Can Conversations Heal America?
Today is the first day of National Conversation Week 2021, a coalition effort of dozens of organizations dedicated to bridging our many divides through conversations.
What kind of conversations? Those that connect us emotionally, beyond differences, but also those that take into full account how our different experiences and perspectives influence our political and civic choices. We support this effort; civic leadership in this time of deep polarization is a democratic imperative.
Such work and leadership are too important to leave in the hands of politicians alone. The citizenry must take action.
To find out more about National Conversation Week and to participate, look here.
The Reunited States documentary
Last night I watched a film executive produced by Van Jones and Meghan McCain, The Reunited States. Rather than give away spoilers, I’ll share quotes that arose during the film. If you choose to watch it—and I hope you do—have some Kleenex nearby.
“The problem is party loyalty over country loyalty.”
“Before we fix government, we must fix ourselves.”
“One-third of Americans are independents.”
“We must cross the divides through stories of left and right working together.”
“Political divides are indicative of deeper divides caused by our dark, complex history.”
“This is not a political movement, it’s a heart movement.”
“Reconciliation is possible when people are willing to open their heart and be in dialogue.”
Within the context of the documentary, which follows everyday Americans traveling across the nation to listen and build hope through the hurt and pain and trauma, these statements are not bromides. They are the yeast causing the bread of understanding to rise in the body politic.
I’m happy to report that music plays a role in the film, jazz in particular. It’s a model of the very diverse conversations needed in a pluralistic democracy, a metaphor for tension and release, and for dissonance and harmony in an open society.
A Philosopher Speaks on the Value of Conversations
“I am a philosopher,” says Kwame Anthony Appiah in his excellent work, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. “I believe in reason. But I have learned in a life of university teaching and research that even the cleverest people are not easily shifted by reason alone . . . In the larger world, outside the academy, people don’t always even care whether they seem reasonable. Conversations, as I’ve said, is hardly guaranteed to lead to agreement about what to think and feel.
“Yet we go wrong if we think the point of conversation is to persuade, and imagine it proceeding as a debate, in which points are scored for the Proposition and the Opposition. Often enough, as Faust said, in the beginning is the deed: practices and not principles are what enable us to live together in peace.
Conversation across boundaries of identity—whether national, religious, or something else—begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from some place other than your own. So I’m using the word ‘conversation’ not only for literal talk but also as a metaphor for engagement with the experience and the ideas of others.
“And I hope to stress the role of the imagination here because the encounters, properly conducted, are valuable in themselves. Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another.”
Amen.