A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America by Brian F. Harrison
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 2.5 MB
Overview: Get your head out of your @*&. Snowflake. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. There is much discussion today about the decline in civility in American politics. Couple this phenomenon with the fracturing and hardening of political attitudes, and one might wonder how deliberative democracy, much less political civility, can survive if we can’t even talk to people with whom we disagree. Insults are thrown, feelings are hurt, and family and friends, at best, decide to avoid political discussions altogether. At worst, arguments cause social groups to break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can’t even speak to people with whom we disagree?
As this book argues, we need a new way to discuss politics, one that encourages engagement and room for dissent. One way to approach this challenge is to consider how public opinion changes. By and large, public opinion is sticky and change occurs very slowly; one exception to this is the more recent and significant change in public opinion toward LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. The marriage equality movement is considered one of the great success stories of political advocacy, but why was it so successful? Brian F. Harrison argues that one of the most powerful reasons is that a broad range of marriage equality advocates were willing to engage in contentious and sometimes uncomfortable discussion about their opinions on the matter. They started everyday conversations that got people out of their echo chambers and encouraged them to start listening and thinking. But the question remains, if simple conversation can work in one arena, can it work in others? And how and where does one approach such conversation?
Genre: Non-Fiction > General
Download Instructions:
http://gestyy.com/w8G68k
http://gestyy.com/w8G68v