Newsletter 323 — February 17, 2025
Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess
Earlier this month, Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada shared a blog post with us that she thought related to Daniel Stid's article which we posted on February 6. It is longer than we can share here, so we have published her full article as a Practitioner Reflection and are excerpting parts (along with some of our thoughts) here. Please note, Rosa's original article is heavily documented with scholarly citations. We did not carry the citations through here, as this is a less formal format. But if you are interested in finding out where she got her ideas, go to the full reflection to find out the details.
Rosa starts her essay reflecting on the current threats to liberal democracy in the U.S. She acknowledges that liberal democracy has short-comings, but notes that those who have called for its destruction as a way to fix it might be having "second thoughts as they see what that looks like." But, at the same time, she says, we cannot go back to where we were, either.
We clearly need to protect the aspects of democracy that we have come to take for granted, limited and imperfect as they may be – and, we need organized resistance ..and significant innovation...to do so.
In this post, however, she focuses on
one particular flaw of liberal democracy, one that has often been described as its "Achilles heel." The problem goes something like this: allowing free speech includes illiberal speech; yet allowing illiberal speech to proliferate creates a context where illiberal tendencies can grow, thus sowing seeds for the destruction of the liberal order.
I want to explore approaches for moving beyond this apparent paradox, approaches that have significant empirical evidence on their behalf. Yet implementing these approaches requires a great deal of patience and effort, as well as learning new ways of interacting with others beyond what is typically valued in our culture. Thus, there may be significant challenges to their widespread application.
These challenges are worth meeting, she argues, because they can not only help us deal with that paradox; they can also help us get beyond divide-and-conquer-driven hate, and strengthen what she calls our "societal immune system" — our social connections that, as Robert Putnam argued in Bowling Alone, have been diminishing for so long, at America's peril.
Rosa focuses on several strategies for bridging divides and strengthening our social connections. One is deep canvassing.
In this model, [political] canvassers are trained to ask open-ended questions and to listen at length to residents’ stories, before sharing their own personal stories related to the issue at hand. Repeated studies have shown that these respectful and non-judgmental interactions lead to a significant number of long-lasting changes in perspective toward more inclusive and compassionate stances.
She also noted that these findings on deep canvasing align with documented efforts at deradicalization.
In case, after case, after case, we find that when humans with extremist beliefs have the opportunity to participate in caring interactions with diverse others, this leads to beneficial effects. We find repeated instances that illustrate a very specific pattern: when people holding rigid belief structures are treated with care and respect, while also having the opportunity to come into contact with other points of view, they begin to connect with their own curiosity and to explore the world beyond previous narrow frames.
From this she suggests that
given that the oldest law in politics is “divide and conquer,” we might consider how we might usefully apply this knowledge about reducing polarization and hatred.
But she cautions that several distinctions are important to make. First, she says,
engaging in one-on-one or small-group caring and open-minded interactions, is not the same thing at all, as giving someone with illiberal views a stage or a megaphone.
That immediately led me to wonder who should be given a stage or a megaphone, and who should not. (She notes that this is beyond the scope of her article, and indeed, that makes sense, given how long it is). But I couldn't help contemplating what seemed to be her implication -- that it is beneficial to listen to people with illiberal views in small scale settings, but one should not do so in larger settings (by "giving them a stage"). (I may be interpreting Rosa's implication unfairly, but she does say that conflating the view that one should listen to illiberal views in one-on-one conversations with the thought that one should give those with illiberal views a stage is a "tragic mistake." ) But either way, I want to explore that issue a bit more here, as it is so important and timely.
As I read her assertion, my mind went back to the Stanford Law School controversy that Carrie Menkel Meadow wrote about early in the history of this newsletter. That post was about Stanford Law School's Federalist Society (a student-run organization), which invited Trump-appointed U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan to speak to the Law School students and faculty on March 9, 2023. As we wrote as an introduction to Carrie's letter,
Duncan reported on his experience in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: "When I arrived, the walls were festooned with posters denouncing me for crimes against women, gays, blacks and 'trans people.' Plastered everywhere were photos of the students who had invited me and fliers declaring 'You should be ASHAMED' with the last word in large red capital letters and a horror-movie font. "
Once inside, Duncan was unable to give his talk, as he was loudly and repeatedly shouted down by dozens of student protesters who were supported by at least one administrator. ...
Two days later the Dean of the Law School, Jenny Martinez and the University President, Marc Tessier-Lavinge formally apologized, which elicited further protests from the students. On March 24, Dean Martinez released a letter to the Stanford Law School students, faculty and staff addressing the matter further. In that letter, she asserted regarding academic freedom, free speech, and protests on university campuses that:
"Protest is Allowed but Disruption is Not Allowed."... and "The university’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should be implemented in ways that are consistent with its commitment to academic freedom and free speech."
