I hear people, including me, bemoaning the divisiveness we are facing today politically. I see some root causes of that:
increased complexity of our collective problems which is hard to grasp and understand so we oversimplify
communicating via social media which encourages short phrases or sentences, statements of belief, and “agreement” or “disagreement”
wanting to be right as opposed to curious
not trusting that we will be able to handle a view that is different than our own
the tendencies of our media outlets which value “either/or” headlines so we will click on them
media coverage of statements made by those in positions of power which inflate their influence
an overreliance on positions vs. interests when we communicate what we want.
Regardless of who “wins” this upcoming election, we still have to work together to build a society we want to live in. Here’s what I propose that will take from all of us:
prioritizing the issues that matter the most to us and being willing to say why they do
making time to have conversations so we make time for curiosity and understanding rather than agreement or disagreement
asking more questions when someone says they disagree - like “what leads you to think that?” or “tell me what experiences you’ve had where that becomes important to you?”
not relying on “the news” to understand issues - but find resources that are more neutral and that engage us in conversation
proposing in-person (including virtual) conversations when it looks like social media vehicles are not advancing understanding
valuing each other so that our opinions and whether or not someone “likes” them is our only way of determining our value.
I’m sure there’s more - but I’d rather focus on this than the sports metaphor of people “winning” and “losing” an election.,