Today, I’m happy to publicly invite others in Richmond and Wayne County to join in this effort to raise the level of public discourse in our area.  Whether it’s commentary on the local arts scene, restaurant reviews, political news analysis, your experiences with religion and spirituality, technology tools, sustainability tips or perspectives on education, we welcome contributions from those who feel they can provide a local connection and provoke conversation that might help move the community forward in some form.

What’s more, you can make a little money while you do it.  We want to encourage compelling writing while valuing the time of our contributors, and so we’re also offering a small amount of compensation as an incentive, currently US$20 for each contribution accepted for publication on the site.

You can learn more about what it means to become a contributor to ProgressiveWayneCounty.org, and I hope you’ll help spread the word about this opportunity to encourage new kinds of dialog in our community.

The board is a volunteer group of community members who meet regularly with the paper’s editorial staff to discuss issues facing our area, and to help ensure that the viewpoints expressed by the paper are the result of careful consideration and broad consultation.  In the end, it’s the Palladium-Item staff (and not the advisory board members) who craft the resulting columns, but Dale McConnaughay and others responsible for that task rely on the input received (and strong disagreements aired) through the board’s private conversations.  They also regularly invite community leaders to meet with the board for updates and discussion about projects underway.

This is a bit of an odd pairing, to be sure.  In the past I’ve not been shy in this space about pointing out some of the ways in which I think the paper could improve in its journalistic role in Richmond, and sometimes I’ve just plain disagreed with their editorial positions or the framing of their news stories.  I’m sure that there will be editorials written while I’m a board member that don’t represent my personal views.

But I’ve also found that the Palladium-Item and its staff have not only been willing to fully engage the constructive criticism it receives from me and others, they remain one of the most central spaces in our community for the exchange of information, ideas and conversation about the place we live.  One of my personal goals is to help raise the quality of public discourse in Richmond, Indiana, and so I’m honored by this invitation and look forward to serving.

At each event, as a candidate I’ve tried to balance a series of (sometimes competing) goals for my participation, including:

• Authentically presenting my true self to the audience while also trying to make a good impression
• Speak clearly and intelligently about those issues, getting specific whenever possible, in a very limited amount of time (“you have two minutes to lay out an economic development strategy for the next four years – GO!”)
• Highlighting substantive differences in approach and perspective between myself and my fellow candidates, without engaging in any personal attacks or petty remarks
• Actually answering the questions being posed while also tying them into the bigger picture and what might be meaningful to voters
• Being humble and gracious in my comments while also showing that I’m someone who will stand up for what’s equitable and just
• Making use of the time given to speak without dominating the conversation
• Showing respect and appreciation for all points of view while calling out problematic logic or misleading statements

As you can guess, doing all these things well and at the same time is quite an endeavor!  It’s one that I generally enjoy, but it also consumes a lot of energy and is quite a vulnerable experience.  My hope is that the end result is meaningful to voters.

I think there’s also value in previewing how a would-be officeholder might handle the debates, discussions and conversations that they would engage in once elected.  Do they actually get to the heart of the matter, or do they engage in pandering and circuitous logic?  Do they stay focused on specific positive outcomes, or do they keep coming back to what they’re against and who to blame?  Are they willing to listen carefully and change their minds along the way, or are they intent on showing everyone how right they are?

These qualities will directly impact the ability of (in my case) the City Council to get work done and move the community forward.  I’ve appreciated those who have told me that when they’ve watched the debates I’ve been a part of with these kinds of questions in mind, they’ve seen even more notable differences between candidates than even the answers to the debate questions might reveal.

Of course, not everyone watches debates that way.  For some people, it’s about who “wins” or who comes across as the strongest, most powerful presence.  I certainly understand that for the organizations hosting the debates, it can be more interesting to produce an event where some sparks fly and the tension rises.  That’s okay – I’ve said all along that we have to be careful not to be too polite to each other when the future of the City is at stake, but we also have to make sure we don’t turn the conversation into a shouting match, as some of the Presidential debates happening right now seem to have become.  It’s hard to talk credibly about collaboration and inclusive leadership when you’re also brandishing a knife.

