Deliberative Citizenship Initiative

Building Democracy One Conversation at a Time

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You Are the Only Person You Will Ever Totally Agree With

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Two people shaking hands

Charlotte Spears ’24 (DCI Fellow)

Long before I knew the difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives or what referendum meant, I helped my mother canvas for a state politician in Georgia. The politician was a young woman looking to represent a district in Atlanta. I could not tell you a single one of her policies, but something she said to me before we walked around her neighborhood and asked for votes has stuck with me. She said, “The only politician you will ever completely agree with is yourself.”

Many years later, I make a point to recite this quote to friends, classmates, and participants in the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative. I find it particularly helpful for a few reasons. The first reason was likely her intended message: it’s important to acknowledge that when voting, we can’t expect a politician to check every single box we demand of them. We may agree on eighty percent of pressing issues, but not all. This is an uncomfortable truth, but it aided her campaign by showing voters they did not need to completely agree with her in order to have a compelling reason to vote for her. (She did end up winning).

But the second reason is ultimately what has led this quote to stick with me. If the only politician you will ever completely agree with is yourself, then you are also probably the only person that you will ever totally agree with. There is no one on Earth that will ever side with you 100 percent of the time. So, when you step into a debate in a classroom or over drinks, be careful when grouping your peers into supporters and dissenters or into friends and foes. Because likely, you can agree with all of them on one thing and disagree with all of them on something else.

This mindset has changed how I participate in group conversations. Instead of ganging up on one person who thinks differently than the rest of the group, I try to find out what he and I have in common that will put us on the same side. From personal experience, it’s easy for someone else to do the same after it has been modeled. Eventually, conversations are no longer blue versus red, or male versus female, but a fluid mix of opinions and agreements. A healthy dose of humility in personal beliefs makes us realize that they aren’t necessarily widely held.

I have also seen this play out in the D Team deliberations that I facilitate. Some people can agree on their opinions regarding abortion but disagree on what type of speech should be regulated. Or, some people agree that abortion is morally bad, but disagree on whether or not the government should regulate it. There is very little hostility, if any at all, in these D Teams. And I believe it is due to the fact that people are free to agree and disagree with everyone. The more often these types of conversations are held, the more we realize the uniqueness of our own opinions, the less we group our opponents into a single box, and the less we commit ourselves to always and fully agreeing with a politician or an entire political party.

How Empathic Intelligence Can Improve Our Discourse: Reflecting on Christy Vines’s Visit to Davidson

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Christy Vines Fall 2023 Empathic Intelligence in the Classroom Workshop

Grace Gallagher ’26 (DCI Fellow)

This fall semester, the DCI brought Christy Vines to campus for our Fall Speaker Series. She led a workshop, screening of her film, Dialogue Lab: America, and a campus lecture to share her various thoughts and experiences about empathic intelligence with the Davidson community.

Before hearing her speak, I did not know anything about Empathic Intelligence (EI), but her events taught me a lot about it and provided me with a new perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her thoughts, and I have found several applications of her points to our work with the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative.

First, she stressed the importance of being “effective” rather than being “right” in conversations with others. I have noticed through my D Teams, the forums that we have had, and through DCI Fellows meetings and discussions, that adopting this mindset makes deliberating much more productive and rewarding. Many of our most contentious topics in the world are topics with varying perspectives and without a “correct” answer, or without an answer we can all agree on. For example, one of our D Team meetings was about abortion. When individuals disagree about the ethics of abortion, the most productive action that can be taken is explaining to others where your opinion comes from and why you believe what you believe to make sure that others understand different perspectives. Abortion is an issue in our society that lacks agreement, making these conversations especially beneficial.

Another point that Christy Vines discussed was the idea that you do not need to change someone’s opinion very much at all in order to have a significant impact. She used the metaphor of a gauge that moves someone 5 degrees in the moment, such as in the direction of a large ship. At first this does not seem like much of a change, but that 5 degrees will keep them going in a new direction for a long time and cause them to end up in a very different place. Simply expressing where your opinion comes from can potentially provide someone with that 5 degree gauge rotation that informs, challenges, and orients them towards a different perspective.

In my opinion, these two points seem incredibly important and beneficial to think about when discussing contentious topics with others. However, these ideas are both much easier to talk about and understand than to utilize when deliberating. When deliberating about a topic that is important to you, I believe that it can sometimes be really difficult to follow the deliberative dispositions and agreements because your emotions can overtake what you are saying, but these ideas can help individuals to refocus their points more effectively.

