who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage”

Aristotle

Actions have consequences. Whatever we do in both our private and public lives has consequences. The policies that we enact on the local, state, and national levels affect individuals, groups, and society at large—and they may do so in different ways. I even heard someone recently argue that policies do not matter that much, and what matters in the real world are their consequences. There are, however, all sorts of consequences—but we rarely consider the wide range of effects that our actions and policies may have in the heat and excitement of making policy decisions, where we tend to focus narrowly upon their desirable consequences. If that is true, then the discussions of the great variety of potential consequences should have a much more prominent place in our public policy discussions than they usually do.

One of the most prevalent comments about the consequences that I hear is that they are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is understandable why people may talk this way about the consequences of their actions in their personal lives. But I do not think that this is an appropriate way to talk about the consequences of our policies, because the actions we take to implement them will typically benefit people with certain values, interests, and goals and hurt those with different values, interests, and goals. I think that it would be better to simply talk about their possible consequences without assigning them the moral attributes of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ that too often plague our public policy discussions and contribute to the lack of civility in them.

Another problem is that people tend to talk almost exclusively about a policy’s desirable consequences. But the reality is that we can never know exactly what the consequences of implementing any policy will be, because the world is too interconnected and complex, and the future too uncertain, for any one mind to comprehend what the consequences of an implementation will actually be. There is, however, still a value in discussing more and less likely consequences. I think that it is very important to try to discuss and understand at least some of a policy’s undesirable or unintended consequences—because in some cases, the harm of failing short of a desired consequence is greater than if we never attempted to do anything at all. One could argue, for example, that the policy aims of the Soviet Union—equality and brotherhood—were noble and admirable, but that the failure to achieve them resulted in an oppressive, ruthless, and inhumane political regime.

It is also important to understand that inaction has consequences as well. It is true that a focus upon possible undesirable consequences may lead to inaction. In some cases, inaction may be good. Not creating the Soviet Union at all, for example, would have been the best policy. In other cases, the costs and consequences associated with inaction may lead to ruin, and even to the destruction of our planet and life as we know it, as proponents of the theory of human caused global warming claim. The problem, of course, is how to tell which is which.

Finally, I think that the main blind spot in our thinking about the possible consequences of our policies is that we too often focus on quick fixes and short-term solutions and ignore their possible long-term effects. Such myopic vision is the bane of our times and election driven democratic political systems. Consider the recent example of how America went to war to bring freedom and liberty to Iraqi people and preempt attacks on our soil. These were clearly admirable goals. But one of the consequences of our policy, after nearly ten years of fighting, is that our financial prosperity and security is gone, along with the financial security that our children, and our grandchildren might have had—and future Americans will have to pay off an inherited debt with huge interest for generations to come. It is thus always important to talk about the possible consequences of our policies—and especially the possible undesirable consequences of our policies and their implementations—and to ask ourselves, over and again, what might happen if our policies and the actions that we take to implement them do not go entirely according to the best-laid plans.

I was amused to discover that most Americans make similar New Year’s resolutions—among the most popular ones are ‘to lose weight’, ‘to get fit’, ‘to manage debt’, ‘to get a better education or a job’, ‘to save money’, ‘to take a trip’, and ‘to spend more time with family and friends’. A lot of things could be said about these resolutions, but all of them seem rather practical to me. What about more creative and daring New Year’s resolutions?

I will let you ponder what that may mean for your personally. I would like, however, to suggest just one. What about trying to think in terms of possibilities and trying to understand perspectives radically different from your own?

That is one of the New Year’s resolutions I set for myself. I think it will be a fun, enlightening, and challenging daily exercise. But if statistics is any guide, very, very few people actually achieve the goals they set as New Year’s resolutions. So maybe one of our New Year’s resolutions should be to achieve at least one of our New Year’s resolutions! But like most resolutions aimed at improving ourselves, we are better off striving to improve ourselves than giving up before even trying.

