It’s time for difficult conversations

By Ashley Green-Thompson

Apparently credit goes to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau for the phrase ‘a drunk mind speaks a sober heart’. As someone who enjoys a drink or two with friends and family, I appreciate how alcohol lowers inhibitions and enables people to express their true feelings and thoughts without filter.

And once they’re expressed, I understand why they keep these thoughts to themselves most of the time. They can often be at worst offensive, and at best promoting divisive and exclusionary sentiments.

It isn’t just the tipple that causes trouble. There’s always some celebrity or commentator apologising for what they said or did.

In religious circles we encounter views that don’t often sit well with a more inclusive approach you’d think a faith perspective would encourage. Arguments about politics are framed in polarity – you’re either for or against. There is little space for nuance, and those who seek power fuel that polarisation.

Humanity is made far more interesting by our diversity of intellect. Progress would not be possible if we didn’t each have the unique ability to think, to exercise our minds, to express our thoughts in conversation with others. In that exchange of conversation, we encounter contrary views that allow us to sharpen our ideas.

These help us understand the issues we are grappling with better because we see things from different points of view. I have found in my work that conversations with people holding divergent political and social views have helped to deepen my understanding of the challenges facing our communities today, and has contributed to strengthened activism among those participants.

Mao Zedong also thought diversity of thinking was a good thing when he declared the Communist Party’s policy as “…letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend…”

The challenge comes in how we enable that contestation in a world where nuance is lacking, when opposites collide, and where people – particularly those at the margins / not in power – are fundamentally impacted by what is said.

A good starting point for any conversation is to fully interrogate your own point of view and how you arrived at it. Everyone is influenced by their environment and the information they encounter. We cannot be neutral about the things that shape our thinking, and are obliged to review them critically.

This applies to our family and cultural upbringings, our education, which media we consume, and who we hang around with. It is no accident that conservative and exclusionary politics is on the rise globally – this is a phenomenon that has been influenced by the media and other spaces controlled by particular groups. Have we critically examined our ideas, how we developed them, and why we believe them?

My second filter is to ask myself whether my ideas impact the dignity of others. Does what I think diminish the inherent humanity of other people? Does it deny them the opportunity and space to be fully human? If it does, I need to think even more critically of how and why I formed my ideas and question whether I should still believe these things.

If what I believe in takes away from the dignity of others and puts them at risk, then I have to be honest in confronting the reasons for my position, and then think seriously about changing my mind.

We can then take that critical reflective approach into our sober debates. We articulate our positions with respect for the listener and for the subject we are discussing. If I can’t engage with respect, or can only argue my position when I am loosened by the wiles of whiskey, it points to a flaw in my own thinking.

I must then ask myself what I need to change in myself. We must listen to understand, not to rebut. If someone presents a view that we find noxious, we must first try to understand the reasons for that view so that our response is better informed, and can start a journey of change.

There are few things more energising and transformative than honest and rigorous debate. If it is based on a critical view of our own positions, a genuine interest in learning more, and a real commitment to change, a good argument will do a great deal in challenging the polarisation that is tearing our world apart. We must not be afraid of conflict, but we must learn how to do it with care, love, and honesty.