Who hasn’t been affected by the divisive nature of our political discourse these days? Friends, neighbors, and family of different political persuasions won’t talk to each other about controversial issues for fear of causing offense or being shunned. Meanwhile, the national dialogue increasingly takes place within social media silos, leaving us feeling disconnected from our fellow citizens.
What’s to be done about this? According to Joan Blades, co-founder of Living Room Conversations, you can’t solve this problem by simply tuning in only to your political tribe’s messages. You need to find ways to reach out and listen to people with different viewpoints in a respectful manner.
Living Room Conversations is one way for people to not only communicate with one another about their values and viewpoints, but to find connection and learn to care about each other as people. From caring, she argues, comes the willpower to tackle our most pressing problems together.
[For more on this story by JILL SUTTIE, go to https://greatergood.berkeley.e...the_political_divide]
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