I appreciate all the groups who have made the unusual number of local debates and conversations possible and accessible in this election: the Chamber of Commerce, the Palladium-Item, WCTV, the Human Rights Commission and the Student Initiative for Equality and Justice, Center City Development Corporation, Friends Fellowship Community, RadioTroy.com, WHON, and others.  Thank you!

To be sure, I think the President (and any President) deserves an unusually high level of courtesy in that particular setting, and that Wilson’s actions were unusual and historically unprecedented in their dis-courteousness.  But I don’t think they represent some aberrant, isolated flare-up on the part of a single person.  Instead, I think Joe Wilson has highlighted the fact that much of the conversation about health care reform – and much of the way politics are done in Washington in general -  is driven not by respectful dialog, but instead by emotionally charged, disrespectful outbursts that come in many forms.  As unfortunate and ill-considered as his shouting was, we can at least commend him for acting from the heart, where as his peers in Congress typically reserve their uncivil comments for settings where they know they won’t be held as accountable to them, masking their failure to engage in real dialog with feigned respect and disingenuous, emotionally manipulative exchanges.

By yelling out at the President during the speech, Joe Wilson showed the true colors of the way most politicians are approaching the health care debate: interrupting, yelling, disrespecting, misrepresenting, trying to get a laugh or a jab in without ever engaging the substance of the issues at hand, and with so little concern for the people actually affected by the conversation that you’d think they weren’t actually agents of democracy, just people who play them on TV.

It’s not clear to me why we entrust such an important conversation to such ineffective, duplicitous people.  Is it clear to you?

There are some exceptions to this phenomenon: politicians, issue advocates and community organizers who are actually trying to engage the substance of the issues and work for a real solution that actually addresses real needs.  You don’t hear from those people too much – they certainly aren’t interrupting Presidential speeches or inciting hateful speech at Town Hall meetings.  They’re too busy trying to get something done, and sometimes, the broken systems and processes in place actually move aside enough for those people to succeed.  But we know that’s rare, and certainly not as exciting to talk about on cable news as death panels, abortion funding and illegal immigrants stealing your soul in the night.

In this sense, then, it might benefit us all for members of Congress to stop pretending and speak from their hearts like Joe Wilson did.  If you follow that to its natural conclusion, you know it would get pretty messy before it got any better, but perhaps it would be a step forward in creating a process that honors real dialog and integrity, instead of political convenience and artificial appearances.

I would be happy for our representatives in Washington – who often hold life and death issues in their hands – to show us their true colors on live national television every day.  Wouldn’t you?

But then something curious and possibly amazing happened.

Someone, probably a White House aide who thinks a little differently than her or his colleagues, realized that there might be another way forward.  Someone suggested that maybe if the parties involved in this escalating conflict sat down together and talked in person, a better outcome could prevail.  And apparently that suggestion got whispered in the President’s ear, because Gates, arresting officer Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and Obama are expected to sit down together this week.  Over a beer.

It may seem like a small thing, but it really does represent a total departure from the cultural norm related to how we resolve conflicts.  The idea of just sitting down to have a conversation instead of “lawyering up” is not the direction most of us take, and if you believe the evening news, we often go really far in the other direction of perpetrating further injustices on one another.  But here we have the President of the United States suggesting an in-person conversation, and we have the other men involved responding positively.  The lawyers are stepping back, the media circus is calming down, and there’s going to be a conversation.  Nice!

Of course, there are a lot of obstacles to overcome, and a lot of pressures that make this a less than ideal conversation scenario.  It probably would have been hard for either man to say “no thanks” to the President, and so both are somewhat compelled to participate.  The White House isn’t exactly the most neutral setting for any conversation, and talking through complex issues while slightly intoxicated is probably not ideal.  Both men have ratcheted up the stakes involved – for Gates, it’s about calling attention to racial profiling and for Crowley, it’s about defending the integrity of his and his fellow officers` actions – so neither can easily walk away from the conversation and just say “it’s all good now” without having hoards of special interest groups and supporters demanding further action.  (And yes, there are legitimate and serious issues around racial profiling and law enforcement practices that need to be addressed here.)

