Aiming toward civil discourse in our divided nation

What I hoped to help students in my classes learn to do is listen, especially to others with whom they may not agree. The process is called “civil discourse,” and it often seems missing in our conversations though it is essential to living in a democracy.

Discussion is like a tennis match, hitting the argument back and forth trying to win the game. It’s the style of talk radio and television shows, a verbal sparring match. Putting a label on someone means you block your own intellectual growth in the process.

Dialogue is different because it requires active listening to the other person, especially when you don’t agree with her or his argument. Dialogue

does not require you to submit to another point of view other than your own, but only that you learn something.

Politically speaking, I am more of an independent, trying to find what candidates say they believe and equally how those beliefs translate into policies. I am not a single-issue voter either. I try to look at candidates’ positions on many issues.

The other day I got into dialog with a political conservative, discovering in the process some thoughts that make sense to me, what he called the bedrock of conservative political theory since the beginning of our republic.

First, he said is that liberty is the most important quality of our republic, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as Jefferson wrote. He pointed to the first amendment of our constitution as the key to what the founders meant by liberty — the right to speak and write freely without fear of retaliation, the freedom to worship as one chooses including the separation of church and state, and the freedom of the press.

Second, he argued that conservatives believe in limited government. The closer to the people the better. With this argument, he said that it was thus necessary to limit spending and not build up national debts which get passed on from one generation to the next.

Third, he said conservatives believed in equal opportunity not necessarily equal outcomes. Fourth, he suggested conservatives believed in the rule of law, that no one was above the law, and that it should be fair and impartial.

Fifth, he said conservatives believed in the balance of power in government. In dictatorships, the ruler makes the law and is above it. In democracies, the law should apply equally.

Over a second cup of coffee, he said he was worried about the state of his political philosophy and that of the nation. He cited the incredible rise of our national debt, the politicization of our judiciary, the use of religion as a political tool, and the influence of money on our decision-making.

I listened to him more than I talked. I told him what made sense to me and what didn’t.

For example, I shared with him a common commitment to free speech but suggested that in the age of the Internet we needed to figure out what the limits might be, using the old notion that it is not responsible to cry fire in a crowded movie house, any more than made private information public.

We parted friends. We found some common values and beliefs and some that separated us. Neither of us raised our voices nor labeled the other with a tag that didn’t fit.

We engaged in civil discourse. That’s what makes for a healthy democratic republic.