Finally, I recently read that people are more likely to achieve their goals if they share them, and work toward achieving them, with other people. Thank God for peer pressure! If this is true, and if you are attracted to the goal of thinking from many different perspectives, I would like to invite you to join our public discussions of IF reports that present contrasting policy possibilities that address various areas of concern including—food, family, education, property, and science in general.

IF discussions encourage participants to think broadly about a topic, promote multiple perspectives, and at times contribute ideas or opinions that they believe someone who is very different from them would possess.  Under these circumstances, it seems like it would be contradictory to also stress the importance of recognizing self-interest, but it may actually be a very important component of a successful deliberation.  Understanding one’s own motivations and desires can obviously help a citizen articulate their own points, but it can also serve another important purpose; to help someone realize and appreciate the perspectives of others. 

There are different types of participants in all deliberations.  Sure, there are those who will try and talk until their face turns blue while attempting to get their points across, but there are also those citizens who fear that sharing ideas based on their own self-interests will create some kind of conflict in the discussion.   Sometimes I think facilitators inadvertently create an atmosphere where people are afraid to express self-interest because, like some participants, they fear that the discussion will become too aggressive.   Taking all of this into consideration, it might be a good idea for a facilitator to encourage or at least explain the positive aspects that incorporating self-interest into discussion can bring.

To participate in a debate is to compete—to try to win an argument and defeat an opponent’s position. To participate in improvisation is to serve—to try to generate something new by sharing with others. Colbert talks about this in his recent Northwestern University commencement speech:

Now there are very few rules to improvisation, but one of the things that I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is that you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win improv.

And, I would add, you cannot “win” an Interactivity Foundation discussion. But if you participate as if your discussion partners are the most important persons in the room, you’ll pay more attention to the ideas they bring up and you’ll try to help flesh them out and develop them. And if everyone is serving each other like this, the result will be new ideas coming into the discussion, perhaps ideas that no one individual had fully foreseen.

Colbert says, “life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.” Making things up may sound like something fake or childish, like you’re just playing. But play can be serious and the means of creation. It can mean making something new, generating something, bringing something to be that wasn’t there before. And that’s what we’re after in an Interactivity Foundation discussion. Like improv we’re interested in creating something new, rather than knocking something down, as in a debate.

So if you’re wondering about how to participate in, or even facilitate, an Interactivity Foundation discussion, think about how you can serve the others in the discussion. Think of each other as the most important persons in the room. By paying attention to each other, following and playing with each other in this way, you’ll be on the way to building something together, creating something new.

For the closing segment of Colbert’s speech (though the whole thing is worth watching), check here: Closing Segment of Colbert\’s Commencement Speech 2011

–Jeff Prudhomme

IF reports are not intended as mere conversation starters. They invite you to participate in an on-going discussion about their areas of concern and the policy possibilities for addressing it with the people who have developed our reports and with the people who have taken the time to read and discuss them. IF public discussions are a continuation of our panels’ discussions. The participants in our public discussions continue to interact with our panelists’ ideas and, in the process, bring in their own thoughts and experiences and insights as well.

The policy possibilities in our reports are not pre-digested for you. They do not tell you what to think and why to think it. They instead present many contrasting ways of thinking about policy and many different ideas with which you can interact. They invite you to probe deeper into the possibility and to try to understand what it actually means, why some people might want to adopt it, the different possible ways to implement it, and the different consequences—both intended and unintended—that might ensue from it.

Policy reports that present only one conceptual possibility are rather dull for me, no matter how many ways they suggest to implement it. I prefer to look at an area of concern from many different sides; to consider the many different interests, values, and goals that Americans have; along with the unintended consequences of the policy possibilities that they suggest. I know that reports that advocate certain possibilities will generate more enthusiasm from ideologically homogenous audiences who come to cheer for the policies they prefer. I also know that some people find it more challenging, unsettling, and less attractive to interact with ideas that differ from their own, especially if they regard them as morally evil. But this is precisely what the Interactivity Foundation tries to overcome in our public discussions. We encourage people to try to understand ideas that differ from their, and the people who propose them, by providing opportunities to interact with them. We do not advocate any of the policy possibilities in our reports to be adopted. We do not ask the participants in our discussions to change their minds or to agree with any of the possibilities. But we do encourage them to think about different policy possibilities, and to discuss them with others.