But regardless of the outcome, it’s heartening that a seed has been planted: there are other ways to resolve our conflicts.  And the seed is there at the highest levels of a governmental system that generally eschews considering the humanity and complexity of any given person involved in any given dispute.  Might we call that progress?

The forthcoming gathering at the White House may not follow its principles directly, but Restorative Justice is an approach to conflict resolution that tries to foster dialog between all of the parties involved in a wrong-doing – the victim, the offender, witnesses, family members and friends affected, etc.  It tries to build up “mutual responsibility” for addressing wrong-doing in our communities, instead of perpetuating the notion that when a crime or wrong has been committed, accountability and punishment are handed down by some externalized and detached authority.  And it’s working in communities all over.  Here in Richmond, the Conflict Resolution Center trains mediators to facilitate a similar kind of conversation that, while not strictly part of Restorative Justice practices, still encourages that kind of dialog and reconciliation.

What might these kinds of conflict resolution practices look like in your community?  Are there conflicts in your life where a facilitated, face-to-face conversation might have made all the difference in resolving them?

Here’s hoping that Crowley, Gates, and Obama make the best use of their time together, realizing that they may just be helping to model something transformative for, well, the rest of the world.

I put “deeper” in quotes because it’s one of those touchy-feely words that needs a little more definition to be useful here. When I think of a conversation reaching a new depth, I think of the people involved taking on topics that are significant or meaningful to them in ways that invites personal vulnerability or reflection, where you might have to take a stand, where the stakes are higher and there is something to gain or lose by going there. The topics that achieve this will of course vary widely by personality, community and culture.

So, what do those turning points look like? Here are a few I’ve noticed:

1. Those in conversation realize a new common ground. If you’re talking and you find out that the other person has had some experience, insight, or wisdom that connects with an experience, insight or bit of wisdom you’ve gained, it can open up a sense of possibility about where the conversation can go. “Wait, you’ve been through that too?” or “Wow, it sounds like we both think the same way about that complex issue!”
2. Those in conversation realize an unexpected conflict. If one person says something that runs up against what another thinks or feels, we have the choice to engage that – “Wow, I really disagree with what you just said!” – or to let it go, usually through silence, vagaries (“I see what you mean”), a change of the topic (“Well, I don’t know about that, but did you hear about…”), or even lying (“Yeah, totally!”). I’ve already written some too about how challenges in conversation can play out.
3. The depth of conversation implies or dictates the depth of the relationship. There are some kinds of sharing or engaging that we only do with people with whom we have certain kinds of relationships. If the conversation is headed in a direction that asks us to take on a new kind of relationship with the other person, we have a choice to make about whether that’s desirable. For some this is an easy choice, because they tend to be good at being in relationship with people “in the moment,” independent of any thoughts about future closeness, whether or not you’ll stay in touch, who else they might tell, etc. For others, reaching a new depth requires some sense of accountability and trust that’s built over time. So the choice about a conversation can be the choice about the future of the relationship with others participating.
4. A transitional moment in time arrives. Sometimes the choice about whether or not to go deeper is thrust upon us by some external happening. “Oh, well, now that we’re done with dinner, it’s a natural time to get up and leave…or we could stay and talk more.” Of course the choice here will usually be wrapped up in what kind of conversation is happening when the milestone is reached. For me, I have noticed that when I allow for the possibility that just because it’s a natural time to have closure on the conversation doesn’t mean we have to, I’ve ended up having some rich conversations in the “next phase” of the time together.

So, those are some of the critical moments I’ve noticed. I’m curious to know what others think about when and how those choices are made.

What kinds of environments or states of being or topics or relationships allow you to go deeper, and what kinds keep your conversation “at the surface”?

