Let’s All Keep Arguing… About Something Else

How to make the practice of discourse fun. No, seriously

In December 1914, Allied and German troops crossed no-man’s land and embraced each other in a now-famous show of humanity in the face of abject division.

Today, it’s easy to feel like our political discourse has placed us in a similar set of trenches. A 2019 Pew Research Study found that 85% of Americans believe that political discourse has become less respectful, fact-based, and substantive over the past several years.

We don’t often find ourselves changing our minds. There are a lot of modern sources of blame — social media echo-chambers and 24-hour newsmedia come to mind.

It seems that disagreeing is something that we’re less and less capable of doing peacefully. When it comes to honestly discussing an issue with an openness to facts, or changing ones’ mind, we’ve fallen out of practice.

While I’m tempted to say that we could just decide to get better at discourse in the areas upon which we’re so deeply…