition, in order to develop the listening skills so sorely lacking in this Zeitgeist.
These are wonderful and complex skills which should add to our curricular goals to teach, model, and even measure as what we have begun to call in medicine “a Evaluable professional attribute“. There are communicative skills to practice, acquire, and to which more should aspire as divisive dialogue has become the norm.