In her comments, Carrie (who is a civil rights lawyer and a Stanford Law School Alum) linked to the letter written by Dean Martinez, saying that she fully agreed with it and supported it. In Carrie's words:
Dean Martinez’ memo does an excellent job of explaining why law students and lawyers in particular have additional concerns and issues in this area (and she references the earlier history of civil rights lawyers who had done to them what some progressive students are now doing to others. These are not “false equivalences” as some have indicated). I agree with her concerns that law schools (and some colleges and universities) are in danger of becoming “echo chambers” in which only certain views are tolerated and are allowed to be expressed. Lawyers and law students deal with difficult conflicts every day. That is what we do. Our discipline is supposed to provide both substantive and process standards for the achievement of justice. Given my work in law and conflict resolution, I think we must continue to look for productive avenues for dealing with highly contested and controversial issues — silencing, threats or acts of physical harm, and other “coercive” tactics are not the most productive ways to pursue these aims.
We agree with Dean Martinez and Carrie's assessment, and take it beyond law schools to the entire context of liberal democracy. So we are very hesitant to suggest that people with "illiberal views" should be denied "a stage," or otherwise deplatformed.
Of course, the key is how one defines "illiberal views." The left has long asserted that the right is a "threat to democracy," citing the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. They also cite various political maneuverings (such as gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and restrictions on easier voting) as well as particular policies (for instance the repeal of the right to abortion). Should any conservative who believes (or says they believe) that the 2020 election was stolen (or maybe just not fairly decided) be deplatformed because their ideas are "illiberal"? Should anyone who is anti-abortion be deplatformed?
Keep in mind, that the right asserts that the left is the real threat to U.S. democracy because of the way in which the left has imposed its views and beliefs on the rest of the nation. (They cite, particularly, progressive policies regarding race and gender which were forced on everyone, whether they believed in them or not, and the left's deplatforming (or censoring or canceling) people and ideas in the name of "disinformation control" whenever anyone disagreed with the progressive narrative. So, using the same logic, is it okay, now that Trump is President, to deplatform anyone who believes in gay or trans rights or DEI? It is hard to argue in favor of one, and not the other. Better, we think, to let ideas and policies live or die on their merits, not by silencing ideas or people we don't like.
All that being said, we do think that there are people who are clearly bad-faith actors — people who are attacking the very foundations of free speech and liberal democracy (not just those who oppose one particular variety of speech or democracy). These include aspiring authoritarians, media outlets which sow hate to gain audience, and, especially, foreign rivals who want to undermine our society by sowing division, hate, and confusion among the American citizenry. These people are trying to use the democratic institutions of an open society to destroy that society. It seems to us that this is the kind of "illiberal activity" that we all ought to be working together to deplatform and otherwise oppose. To be successful, however, we need to be able to clearly and accurately distinguish such defensive measures from the kind of intense but legitimate political disagreements that we ought to be encouraging.
So that's our answer to Rosa's paradox. We need to find ways to combat true illiberalism, while resisting the temptation to act illiberally ourselves. Indeed, it was the widespread perception that the left was acting illiberally that drove so many voters to the right in the last election. But that, too, is beyond the scope of this newsletter.)
Going back to Rosa's article, a second distinction she makes also relates to levels of society. What works to change attitudes at the interpersonal level is different than what works at the societal level. She explains:
Negative sanctions for exclusionary behaviors” (such as laws against hate speech) have been shown to be effective for changing behavior at a societal level. However, while these laws and sanctions may be necessary to address problematic behavior, these same consequences do not appear to affect underlying attitudes.
Clearly, both are important; many of us support laws that encourage people to refrain from harmful behavior. At the same time, many of us also want to support inner change: we want to help people grow out of hateful beliefs. What Kalla and Broockman [authors of one of the deep canvasing studies she cites] are pointing out is that while these two goals may be complementary, they each require distinct approaches.
We would agree, things that work at the interpersonal level do not work at the societal level and vice versa. So that leads to an important question that Rosa (and many others) in the "attitude change/bridging" area do not address. That is, how can effective attitude change be accomplished at the societal level? Dialogues and other small-group "bridging" activities seem to be the main way most people working in this area are trying to address hyper-polarization. But it just doesn't scale up large enough or fast enough. (There are 335 million people in the United States. If 20 people participate in a dialogue, it would take 16,750,000 dialogues to reach everyone once. Needless to say...)
Rosa then goes on to make a distinction between the use of empathic communication for "bridging work" where no one is trying to influence the other, and the use of empathic communication to get people to change their attitudes.
