Typically, conducting and engaging in a conversation is not hard at all. But unfortunately, the same cannot be said about a political conversation.
For the last 3 years of my life, I have been a part of speech and debate, an organization focused on teaching individuals how to use their voice. But while I have been taught how to use my voice, I have never been told when to use it.
Nowadays, discussions about politics never seem straightforward. Both sides believe that they are right and the conversation usually tilts into a back and forth exchange, and eventually, into a full-blown argument.
I always have a feeling that each conversation which even remotely enters the realm of politics–whether with complete strangers or old friends that I have known for years–will end up going south. This is because the conversations, unlike competitive debate, never actually have an official winner or loser. For me, over the past few years, these dialogues have become less respectful and more stressful.
Whether the discourse is during dinner or during a classroom discussion, it has turned increasingly black and white or red and blue.
My biggest concern is that we tend to be advocating more than listening and persuading more than understanding. Overall, there’s no surprise that we all express divergent opinions, but entering a conversation with the preconceived mindset that other points of view are morally flawed is not the best idea.
Two years ago, select football players within the National Football League decided to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality against African Americans. One day, as I was hanging out with a friend, his older brother came up to us and started discussing the topic.
He used to be a passionate fan of those players. But now, he became visibly angry and began to talk faster and faster. He started talking about the importance of the national anthem and arguing the players’ actions were just useless. I started explaining the reason behind the kneeling, but he would wave off every explanation that I presented.
The conversation evolved to the point where I no longer wanted to talk. There was no purpose anymore. He clearly did not want to listen to me, but wanted me to understand his side. As the conversation played out, I began noticing that he began portraying actions he didn’t agree with, as having bad intentions. By doing so, he evaded interacting with the actual message behind the actions.
My experience with these types of discussions is that they not only exist in everyday conversations, but also across a variety of social media platforms. Social media holds the potential to both deliver the most recent news and become a pervasive platform that stokes hatred, fear, and anger. While political awareness is important, thinking in an echo chamber renders all of its impacts useless.
I saw this most clearly represented on Twitter during the 2016 Presidential Elections. Both candidates at the time faced intense scrutiny. But what I noticed most was that most of the discourse on the platform was not interested in the overall character or general policies of the candidates, but rather in shaping them into a figure based solely off of one specific event.
Instead of initiating discussions, those posts only produce stubborn, definitive conclusions — a dangerous precedent for any discourse.
Sadly, I do not see this sort of communication changing anytime soon. If change does occur, it certainly will not happen over a single day. All I can do is hope that all of us start to become more conscious throughout our political discussions and determine if they truly raise an opportunity to exchange ideas or are just another method of confirming our biases.
