In response to Jane Finette’s article, “The Unravelling of Civil Discourse in America”
It seems a lifetime since we were at Mozilla. It’s a pleasure to read the launch of “Common Ground”, thank you for putting your thoughts out there on such a relevant and timely topic.I’ll take on the homework assignment, and happily share anything worthy of life outside my journal.
Diving into your first edition, I immediately thought of Gloria Steinem’s address “Thinking in Public in a Networked World” some 8 years ago. (read the transcript) I hear her in my head from time to time, especially her comments on oxytocin, empathy, effing up, and authenticity.
I’ve been thinking about the current, dominant mode of “civil” discourse and the impact it’s had on individual curiosity, risk-taking and our willingness to (openly) think critically. We are no longer allowed the space or grace to NOT understand something, to get it wrong, to talk something through aloud, in order to form new opinions or insights. I don’t see, at least in public forums, many people willing to occupy “the grey” area of not-yet-knowing.
Over the last couple of years, Dave Chappelle’s stand-up specials have caught my attention, not because I particularly care for his current views or the political and social spaces he occupies. But he’s one of the only artists I can point to, who authentically, intentionally (I believe) creates art inside those gaps where civil dialogue should be. He’s been “canceled” for it each time. He uses his own views to dive into a sensitive topic and fully discloses not the either/or, the us or them, the black or white but instead, gives voice to that huge grey (and often problematic) area in between. And I appreciate the courage.
We have to be able to listen to the thoughts of another and understand the motivations behind them if we’re going to affect any change. Advertisers do this for a living; Understand where the customers are and what they are thinking, so their minds and behaviors can be changed (for the benefit of their brand). They’ve got it dialed.
I, too, am in the changing-minds business. I work in Org Development/Change Management for a living. Though I didn’t have the title then, it is certainly what I did at Mozilla. As I worked to grow the marketplace product organization or rolled out a new set of strategic planning processes, it was my job to understand where each of our teams and leaders stood, so that I could meet them where they were, meet some of their needs, and ensure successful transformation and change of practices.
In business, we get paid to create results.
Out there in public discourse, people are spending money to actively fight against those changes we desperately need for social and environmental justice to prevail. I think the question for me is, who benefits from our lack of curiosity? When we are scared to muck about in the grey areas of our own understanding? When the dominant discourse tools actively erase compassion, empathy, and oxytocin?
Ok, well, that was a book. 🙂
Thank you for providing the prompt to get these thoughts together.