When red and blue agree to meet 鈥� and not change each other鈥檚 minds
| Wimberley, Texas
The summer heat here scorches Republicans and Democrats with equal ferocity. Jacob鈥檚 Well and Blue Hole, two of the best natural swimming holes in the state, are thus fitting landmarks for this small city.
When temperatures and emotions run high, Wimberley, Texas, is where people come to cool off.
Wimberley鈥檚 location also reflects its political balance. A short drive from both the rapidly urbanizing Interstate 35 corridor and the rural Hill Country, Wimberley, population 3,000, is as close to 50-50 politically as you can get in America these days, residents say.
Why We Wrote This
Groups that facilitate civil discourse abound, post-2016 election. The challenge is learning to talk with your political opposite outside the structured settings of workshops and classrooms.
But like much of the rest of the country, polarization has seeped into political debates here.
The week before Thanksgiving, two dozen locals gathered at a church for a workshop organized by Better Angels Central Texas, a local chapter of a national organization working to depolarize America and promote civil discourse.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not trying to paper over disagreements or get people to necessarily moderate their opinions,鈥� says Ciaran O鈥機onnor, a spokesperson for Better Angels. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to get people to build a little bit of trust and understanding.鈥�
Better Angels is one of a number of similar initiatives underway across the country. But a glance at the current state of polarization in the U.S. illustrates the scale of the task ahead:
- A found that 47% of Republicans viewed Democrats as more 鈥渋mmoral鈥� than other Americans, while 35% of Democrats held the same view of Republicans.
- Thanksgiving dinners have gotten shorter since the 2016 election, one found, with 34 million hours of crosspartisan discourse lost that year.
- 53% of Americans found it 鈥渟tressful and frustrating鈥� to have with people they disagree with, a 2018 Pew survey reported, up from 46% in 2016.
Jill DeTemple, a professor in the Religious Studies department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has been trying to do similar work in her classroom, using 鈥渞eflective structured dialogues鈥� (RSDs) to build empathy and curiosity in how students discuss contentious issues.
But while such dialogues can work well in isolation, it is still unclear whether they can work in the unstructured chaos of the outside world, or the anonymous echo chambers of social media.
鈥淪tudents know they have dysfunctional discourse all the time in those settings,鈥� says Dr. DeTemple, but 鈥渋f we could maybe back off that immediate reactivity, we could learn more about people who don鈥檛 share our views.鈥�
The 2016 effect
The Better Angels workshop in Wimberley began with ground rules such as not interrupting others to explain one's own views and not trying to change others' minds.聽Moderators guided preselected 鈥渞ed鈥� and 鈥渂lue鈥� groups to list stereotypes they thought the other group had of them and what kernels of truth the stereotypes held. (鈥淚gnorant鈥� and 鈥渋ntolerant,鈥� the reds concluded; 鈥渟ocialist鈥� and 鈥渦npatriotic,鈥� the blues concluded.) The whole group then reconvened to discuss.聽
A 鈥渇ishbowl鈥� exercise followed, with one group talking in a circle while the others listened, answering questions like why they think their side鈥檚 values and policies are good for the country, and what reservations they have about their side. At the end of the three-hour session, they talked about what they learned.
鈥淭here鈥檚 just a lot of fear, a lot of mistrust, on both sides,鈥� said Mike McNeil, a red Wimberley resident.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 realize y鈥檃ll are afraid too,鈥� added blue local聽Mindy Webber.
Better Angels, like many programs aimed at promoting civil discourse, launched in the wake of the 2016 election.
OpenMind, a psychology-based begun at the New York University Stern School of Business, spun out this year into an independent nonprofit that uses 鈥渆vidence-based research to create more open, ethical, and inclusive cultures and societies.鈥� The Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley is in the midst of a two-year 鈥渂ridging differences鈥� initiative aimed at highlighting 鈥渢he skills and social conditions that are critical to reducing polarization and promoting more constructive dialogue.鈥�
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Essential Partners, meanwhile, developed RSDs in the early 1990s following the murders of two women outside local abortion clinics. RSD, according to the group鈥檚 website, relies on 鈥減reparation, structure, questions, facilitation, and reflection to enable people to harness their capacity to have the conversations they need to have.鈥�
Dr. DeTemple uses RSD in her class sporadically in what she calls 鈥渄ialogic classrooms鈥� 鈥� a catch-all academic phrase for training students to listen and converse with more respect. Ideally, how students interact in dialogic classrooms will become a lifelong habit.
鈥淭hey feel like they can speak and be heard better, [though] it doesn鈥檛 turn out that they agree,鈥� she adds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an ecosystem.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e getting fed up鈥�
Nancy Dyer, from Medina, Texas, said she felt 鈥減ositive鈥� after the Wimberley workshop. But could she have similar discussions in a less structured setting? Without moderators or clear ground rules?
鈥淚 am definitely not ready,鈥� she answers. 鈥淚 learned some skills.聽But I actually have to practice it quite a few times before it's [a reflex]. I feel like I'm a kindergartner right now.鈥�
Active in all 50 states, and with close to 8,500 members, Better Angels wants to continue to grow, says Mr. O鈥機onnor. But there are some issues to try to resolve before then, he acknowledges, including a self-selection bias.
鈥淭he ones who are coming to workshops are coming because they鈥檙e at least a little bit interested in talking with the other side,鈥� he says.
In Central Texas, the local Better Angels chapter 鈥� active for just over a year 鈥� is not worried about attracting people from outside that self-selecting group. (Though the group is worried about diversifying beyond the uniformly white, older group that showed up in Wimberley.)
鈥淔or the first half of this year [we thought] we haven鈥檛 succeeded until we鈥檝e reached those people鈥� who are unwilling to participate, says Mike Seay, a liberal from Austin who also co-founded the Central Texas chapter. 鈥淏ut I think we鈥檝e shifted that.鈥�
鈥淭hese are a self-selected group of individuals 鈥� but I think there are a lot more of those than you would think,鈥� says Steve Saltwick, a chapter co-founder and conservative from Austin.
After the workshop in Wimberley, Ms. Dyer put a different spin on those scale concerns.
鈥�8,500 people is pretty good, but it ain't that good,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut I do think that we're getting fed up. I mean, it's 8,500 more than we had two years ago.鈥�
