Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah offers hope for quiet, sustained culture shift through the “endless shared conversation” of friendship. The writer of the New York Times “Ethicist” column studies how deep social change happens across time and cultures. “If you have that background of relationship between individuals and communities that is conversational, then when you have to talk about the things that do divide you, you have a better platform.”
If you have that background of relationship between individuals and communities that is, in that sense, conversational, then when you have to talk about the things that do divide you, you have a better platform. You can begin with the assumption that you like and respect each other even though you don’t agree about everything, and you can maybe build on that. And you can know that, at the end of the conversation, it’s quite likely that you’ll both think something pretty close to what you both thought at the start. But people who’ve been heard and whose position is understood — this is one of the great virtues of democracy when it’s working — tend to be more willing to accept an outcome that they wouldn’t have chosen because they feel they’ve had voice; they’ve participated in the process.