Deliberative Citizenship Initiative

Building Democracy One Conversation at a Time

Owen Brent-Levenstein

The Challenges of Everyday Deliberation

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illustration of people arguing across a table with a mediator in between

By Owen Brent-Levenstein ’27 (DCI Fellow)

During my spring D-team meeting on the opioid crisis, the group of nine community members and students were clearly eager to start deliberating. Before we could get started, I had to remind everyone that to start, we had to read over the conversation agreements. While reading over the conversation agreements is no one’s favorite part of a deliberation, it plays an important role. By making everyone formally acknowledge that they were agreeing to these norms, the participants felt a responsibility to uphold them, and kept the conversation agreements in mind throughout the deliberation. The participants ended up getting what they signed up for, a civil discussion on an important topic troubling our country. 

Unfortunately, the majority of deliberation does not happen under these ideal conditions. Whether it is debating with friends about the NBA Finals or arguing with family members over contentious political issues, disagreements often occur in unmediated spaces. Most of the time, people do not agree to disagree civilly, follow a certain set of norms, or allow a facilitator to step in when conversation gets overly contentious. 

While our facilitator training can be useful when facilitating DCI events, when working with people who are not accustomed to the norms of proper deliberation, it can be a struggle to help conversation stay productive and civil. Furthermore, in everyday conversation and debate there is no facilitator to lean on, and people have not already agreed defer to you as the person who will keep the conversation civil and on track. Reminding a family member to “approach fellow deliberators’ stories, experiences, and arguments with curiosity, not hostility” will likely not lead to tremendous results. Thus, it is crucial that we find ways of impacting and deepening everyday conversations outside of our formal deliberation techniques. 

To do so, I believe that leading by example is crucial. While there may not be an allotted time for everyone to read through conversation norms before a disagreement, by modeling productive deliberative behavior, one can strengthen a conversation. Instead of telling others that they need to be more respectful in deliberation, it is crucial that we put our money where our mouth is and do the work ourselves. While it is easy to point out what you think others are doing poorly, making a real effort to be as productive and respectful as possible takes real work, and will likely garner the respect of others. 

If one can commit to being respectful of differing opinions, not talking over others, taking other people’s arguments at their highest, looking for common ground, and accepting that winning an argument isn’t the goal, it’s coming to a mutual understanding, then others are more likely to follow suit. When a member of a conversation is incredibly respectful, it becomes uncomfortable for people to be disrespectful and illuminates others’ unproductive behavior. 

While leading by example may not always be enough, it is the best place to start. It changes one’s role from being a facilitator of a deliberation to being a model deliberator in a conversation. By ensuring you exemplify the behavior you want to see from others, you can practice what you preach and ensure that even without the formal constraints of a DCI deliberation, everyday disagreements go as smoothly as possible.

The Value in Seeing Others’ End Goals

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two figures facing each other, blue and red, with a star between them.

Owen Brent-Levenstein ’27 (DCI Fellow)

As a kid I understood the difference between Democrats and Republicans as this: Republicans take from the poor to give to the rich, while Democrats take from the rich to give to the poor. With this dichotomy, the choice was obvious. One side was the moral choice, wanting what was best for the world, while the other side was greedy, wanting to keep as much for themselves and exploit others to do so.

However, my experience facilitating a discussion after the DCI Income and Wealth Disparities forum showed how this assumption about people’s morals was not true. 12-year-old me would think that anyone arguing against policies such as redistribution or higher minimum wage were greedy and unsympathetic. In listening to the wide array of arguments across the spectrum of political ideologies, it was clear that this was not the case.

Someone who worked with unions talked about how high minimum wages have incentivized automation, meaning even more people lost jobs. Another member talked about the fear of how higher taxes and inflation can end up devastating the lower and middle class. Whether I agreed with what they said or not, one thing was clear, these views came from a desire to create the best world and economy for the majority of people, a goal that lined up exactly with mine.

This helped show me that finding common end goals can help everyone be more receptive to the other side. The goal can be as specific as wanting higher wages for all and as vague as wanting a better world for the majority of people. When everyone can realize they are working towards the same result, it can bring the group closer together and can turn a heated argument into more of an intellectual disagreement.

When the group can establish a clear end goal, it naturally brings them together. It’s easy to see the other side in a malicious light when you feel like their opinion is so far from your own. It makes it even worse when you feel as if their value system is far different, and doubt whether their morals are in line with your own. Finding a common goal can quell a lot of these doubts and points of tension between groupmates, and in turn rally the group around solving the common goal. It transforms points of heavy contention into a group problem-solving effort, bringing a sense of comradery and commonality to the deliberation.

Finding a common end goal also turns the discussion from more of an emotionally charged event, towards an intellectual disagreement. The more we are able to see that both sides are morally fighting for similar goals, we can focus the discussion on the specifics of how to achieve those goals. This can lessen the emotions that come with the topic that is being deliberated and allow participants to focus more on the logic and reasoning behind the arguments.

Overall, finding a common end goal, no matter how vague it is, can bring the deliberating group together, and turn the deliberation from a tense argument to a constructive problem-solving exercise.