I have had the opportunity to participate in DCI deliberations from the perspective of both a deliberator and a facilitator. Last Fall, before I became a DCI Fellow, I was a deliberator in the D Team series on elections, focusing on election security, fairness, and accessibility. As a deliberator, I experienced some of my deliberations having very cohesive opinions and others with opposing views, especially regarding recent elections. This year, I am a DCI Fellow, and I have experienced both of these different scenarios as a facilitator. As a deliberator, it is much harder to comprehend if others are gaining any value from your points and whether they are believing you are wrong or truly trying to understand your view. As a facilitator, I believe it is much easier to recognize when someone’s point is being effective and engaging others into their view. This is apparent when participants begin to let their guards down, connect with others further, and realize new ideas. 

Thanksgiving With a Side of Politics

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Pumpkins and squashes at harvest time

By Sara Copic, DCI Assistant Director

It’s a commonplace saying in American culture that we shouldn’t talk about politics at family gatherings. And though American political polarization is nothing new, recent Israeli military raids in Gaza in response to the October 7th Hamas attack in Israel have the potential to deepen our political divides and leave us feeling more emotionally reactive, more prone to blaming one another, and potentially less willing to spend time together at Thanksgiving. Recent landmark Supreme Court rulings, former President Donald Trump’s ongoing trials, and an upcoming presidential election make the political stakes feel even higher.

What practices or intentions might help us have a Thanksgiving that connects us with our families, communities, and friends—and what should we leave at the door? One thing we have control over and that can help us connect is the practice of approaching a disagreement with genuine curiosity.

All too often, when we get into a discussion about a social or political problem, we fall into a debate—you have your reasons, I have mine, now let’s figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. But if we’re gathering to connect, as we hope to do at Thanksgiving, debate is likely not the right tool for the occasion. Instead, asking how someone came to hold their beliefs and why those beliefs are so important to them with openness and curiosity can better aid connection.

There’s a fine line between asking “why do you think that?” in the spirit of debate and in the spirit of curiosity. But asking questions that aim toward understanding rather than adversarial debate can show someone you really care, rather than that you’re looking for a fight. One way to show genuine curiosity is not to follow up on those questions right away with opposing positions and arguments, but to sit with where the other person is coming from. Making space for their beliefs without arguing against them can be a way of showing acceptance for someone as a person, even if you ultimately disagree with her worldview.

An objector might ask, “But what if I find my family members’ views morally problematic? What if what they advocate is, in my opinion, unjust?” The idea here may be that we must—perhaps for reasons of moral integrity, or for the sake of doing the right thing—disabuse our family and friends of the problematic views they hold. Indeed, we shouldn’t simply let a disagreement lie indefinitely or condone a serious injustice where we see it. But might it be possible and even preferable to leave the business of moral and political argumentation aside in some contexts so that we may foster a mutual care for each other, and lay the foundation for more productive disagreements in the future? By approaching our deep disagreements with curiosity first, we may be able to build the trust needed in order to have the hard conversations we would like to have together.

If this approach resonates with you, or you would like to learn more about it, check out some of our programming from this semester in which Christy Vines explains the idea of empathic intelligence and how to harness it to connect across our lines of difference.

Want more Thanksgiving inspiration? Check out posts by Carla Cole and Dalton Landon for more perspectives about how to approach holiday connection and conversation.

The Subjectivity Trap

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Arshi Husain facilitating a deliberation

Arshiya Shirin Husain ’26 (DCI Fellow)

“Subjective,” I’ve noticed, is a word that gets thrown around a lot in today’s day and age—not only in colloquial conversations, but also in mainstream media and politics.

I often hear people use subjectivity as a means to settle debates: “Oh, but morality is subjective,” one might say in order to resolve an argument on abortion or gun violence. While I can see how this is a reasonable defense, for reasons I’ve never been able to articulate well enough, it’s always bothered me.

The issue with the “subjectivity argument” (as I call it), in my opinion, is that it leaves no room for healthy debate, dialogue, or discussion.

My time so far as a DCI Fellow has taught me that there is an important distinction between respecting different opinions and understanding different opinions. Perhaps our world is too quick to do the former without paying any heed to the latter. In other words, in our attempt to become “respectful individuals,” we stop asking questions that are often difficult, yet necessary, to ask. In an ideal world, we want respect to go hand-in-hand with understanding.

As an example, I might not agree with somebody who proposes that the United States should have stricter immigration laws. But asking questions such as, “What makes you say that?” or, “Can you tell me more about why you think this?” will help me discover what the other person values and how their own life experiences come into play. Hearing the other side of the story might not change my own political views, but it will ignite a conversation that will allow me to humanize the people on the “other side.” Whereas in a world where I never asked the aforementioned questions, I would continue to feel disconnected from those with different opinions than mine. In the long run, this could lead to issues such as internal resentment being built up on either side.