These two different purposes are distinct. Wanting to create greater mutual understanding and “re-humanization” of one another, is not the same thing as seeking to ethically influence another person. At the same time, whenever we are indeed seeking to ethically influence someone, working toward some mutual understanding is usually a first step.
In exploring how that happens, Rosa cites Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory.
The theory emphasizes that the fight/flight/freeze circuit of human response is different than the “social engagement” circuit which allows for complex thought and creative engagement with difference. ...when we as humans perceive threat, it lowers our social functioning and our ability to handle complex thought. This alone could be reason enough to reconsider our present cultural pattern of structuring our collaborative search for useful truths, through the underlying metaphor of “argument as battle.”
Another way to change opinions and attitudes, and develop what she calls "learning mindsets," are deliberative minipublics. These are such things as citizen assemblies, public deliberation, consensus-building processes, citizen juries, or deliberative polls. Rosa explains:
Deliberative minipublics are microcosms of the larger whole, whether that “larger whole” is a town, city, state, or country. The group is composed through random selection, similar in some ways to a jury. This microcosm of “regular people” is invited to participate in the task of arriving at shared policy recommendations. Unlike a jury, the minipublic is not deciding on criminal cases. Instead, they are offering a set of recommendations to governmental decision-makers. While many different formats for minipublics exist, what is striking is to take a bird’s eye view of their outcomes. Despite all the differences in format, length, and facilitation style, in case after case, we find that highly diverse group of ordinary people has been able to work together effectively. Thousands of instances with similar outcomes have led deliberate democracy researchers to conclude that “pessimistic claims about the citizenry’s ability to make sound judgments” have been thoroughly refuted.
An important feature of all minipublics, no matter their format, Rosa points out, is skilled facilitators who create an environment of psychological safety, in which all participants are heard and treated with respect.
Regardless of the variances in their design, and the degree to which the recommendations of these minipublics are subsequently implemented, we see over and over that a context where each person is treated with dignity and respect elicits working levels of open-mindedness, collaboration, and learning in human beings.
She quotes from Johnathan Haidt, who wrote in The Righteous Mind that
We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system.”
But, Haidt goes on to emphasize that it is critical to have a diverse group in the minipublic, in order to make it successful. And by "diverse," he didn't just mean by race or gender. He also meant intellectual and ideological diversity:
“This is why it’s so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board).”
Rosa went on to say
This diversity is a key feature of minipublics, one ensured through stratified random selection. Another equally important feature is the ability to generate the feeling of a “common bond or shared fate” –the conditions that Haidt describes as supporting participants’ ability to “interact civilly.” In the case of minipublics, one essential aspect to creating this kind of atmosphere is the use of skilled facilitation.[25] The connection with democracy here is that participants are learning, implicitly and experientially, about the value of listening to and interacting with diverse people—as they experience a process which allows them to create some authentic common ground.
At the end of the article, Rosa compares nonviolent conversation with nonviolent resistance. Both take a great deal of preparation and effort. They also share
... the assumption that we all belong All human beings are inherently worthy of being treated with dignity, no matter how strongly we may disagree with their beliefs.
At its core, refraining from violence means that we are engaging in inherently respectful behavior toward other humans. This is something we hold fast to in nonviolent resistance, even as we are also respecting our own values by engaging in civil disobedience to protect that which we hold dear. Along similar lines, transformative empathic conversations invite us to consider refraining from a different form of violence. We are not just refraining from physical aggression, but we are also refraining from the epistemic violence of self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and verbal combat. Empirical evidence shows that an effective way to communicate the value of a more inclusive mindset to those who may not share these values, is by allowing others to experience these values in a lived interaction over time. Whether in caring small-group or one-on-one encounters, the heart of the work is to offer an environment that allows each person’s perspective to be heard. Simple, yet not easy…
In her final "Where to from here" section, Rosa observes that
holding the door open for all of us to grow into more inclusive mindsets through experiences of empathic communication, is greatly needed in our world today. This form of “communicative nonviolent activism” has a significant role to play, alongside other forms of nonviolent civil resistance. ...
We do know that violence tends to beget more violence, whether physical or emotional; we also know that neither yelling nor arguing, much less shaming or blaming, are effective means for opening minds and hearts. Yet it may be another unknown that offers us a source of strength and persistence in face many challenges. We simply can’t know what the full potential is, for the transformative power of empathic communication to “scale deep and scale wide” — unless we make a long-term commitment to it.
We very much agree, and since we are primarily focused on societal-level conflicts and their transformation, we are eager to think with Rosa and other colleagues how such scaling "deep and wide" could work.
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Lead Graphic: Photo by Sheelah Brennan. Obtained from Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/purple-flower-on-white-ceramic-plate-BPdDzaA... .
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Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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