On a visit to Barcelona last week, I learned a great deal about the City’s pioneering role in developing "the city as a commons." I also learned that crystallizing a new commons paradigm – even in a city committed to cooperatives and open digital networks – comes with many gnarly complexities.
The Barcelona city government is led by former housing activist Ada Colau, who was elected mayor in May 2015. She is a leader of the movement that became the political party Barcelona En Comú (“Barcelona in Common”). Once in office, Colau halted the expansion of new hotels, a brave effort to prevent “economic development” (i.e., tourism) from hollowing out the city’s lively, diverse neighborhoods. As a world city, Barcelona is plagued by a crush of investors and speculators buying up real estate, making the city unaffordable for ordinary people.
Barelona En Comú may have won the mayor’s office, but it controls only 11 of the 44 city council seats. As a result, any progress on the party’s ambitious agenda requires the familiar maneuvering and arm-twisting of conventional city politics. Its mission also became complicated because as a governing (minority) party, Barelona En Comú is not just a movement, it must operationally assist the varied needs of a large urban economy and provide all sorts of public services: a huge, complicated job.
What happens when activist movements come face-to-face with such administrative realities and the messy pressures of representative politics? This is precisely why the unfolding drama of Barelona En Comú is instructive for commoners. Will activists transform conventional politics and government systems into new forms of governance -- or will they themselves be transformed and abandon many of their original goals?
The new administration clearly aspires to shake things up in positive, transformative ways. Besides fostering greater participation in governance, Barelona En Comú hopes to fortify and expand what it calls the “commons collaborative economy” – the cooperatives, commons and neighborhood projects that comprise a remarkable 10% of the city economy through 1,300 ventures.
For many people, the Thanksgiving holiday this week and the holiday season around the corner bring the likelihood of difficult conversations and out-right fights around the dinner table. Talk of politics and other hot topics can be tricky to navigate with family and friends – especially when we don’t see eye to eye – and it seems like the loud, divisive election season might only make holiday conflicts harder to avoid this year.
NCDD will continue to carry on our #BridgingOurDivides campaign through the holidays because we recognize that the holiday season can be a time when the divides our country is grappling with become most personal and hard to deal with, especially when Uncle Bob is on his third beer.
So to help folks enter the holiday with a game plan for productive, thoughtful conversations, we at NCDD want to share some tips and resources that you can use to help keep the family dinner conversations more about genuine dialogue and understanding despite differences than heated rhetoric and emotional outbursts.
- Be an active listener: Listening is key to respectful conversations. Be sure that you are really seeking to hear and understand what’s being said, not just looking the next moment to interject or thinking about what you’ll say to argue their last point. Be sure to give the person your talking with your full attention – look at them, show you are listening with verbal or non-verbal affirmations (like saying “I see” or nodding), and ask clarifying questions about what they’ve said. Modeling active listening invites the other person to reciprocate when it’s your turn to talk.
- Keep an open mind: Dialogue is most successful when we are open enough to learn something new and even admit that we might be wrong. Be open to others’ ideas and perspectives, to learning something new, to questioning your assumptions, and suspend your judgments for as long as you can. If you hear something that makes you angry or offended, take a moment to think whether your own biases are at play, and take the chance to ask for clarification or for them to say it in a different way. Misunderstandings frequently come from our own assumptions about what someone means, so asking about it can help prevent hurt feelings and breakdowns in communication.
- Be curious. The opinions that we hold are usually grounded in a deeper set of values or broader outlook that we hold as important. So ask questions that seek to understand the values, interests, fears, or hopes that underlie a position or opinion you disagree with rather than just reacting against it. Being genuinely curious about what’s important to the other person can open up space for more meaningful dialogue. Focusing conversation on our deeper beliefs, values, and hopes gets at the core of what’s important to us and is a place where we can find more understanding.
- Discuss stories rather than debating facts: Stories from your life or that both of you can relate to can help make space for personal connection and perspective taking that can shift an argument to a discussion. Especially in political conversations, telling stories can help you illustrate your points while circumventing disagreement over specific facts or statistics. Sharing a story during an argument can also help slow things down and build empathy, which can often help shift the tone back towards a more positive exchange.
- Look for common ground: If you find yourself in an acrimonious debate, try shifting the conversation toward what you can agree on. If it’s a friend or family member, think about what interests, experiences, or beliefs you know you share in common and invite reflection on them. Even if you hold different opinions, is there a shared value that you both bring to the specific issue? Do you both have similar hopes for the future? Bringing discussion back to important things we share in common can help us realize that we’re not so far apart in many cases.
- Try to end on a positive note: Even if you don’t agree in the end, that’s OK. Thank them for their willingness to talk with you before you’re done, or acknowledge that you understand more of their perspective now and maybe even learned something. Disagreements are often healthy and don’t mean people can’t get along just fine. Ending the conversation by reaffirming your appreciation and respect for one another promotes better conversations in the future, and it’s much better than someone getting up from the table and storming out.
In addition to our quick tips above, NCDD has tons more resources that might help you have difficult conversations and good dialogue in our Resource Center. If you’re looking for some additional go-to resources, consider these:
Even if there are fights and arguments, we hope some of these tips and resources will help you navigate your holiday gatherings better than the past, and maybe even help you begin to bridge some divides. Whatever happens during your Thanksgiving dinner with friends or family, we are wishing you all a safe and positive weekend.
Donald Trump’s speaking style is extraordinarily paratactic. That is, he utters declarative sentences without any of the explicit transitional words that can explain why sentences fit together. No “therefore’s,” “on the other hand’s,” or even “well, I think’s.” He just plunges in. Many listeners perceive the content of his various sentences to be logically unrelated. However, he is remarkably repetitive when he speaks at any length, so the unity of his speech derives from his returning to the same phrases. Finally, he uses “I” sentences overwhelmingly, plus “you” when he’s talking to someone in particular. He makes relatively rare use of the third person. We could name his style “paratactic/egocentric.”
