Monday, August 1, 2011

Laying Track

Last night, my husband and I attempted to watch the cable news analysts debate the meaning of the Congressional debate over the federal debt ceiling. Before long, we turned off the television. And turned to gathering train tracks abandoned by our toddler. We couldn't stand to witness the cross talk. And then, ironically, began an exchange on another topic that, in hindsight, followed a similar dysfunctional pattern of crosstalk. Our impasse stemmed from my poor ability, at that hour, to focus. Or listen. Really listen. Across the differences in our own perspectives.

While in this heightened awareness of layered disconnects, I received an email about American Public Radio's Civil Conversations Project, which On Being's host, Krista Tippett, writes about here.



The Civil Conversations Project is a series of radio programs that respond to our collective disconnects, evidenced by events in Washington, in Oslo, throughout our shared, public spaces, even, in our private spaces with loved ones:
our political ways of speaking to each other, and about each other, have broken down.
This excerpt from Tibbett's blog about the Civil Conversations Project particularly struck me:
We have no prominent models, no public habits of navigating difference, that demonstrate what social healing would look like... We don't merely disagree; we demonize, making the bridging of gulfs between us unthinkable. And now we are watching this play itself out in the halls of Congress in an extreme and tragic way. So this summer we've pulled together our civil conversations of the past year as a well of cumulative wisdom. For the next six weeks, we'll offer them up side by side as a resource of ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces. 
The first program, "Words that Shimmer," speaks with poet Elizabeth Alexander, who asks, "are we not of interest to each other?" "Don't we want to know one another?"

Later in the series, Tippett speaks with scholar and philospher, Anthony Appiah, who, as Tippett writes, studies the conditions leading toward "seemingly impossible social change." Appiah suggests that in times of debate we often seek agreement, but would be better served by "sidling up to difference." Tippett sumarizes his point quite eloquently. 
What we need more than agreement, he says, are simple habits of association with different others, encounters that breed familiarity. There is real social and even moral value to be had when we connect with others even on the most mundane topics of who we are and how we spend our days — whether it be soccer or football, shared hobbies or parenting. In fact, Anthony Appiah says, this kind of human exchange — as much a matter of presence as of words — is the old-fashioned meaning of the word "conversation."
In subsequent shows, Tibbett and her guests lay new track that lead toward alternate ways "to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, to sit with questions... to live forward together, even while holding passionate disagreements." 

Activist and ethicist Frances Kissling models how to live with difference by asking "what can I see that is good in the position of the other? What troubles me in my own position?"

Writer Terry Tempest Williams ponders what is vital about social struggle. She asks, "When have I changed, and why? What is the nature of my voice in the wider world? How do I use it?"

Sociologist Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, wonders, "What is served by having an always-on, always-on you, open-to-anyone-who-wants-to-reach-us-way of life?" What happens to civility when we our bodies are present, but our minds are plugged in elsewhere? How can we lead critical, informed and examined lives with our digital objects? (The picture, by the way, that accompanies this segment is particularly striking.)

Civil Rights leader and scholar Vincent Harding considers "is America possible?" through a conversation about history, hope and civility, and about democracy across difference.

Philospher and professor Anthony Appiah ponders, "what is it for one to have a life of significance?"

And, theologian Richard Mouw helps us probe our own thinking: "what is it about people like me that scare you so much? What is it about what you are advocating that worries me so much?"

I will be tuning in. And laying new track.  Join me, will you?

More about the Civil Conversations Project here.