The Interactivity Foundation (IF) asks a different question—‘What could we do?’—in its sanctuary projects and public discussions. This is a broader question. It is a question that invites reflection rather than action. And it does not presuppose a certain mindset in which we have identified a certain issue as a problem.

We do not look for or discuss problems per se in our discussions. We explore and discuss areas of concern. Many people think that our immigration policies, for example, are now a problem that this country has to deal with. This is because they presume a conceptual framework—consisting of certain concerns, values, beliefs, and interests—in which it emerges as a problem. But human migration is a broader area of public policy concern in which immigration could be seen in either way—as a problem or not a problem at all. There are, furthermore, many other relevant and important aspects of human migration—such as suburbanization or gentrification—that may merit discussion without yet being recognized as problems.

It is true that certain areas of concern may become problems sometime in the future. But that is part of IF’s mission, namely, to approach areas of concern with a broad view over the horizon and see what could be done about them.

There are times when more practical questions—or questions of ‘should’—take sway. This is when all or at least most of us agree on a certain conceptual framework. But even here, IF provides a wider range of policy possibilities for public discussion than are usually on the table. We encourage consideration and discussion of a broad range of contrasting policy possibilities before the sky starts falling. And we think that when the sky starts falling, it is better for the public to have an opportunity to consider and choose among a wide pool of public policy possibilities.

IF’s public policy reports aspire for the same universality, permanence, and applicability as great literature and philosophy have. The possibilities for public discussion in IF’s Privacy, Anticipating Human Genetic Technology, and Regulation reports are as applicable today as they were the day they were written—and they will be applicable in the future regardless of what political party is in power or what issues we regard as problems. This is because they aspire to answer the broader question ‘What could be done?’ about their areas of concern instead of ‘What should be done?’

Exactly what makes a policy possibility worthwhile to discuss is another question. But there are some very old policy possibilities that are worth discussing. There are, indeed, many old ideas in other fields—such as history, philosophy, and mathematics—that are worth discussing over and over again. This is especially true in politics. And it also holds true for public policy possibilities. This is because public policy possibilities emanate from the values, beliefs, goals, and interests that people have. They may have been first proposed years ago. But people may not know about them or may have never considered them seriously. ‘Don’t involve yourself in expensive foreign wars’ is a policy idea that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. But each generation has to rediscover it for themselves.

IF creates opportunities for people to engage in a thoughtful and civil exploration of governance concerns and policy possibilities that are sometimes as old as the hills, but are often fundamentally different from what our public discussion participants believe ought to be done. We value ideas and policy possibilities that address governance concerns that are ‘over the horizon’, that are more conceptual in nature and have a long-term perspective. But we also think that our current policies—or the ‘status quo’—are worth discussing. And we understand that what is status quo for one person may be uncharted territory for another—and that a major concern for one person may not even be worth discussing for another.

Many policy wonks in DC talk as if the only policy possibilities that worthwhile to discuss are those that advocate their own concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests. They are always quite ready to tell you what is and is not worthwhile to discuss. We aim to explore and developed a wide range of contrasting policy possibilities for public discussion. If one of our project panelists regards a certain governance concern or policy possibility as worthwhile to discuss that, from our perspective, makes it worthwhile to discuss.

I’m not quite sure whether this is a new and original idea, but I think it’s a good one even if it’s not.

That does not mean that every participant agrees with each possibility (those possibilities are sometimes in opposition to each other), but they are usually pleased with the insights gained through discussion and encouraged by the expansion of their views of what might be possible. This fits with most of what we know about the satisfaction that comes with this sort of “civic learning”.