I’ve been arguing that the way we organize our thoughts affects our ability to deliberate with others (to listen responsively to what they say). As I note in this video, some people hold such scattered thoughts that you can’t grab onto their argument in order to understand and engage it. Others have such centralized networks of ideas that all you can do is assess their one core principle (which might be individual freedom, equity, or God). If you happen to disagree with it, there’s no way to route around it. A better structure is connected, complex, and not overly centralized.
By this standard, Trump’s rhetoric is disastrous for deliberation. The network formed by his sentences manages to be disconnected except insofar as he repeats a few nodes and connects all his ideas to Donald Trump (which one cannot take as one’s own idea without becoming personally subservient to him).
My notion of what counts as good talk could be biased by class. After all, one of the things you learn as you accumulate years of education and pile on degrees is parataxis: connecting ideas by using explicit transitional words. That is either a sign of superior reasoning or a way for a white-collar elite to identify its own superiority. (Paging doctors Habermas and Bourdieu for a consult on that question.) Likewise, talking in the third person about ideas and institutions is either essential to deliberation or an evasion of personal authenticity. Some read Trump as honest and view more objective speakers as evasive.
I’ve been developing this view of deliberative rhetoric since long before I cared about Donald Trump. It’s in We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, pp. 50-2. I oppose and reject Trump for many reasons other than his rhetorical style. Therefore, I don’t think I’m just criticizing his style to score political points against him. But it’s worth thinking about whether the rhetorical standards suggested by my theory are class-biased.
See also: tracking change in a group that discusses issues; assessing a discussion; 10 theses about ethics, in network terms; structured moral pluralism (a proposal).
The Florida Constitution Revision Commission has more influence than most Floridians realize, and many don’t even know it exists. Commissioned every 20 years, this group of unelected appointees will have the power to put constitutional changes directly on the November 2018 ballot. Students will have the opportunity to learn about the revision process and the history of Florida’s constitution from the state’s leading scholars on the topic and members of past Constitution Revision Commissions.
This type of revision process is unique to Florida, providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to directly influence the contents of Florida’s constitution. Invited students will draft constitutional amendments, which will then be submitted to the 2017-2018 Constitution Revision Commission.
Food and lodging are provided by the Bob Graham Center for Public Service. However, invited students are expected to arrange travel to and from Gainesville and arrive at Pugh Hall — centrally located on the University of Florida campus — by 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 10.
The Summit will begin at 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 10, and end at noon on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017.
Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017. Accepted students will receive notification by Monday, Jan. 16, and will be required to confirm that they are attending by Friday, Jan. 20.
The article, Talking about . . . what’s next after the election? was posted on the Living Room Conversations site just before the US Election in Fall 2016. Living Room Conversations are a structured format of dialogue designed to hold space for participants across the ideological spectrum to come together and explore each other’s point of view. The original article can be found in full below and on Living Room Conversations’ site here.
From the site…
The presidential election brought attention to our political system… and our differences. Now we need to restore relationships around our shared hopes and dreams and get our country focused on the work of governing. But how exactly will we do this? This conversation allows us to start exploring ‘what’s next?’. Whether we feel elated or defeated, whatever our differences – let’s insist on finding the deeper unities we can rest upon and defend. Generosity. Goodness. Kindness. Freedom. Respect.
Click here if you would like a pdf of the following topic material to share with your cohost and friends.
Background reading (optional)
While you don’t need to be an expert on this topic, sometimes people want background information. Our partner, AllSides, has prepared a variety of articles reflecting multiple sides of this topic.
Want to listen to an actual Living Room Conversation?
Check out LRC Radio.
Now that you are all together, here we go!
This Living Room Conversation flows through five rounds of questions and a closing. Some rounds ask you to answer each question. Others feature multiple questions that serve as conversation starters — you need only respond to the one or two you find most interesting.
Before you begin your conversation, please go over the Conversation Ground Rules with your participants.
One. Why are we here?
What interested you or drew you to this topic?
Two. Your core values
Answer one or more of the following:
– what sense of purpose or duty guides you in life? What is your mission statement?
– what would your best friend say about who you are and what makes you tick?
– what are your hopes and concerns for your community and/or the country, now and long-term?
Three. What are your biggest concerns now?
Remember that the goal of this Living Room Conversation is for each participant to listen to and learn about the different opinions within the group to see where you might share interests, intentions and goals.
Answer one or more of the following questions:
– How do you feel and what do you think about the election, now that it’s over?
– Have any of your close relationships been harmed due to politics this year? What happened?
– How open are you and your friends to hearing different perspectives to reach a shared goal?
– Will you reach out to repair relationships that have been harmed? What will you do first?
– What would you like our elected representatives to work on first?
Four. Reflection
Answer one or more of the following questions:
– in one sentence, share what was most meaningful or valuable to you in the experience of this Living Room Conversation;
– what new understanding or common ground did you find within this topic?
– has this conversation changed your perception of anyone in this group, including yourself?
Five. Accomplishment and moving forward
Answer both of the following questions:
– name one important thing that was accomplished here;
– is there a next step you would like to take based upon the conversation you just had?
Closing
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About Living Room Conversations
Living Room Conversations is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 as a result of a transpartisan partnership focused on revitalizing civil discourse through conversation. Living Room Conversations offers an open-source format to facilitate structured conversations among people of differing views and backgrounds. Through these conversations we hope to increase understanding of various issues, build relationships, and pave the way for collaborative and inclusive problem-solving.
Follow on Twitter: @LivingRoomConvo
Resource Link: www.livingroomconversations.org/whats_next_after_the_election
