It’s widely acknowledged that many Americans live in an echo
chamber in which we’re fed only information that corroborates beliefs we
already hold, as result of either social media algorithms designed to generate
clicks or our own viewing, reading, and listening choices. In public debate, individuals
on opposing sides of a given issue consistently talk past each other and straw
man their opponents’ views with the goal not of problem-solving or of
compromise, but of rallying those who already agree with them.
In this era, the value of seeking out unbiased media and
reading sane opinions on both sides of important issues is obvious. (PolitiFact
has an excellent bias-checking tool here, for those who want
to assess their current media sources and/or seek out less biased ones.) But I
would also argue that having one-on-one conversations with real people who
disagree with you on specific issues is even more valuable.
I witnessed an example of this on a recent episode
of Sam Harris’s podcast Waking Up. In
this episode, Harris had a two-hour conversation—an argument, really—with Vox Editor-at-Large Ezra Klein regarding
Harris’s May 2017 interview with Charles Murray. Murray is infamous for his
1994 book The Bell Curve, which
examined the genetic basis of IQ and included data which suggested that IQ
differences among racial groups were at least partly biological. Nearly
twenty-five years later, Murray is still protested when he engages in public
speaking—sometimes violently—as in March 2017, when protestors
at Middlebury College attacked Murray and injured his debate opponent
severely enough to require hospitalization. In keeping with his absolutist
attitude toward free speech, Harris invited Murray on his podcast to discuss
his research and allow listeners to judge it for themselves.
After Harris’s interview
with Murray aired on Harris’s podcast, Vox published a response that called
Murray’s research “junk science” and attacked Harris for “endorsing” his views.
This launched a year-long back-and-forth between Harris and Vox in which Harris criticized the Vox response in later episodes of his
podcast, Vox published more critiques
of both Harris and Murray, and Harris continued to accuse Vox of “intellectual dishonesty.” The feud migrated to Twitter and also
spawned a private email exchange between Harris and Ezra Klein, which Harris
eventually publicized
on his blog.
At last Harris and Klein agreed to do a podcast together to
discuss the issues at hand and to broadcast their conversation unedited. Their
discussion is long and at times frustrating, and they never reach anything that
could be called a resolution. But significantly, both speakers remain civil
throughout the conversation.
Despite disagreeing on nearly every point that is brought up
(including what topics are even worth discussing), neither speaker raises his
voice or engages in ad hominem attacks. Neither speaker purposely misrepresents
the other’s arguments; rather, both repeatedly say things like, “If I
understand you correctly, you’re saying that….” Although neither actually
convinces the other of anything, and you get the impression that they still
don’t particularly like each other,
they’ve managed to transmute a public feud into a civil, open, and honest dialogue in which they’re genuinely
seeking to understand each other—something which so many of our politicians, policymakers,
and we ourselves are unable to accomplish.
The value of this practice can’t be overstated. Most people
who have thought seriously about an issue have good reasons for their beliefs
about it. Yet our tendency to vilify our ideological opponents—to accuse them
of ignorance, selfishness, corruption, or bias without objectively examining
their reasoning—enables and encourages ad hominem and straw man attacks that do
nothing to address the serious problems that this country currently faces.
It’s easy to fall prey to recency bias and assume that the
country is more divided—and discourse less civil—than it has ever been, but the
U.S. actually has a long history of mudslinging and even violence in public
debate. As PBS reports, dueling over political
disputes was widely accepted until after the Civil War; Vice President Aaron
Burr famously killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, and Andrew Jackson
had been shot so many times that he supposedly claimed to rattle with bullets when
he walked.
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, it wasn’t
uncommon for members of Congress to pull guns on
each other during floor debates and to attack each other with canes,
sometimes violently enough to require hospitalization. In 1858, during the
debate over whether to admit Kansas to the Union as a free state or a slave
state, a
“brawl” broke out on the floor of the House of Representatives that
involved at least 30 members. The snide comments and pejorative nicknames that
are trademarks of today’s administration are quite tame by comparison.
And yet rational, open dialogue between opposing parties
seems to be nearly nonexistent in today’s political discourse. Speaking calmly
and civilly with a real person who disagrees with you—and who has sane,
well-thought-out reasons for doing so—forces you to acknowledge the rationality—indeed,
the humanity—of that individual and, by proxy, others who hold their views. It
also forces you to present and defend the rationality of your own views, and in so doing, ensure that
your views are rationally supported.
I have a very old friend whose background is substantially
different from mine. She was raised in a conservative, religious environment
and is still a believer who leans right of center. I was raised in a secular,
almost hyper-liberal environment, and I still hold most of those views. It’s a
wonderful stroke of fortune that we became friends as children, because
otherwise our paths probably wouldn’t cross as adults.
My friend is highly intelligent, educated, and
compassionate. She cares about people and wants to be a force for good in the
world. And we disagree on nearly every political issue that matters today.
Although my friend and I live in different states and don’t
see each other often, this friendship has been a valuable leveling force for my
opinions. When I’m tempted to share a far-leftist article or meme on social
media, I know my rational, conservative friend will see it, and might even
fact-check it. If the facts turned out to be wrong, I’d be embarrassed and
ashamed to have shared this view, whether my friend called me out on it or not
(she probably wouldn’t). This motivates me to do my own fact-checking before
sharing something simply because it upholds my previously-held beliefs. When my
friend shares a post that I disagree with, I trust her conscientiousness and
reason enough to know that it won’t be a Breitbart-style conspiracy theory, and
that I might learn something useful by reading it.
I’m grateful to have this friend in my life; her views are a
sanity check on my own. If you don’t have such a person in your life, try to
find one. If you don’t already engage with media whose biases oppose yours, add
a few such sources to your feed. If you haven’t fact-checked your own views
lately, now’s a good time to start.