But what if the response to an expanded sense of the issues in a given area is deeper skepticism and anger? Is there anything constructive to be found in a discussion that takes a turn toward exposure of what participants see as fundamental flaws in how society is organized and operates? Is there “benefit” in participant identification of individuals and interests that gain from these arrangements?

My answer to those questions is “yes”.

Recently I facilitated a public discussion of colleague Jeff Prudhomme’s Helping America Talk report in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania. Most of the participants in that discussion were community college students struggling with part-time jobs and college costs. A couple of charismatic fellow students had recruited them to this discussion, but few had much in the way of discussion experience. One student summed initial attitudes up with the rhetorical question, “So, we’re talking about talking, right?”.

Jeff’s report has a number of extremely useful possibilities to launch discussion about public conversation. I have facilitated this report before and most groups naturally fall into a discussion flow of the topic and go beyond the report’s possibilities. This group, however, had numerous breaks in the discussion where cynicism and resentment was palpable.

Participants challenged each other with tough questions. Did we really believe that “those in charge” (loosely meaning almost all institutional leaders and those of great wealth) would encourage or even permit authentic public conversation? Don’t our patterns of media ownership and licensure work against public conversation? Aren’t our basic forms of public participation—like elections—fundamentally flawed and even rigged?

Most of the participants in this group came away with a sense that breaking the pattern of “management by elites” of public conversation was more important than specific remedies of access and transparency.

At first I thought the conversation took this tack because of the participation of two highly vocal young “tea party” backers. But in the course of the discussion I found populist anger of both Right and Left varieties.

IF discussions are facilitated in a dispassionate style, with emphasis on exploration of the topic rather than debate. Here I took a chance on exploring the resentments the discussion uncovered.  I had to shift from my usual approach of using personal capital to discourage outbursts to an acknowledgement of anger and probing beneath it.

I would not classify my style adaptations here an unqualified success. I have no formal training in using discussion as therapy. But I did hear directly from participants that they appreciated the opportunity to vent and my help in pushing them to look underneath the anger. It seems like there was a little learning about self in this exercise.

I do not want to over-generalize from this experience, but see some lessons for possible use in these times of divisive public discussions. Those of us who work as “discussion neutrals” may need to re-think our attitudes about how we describe a “good discussion”. For a significant part of the population “getting worked up” may be a significant part in generating the interest to engage.

There seem to be many facilitative challenges in engaging in these more direct discussion encounters. I am most interested in two of them. The first is how to maintain “safe space” for those not as prone toward the rough and tumble. The second is how to appropriately challenge factually inaccurate assertions in discussion.

In this most recent experience I found that acknowledging grievance as having a basis made it somewhat easier to challenge suspect assertions associated with the anger. I also found that raised voices did not necessarily mean that people were not listening. If something is worth discussing, it may also be worth “getting worked up” about.

If we all agreed about public policy, then there would be little if any need to discuss it. But politics really is about who gets what, when, and how. And we often have different interests, different beliefs, different values, different goals–and, hence, different ideas about who should get what, when, and how. Despite all that talk about the common good and the public interest, our different interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas about who should get what, where, and how tend to influence the way we each see the world, and what we each think we ought to do as a society, and what we call the public interest and the common good.

It’s nice to reaffirm our interests, beliefs, values, and goals with people who share them. But many people do not like to talk about how to bake and divide the public pie with people whose interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas are different from their own. It can be fun to listen to people do it on television and radio because they can’t hear what we say, and because they can’t answer back. But we often get so wrapped up within our own minds–and take our own interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas so much for granted–that we simply cannot imagine how anyone with basic rationality and good intentions could possibly disagree with us. And since we often invest our identities in our interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas–and since we often have a greater certainty in them than could ever possibly be warranted–it is not unusual to find that our passions rise as we discuss our differences, and that our voices rise too, and that we are suddenly talking far too fast and far too loud to listen to, let alone to understand–let alone to digest and rearrange our own constellation of interests, beliefs, values, and goals in relation to–what anyone else has said.

This is why political discussions on television so often turn into shouting matches. It is why political rallies so often seem and sound more like football games. It is why we so often seem to be talking right past each other. And it is why it is almost always good to have a facilitator.

A facilitator can slow down a discussion so we can listen to what has actually been said. He or she can stop a debate, and the felt need to have an immediate and snappy comeback line, just long enough for us to hear what someone else has said and to explore what it means. This does not often happen on television or at political rallies or on internet blogs and discussion threads. It takes a bit of time and discussion to understand our differences. But the more it happens in a face-to-face discussion, and the longer that discussion continues, the easier it becomes to see the world from someone else’s eyes, and the more difficult it becomes to demonize people simply because they have interests and beliefs and values and goals that differ from our own.

They will, of course, still have their interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas–and we will still have ours. But the less we blame each other for having them, the more likely we are to approach each other as human beings, instead of as Democrats and Republicans, and the more likely we will be to understand exactly what they are. Indeed, the more we talk with other people about our political differences, and the more we actually hear what they say and try to understand why they are saying it–instead of assuming that they must be liars, thieves, or dummies–the more likely we all will be to address our real concerns. And the more we do that, the easier it will become to make collective decisions in the face of our very real differences.

This, or something very much like it, is what we are trying to do at IF.

The Benefits of a Contrasting Panel
The primary benefit of composing a panel that is diverse in its political points of view, cultural variations, race, class, gender, and age is that the panel will generate much more robust and contrasting conceptual possibilities.  When I was debriefing a Citizen Discussion group about the Rewarding Work report, a Libertarian-leaning gentleman observed that it seemed to have been written from a “pro-regulatory, statist/interventionist perspective” and that he found this off-putting.  This participant often expressed ideas with which I did not personally agree, but I actually found his style of engagement to be much less combative than some of the Liberal-minded folks at the table.  I would definitely have invited him onto my Sanctuary Panel had it not been for his very intense and off-putting wife, who would have insisted on being included as well.  The fact that a person like this is being put off by one of our reports because it does not represent a broad enough array of possibilities is not good.  And it is hardly just the Rewarding Work report that could have this sort of effect.  I am confident that all of us work to conduct balanced projects, but I suspect we could do better—mainly in the recruiting.  The final written Discussion Report will always reflect the author to some extent, but the possibilities themselves will be much more robust the more carefully we consider the people we place around our tables.

Social Conservatives v. Extremist Authoritarians
Regardless of what our initial impression of a potential participant might be from Meetup or otherwise, it would seem prudent to collect a better sense of what the person is really like.  Clearly, we do not want participants that cannot be civil and that cannot fully engage a wide range of opinions and ideas.  However, it seems important that we, too, be aware of our own tendencies to dismiss people who express ideas with which we differ.  Moreover, we do not want to conflate strongly held opinions with which we might disagree with truly rigid thinking.  Many of those who think rigidly—on the Right and on the Left—are extreme in their views and are often autocratic in their assertion (or assumption) that everyone should agree with their views.  In the end, there seems little difference to me between the idea that animals are obviously sentient and should therefore have rights and the idea that there is no evidence that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  Both of these are pretty extreme views to the average American.  While an autocrat would not fit well within a democratic discussion, a social conservative/Libertarian who enjoys exploring ideas—and many do—would.  As someone who leans Left, I often feel as if the Right’s talk shows seem more shrill and more dumb-downed.  Really, though, it is the style of talk on such shows that offends me.  While such far-Left shows tend to involve far less yelling, the implicit assumption of Truth is just as offensive.  What I love about IF is that we are actively seeking to cultivate civilized and non-consensual discussion.  The challenge for us is to identify and engage the widest range of individuals who will help us to animate this civil space we seek to build.