As a DCI Fellow, I completed a series of lessons by the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) titled Perspectives. One thing that struck me was the idea of how the same values can lie at the core of different opinions. For instance, you might value protecting all forms of life. Perhaps, for Person A, this could mean that they identify as a Republican and take a pro-life stance in the debate on abortion. For Person B, it could mean that they identify as a Democrat and advocate for stricter gun-control in America.

The point here is that disagreements will always exist, as will the subjective nature of most opinions and beliefs. Does this mean that there’s simply no point in arguing or deliberating? Certainly not. If anything, continued disagreement should push societies to engage in even more dialogue to try and see how people might see the world through different lenses.

Additionally, despite degrees of subjectivity, we might often find ourselves surprised to discover the similarities that lie at the hearts of supposedly different arguments. While our beliefs may differ, it is likely that our values do not.

A preconceived notion many have regarding deliberation is that all parties have to reach an agreement, since it is easy to think about deliberation as being only applicable when we are trying to come to a decision about something practical. The DCI taught me that this might be an underlying reason for why we may be afraid to engage in discussions in the first place. But if we all came into conversations with the goal to simply understand, rather than to convince, the world would be a better place.

This concept is further explored in Chapter 2 of Why We Argue (And How We Should): A Guide to Political Disagreement in an Age of Unreason by Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse. Aikin and Talisse emphasize the importance of developing a sense of cognitive command, a concept that focuses on controlled thinking and making active decisions rather than passive ones.

What good does it do anybody to move through the world not knowing why people think the way they do, or act the way they do? Sure, morality and beliefs may be subjective. But should we also not try to unearth the mysteries that lie beneath the surface? Should we not try to investigate the root causes of this subjectivity? If for no other reason than to solidify our own beliefs, as individuals.

Society has led us to believe that respecting different opinions and questioning different opinions is mutually exclusive. But this is simply a logical fallacy that, in the long run, only creates further divide and polarization. Look beyond the false dichotomy and you’re likely to find that we become more tolerant of others’ opinions when we can appreciate the reasoning behind them. After all, empathy is closely tied with the ability to understand others.

The Mediums of Deliberation: How Does Each Create Meaningful Conversation and Promote Community? 

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AI image of people deliberating at a table

Logan Jain ’26 (DCI Fellow)

Like so many of my peers, interacting in the Zoom space is nothing new to me. While the necessary constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic provided the initial introduction, I still regularly find myself on Zoom for a variety of reasons. Frequently, I’m thankful for the technological impact of Zoom, allowing me access to people and information that I might not otherwise be privy to.  

This was the case a few weeks ago when sickness prevented me from physically attending the DCI’s first facilitator training session of the year, but a well-integrated virtual option allowed me to still take part. A week later, no longer ill, I attended the second training session in-person. Each session featured a mock deliberation, and comparing my experience in this activity across the two mediums allowed me to think about the benefits and drawbacks of each as a conduit for constructive and meaningful deliberation.  

One of the stated goals of the DCI is to build community via deliberation. When we hear the word community, there can be an inclination to view it as rooted in a physical location (college community, neighborhood community, etc.). However, digital platforms disrupt this notion, allowing deliberative communities to form that transcend physical location.  

My deliberative group on Zoom was geographically diverse, and also more diverse along racial and generational lines than my in-person group.   

This was certainly no coincidence; the town of Davidson is over 85% white compared to a national average of 60%. And because of the College, most of my in-person group was composed of fellow students. Meaningful deliberation requires a diversity of viewpoints, and one way to increase that diversity is through participation from individuals with different life experiences, demographic backgrounds, and identities. The geographic segregation of America makes this difficult, but virtual engagement makes it more possible, allowing individuals to join the collective act of deliberation regardless of their location.   

Community-building also relies on the quality and authenticity of interaction. During my in-person mock deliberation, I found nuanced elements of human interaction, such as eye contact and body language, to be a critical part of this process. The conversation flowed in a manner that I hadn’t experienced on Zoom, and I left feeling a deeper connection to the individuals whom I deliberated with. 

Perhaps this was also a product of my concentration. On Zoom, I found it more challenging to feel actively engaged in the conversation as the effects of staring at a computer screen sapped my focus. Face-to-face, I was invigorated by the emotions of those around me and felt like it took far less effort to maintain a necessary level of engagement.  

Ultimately, rather than determine that one medium is unequivocally better than the other for deliberation, I came to the conclusion that each has its own strengths and weaknesses and has an important role in furthering the DCI’s mission. Some elements of the in-person experience that aid in building community are lost over Zoom. However, Zoom increases the accessibility of deliberation, exposing individuals to viewpoints that they might not otherwise encounter in their daily lives.  

From a pessimistic perspective, one could argue that something is lost in each medium. However, I prefer a more optimistic stance, appreciating each medium for the unique deliberative experience it has to offer. 

Note: The image above was generated by ChatGPT4.