ubertuber

I've seen some real graciousness in the thread, but despite the talk, I don't know what we've found out that will actually improve the state of the Tilted Politics forum, which is in some ways the cutting edge of TFP. It is a place where people come and discuss differences and do the hard work of finding ways to reconcile or coexist with those differences. I tell you this because we face a difficult path ahead, and it is important to recognize that Tilted Politics is a place of value for the larger community. It is worth the effort to hike this trail. This forum could be the one (in my opinion along with Coming Together) that does the progressive evolution that is TFP's mission. However, there is work to be done. I'm going to state the difficulties that I see. Not the problems, but some of the obstacles we face in attaining the level of discourse that is worthy of TFP.

You know (and sometimes you see this in real life), sometimes when people are talking about something and they disagree they have a hard time moving beyond the disagreement. They get stuck in a "reply" mode where they have to solve each minor point of disagreement instead of letting the small things go in the interest of moving on. Now, as we get older and hopefully more mature, we realize that the existence of a difference of opinion does not require a resolution of that difference. "Agreeing to disagree," or whatever you want to call it is a required skill for interacting in a world where not everyone thinks like you do.

Unfortunately, the linear nature of our threads here at TFP (and I am speaking of the format of the board) discourages this de-escalation because people really do feel like the path from a to z involves resolving every letter in between. The quote feature encourages these point-by-point refutations that get us bogged down. And worse yet, when someone fails to respond to one of our pithy counterpoints, we remind them to go back and answer it. We rarely get past letter c on our path to z.

A further complication is that there really are people who derive all of their political beliefs, even the small nitty-gritty things, from principle. Principle doesn't allow for compromise. This makes it particularly difficult for these individuals to let a minor obstacle in the path be disregarded. The real rub here is that we need those people in order to have discussions - often they provide the most compelling and passionate counterpoints. Those hard line liberals or conservatives in some ways function like a conscience. So, we need these individuals, but at the same time, we are set up to trigger a non-productive behavior.

This "stacking of the deck" against a progressive mode of conversation (in which progress is made even if resolution is sacrificed) means that we have to be even more vigilant than in real life when choosing our replies. The difficulties I have pointed out lie in the mechanism of TFP - the hardware of the forum, if you will. The solutions can only lie in the software - the operating system we use to define our interactions, or the culture of the board members.

Let's face it, many threads are started with a purpose, and often we ignore it. Gun control is a prime example. If someone starts a thread about a particular legislative item and wants to discuss the pros and cons of it, this is not an invitation to take the issue to its roots and argue for complete abolition/freedom of firearms. Unfortunately this is what happens. I think it might be helpful if thread starters took some responsibility for the direction of what they begin.

It is all well and good to say that politics is the art of compromise, but that is only true to a certain extent. Politics is the art of managing to keep a living, writhing monster in some sort of equilibrium - and compromise is one of the tools that politicians use. We are not practicing politics, nor are we politicians. We are discussing politics, and for that there will be no equilibrium. Every thread does not have to be ended with a compromise or agreement, or even a feeling of resolution. We don't have to end a thread by having action items.

An attitude that recognizes the difference between discussion and debate might go a long way here. If we approached a thread trying to explain our points of view rather than convince others to follow us fewer tempers might flare. I think that treating our differing ideologies as a source of diversity to be celebrated rather than eradicated would serve as a mechanism for evolution much more than treating each other like potential converts. We need to be less proactive in our statement of our own views and more proactive in our seeking to understand the views of others. Let's agree to stipulate that everyone here is a mature, thinking adult. Work to understand how someone who is a mature, thinking adult could have that view that you can't fathom - don't seek to eliminate it without understanding it.

I don't have all the answers, so if someone else can point out our obstacles or our solutions, please go right ahead. In order to prosper as a group, we need to function and work as a group to find ways to grow.

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam