A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America
A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America
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Abstract
Get your head out of your @*&. Snowflake. You’re an idiot. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. It can feel good to use a disparaging name and dismiss a divergent belief or opinion but it turns people off from genuine engagement. At best, feelings are hurt and family and friends decide to avoid political discussions altogether. Often social groups break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can’t even speak to people with whom we disagree? The conventional wisdom to avoid talking about politics has to change. We need to talk to each other about American politics more, especially to those with whom we disagree. We just need to do it better. The antecedents of bitter political disagreements are well documented but less attention is paid to ways to improve things. Public opinion doesn’t change quickly on average but it does change: how people think and feel about LGBT rights, for example, saw a meteoric change over the last few decades. Supportive people from many different social and identity groups had conversations in ways that got people out of their echo chambers to see issues in new ways. The unprecedented attitude change toward marriage equality and LGBT rights is a compelling public opinion phenomenon and a roadmap for how to talk about other contentious issues. Relying on research spanning academic disciplines, A Change is Gonna Come identifies and explains where conversations fail and how we can start to dig out of our opinion silos to make reasonable changes in everyday, interpersonal political conversations.
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Front Matter
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1
With All Due Respect: The Importance of Disagreement
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2
The Virtue of Uncomfortable Conversations
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3
How to Alienate Others
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4
The Mechanics of Persuasion and the Impact of Information
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5
Don’t Know How I Feel About That
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6
People Like Us Have Got to Stick Together
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7
Change is Hard but Not Impossible
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End Matter
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