1. I’m now using Gravatars – “globally recognized avatars” – to display user-uploaded images next to the comments that people post. This creates a little bit better sense that you’re interacting with real humans, and even adds a dash of color. If you want to try it out, just visit gravatar.com to upload your avatar today.
2. You can now choose to be e-mailed about follow-up responses to a particular post that you comment on. While you can always subscribe to a post’s RSS feed to track comments, sometimes getting an e-mail is the easiest way to go – and don’t worry, you can just as easily unsubscribe too.
3. Some time ago, I added a post rating system to the blog, allowing you to indicate what you think on a scale of 1 to 5 stars (5 being the best, of course). Posts with high ratings get a little more attention elsewhere on the blog, and each star you add also help an angel get its wings. It’s a way to give feedback without typing out a comment – “thank you for helping us serve you better.”
4. Also added some time ago, but now more prominently featured, you can see posts that are related to a new blog entry, listed right below the entry itself. I tend to circle around some similar themes, and so this is at least a helpful way for me to see how things tie together; I hope it’s a useful way for you to explore my other writings too.

There ya go. Let me know how this stuff works for you; as always, this space is a work in progress.

As I thought about these observations (which I suppose are fairly obvious to those who hop between cultures), I realized that I’m definitely someone who prefers to be challenged, and who gets the most out of a conversation when I feel safe doing the challenging. But I know that in the course of seeking healthy dialog, especially dialog in the public sphere amongst relative strangers, it can still be quite a balancing act to engage in challenge with a positive outcome. And I worry that our fear of challenging or being challenged, or being out of practice with actually doing it, means that we end up missing out on great opportunities for conversation and building shared vision with those around us.

So I thought it worth writing down some of the ways that I find useful to challenge and be challenged, in hopes of eliciting comments and refinements from others who find themselves aware of their own tendencies and preferences in these areas.

First, I should be more clear about what I mean when I talk about challenging someone. If you’re already clearly engaged in a debate or dialog about an issue (such as you might be at a book club, or debate competition, or editorial board meeting), then you may be challenging each others` perspectives or opinions, but that’s not the kind of challenge I’m referring to. I’m talking about a setting like the scenario mentioned above, where there’s no default expectation that a statement or expressed view is in question, or that the listeners will react in any remotely opposing way to the speaker.

A dinner gathering where conversation is typically kept polite. A hallway conversation about the day’s news. A social exchange in a public place. These seem like settings where if someone says “Red really is the greatest color out there, and so…” and you happen to think that red is simply the worst color out there, you generally aren’t expected to interrupt them to say so, if you say anything at all. The challenge is a turning point where the chit-chat has ended, where the weather is no longer relevant, and the topic at hand is of importance to those conversing. And of course, I’m not talking about colors here….for me, red is politics, red is reproductive rights, red is money management, red is peak oil and climate change, red is how to raise kids properly, red is peace and justice issues, red is religion and spirituality.

What do I get out of being challenged? I’m asked to reconsider my views, to explore where they came from, to understand where I’m at with them now – that’s exciting! I learn how to communicate better, to make myself understood in ways that I don’t currently know – that’s great! I get to know viewpoints that are not my own, to really understand them, and perhaps even to adopt them – wonderful. When I think of times in my life when I’ve grown the most, felt the most alive, they are times when I’ve been challenged into new ways of looking at the world.

So, If someone wants to tell me that I’m wrong about red, to challenge me on my views, here are some ways that really work for me:

• Speaking plainly and boldly about how you feel. “Chris, I think you’re just wrong about that, and here’s why.” I respect it when feelings and views are not diluted out of concern for ego or politeness, though I certainly understand and frequently give in to that impulse.
• Maintaining the tone of the conversation even as its importance or intensity may escalate. I appreciate that some people express themselves best through raising their voice or gesturing wildly, but I generally don’t respond well to it. I think emphasis and importance can be shown in ways that don’t alienate someone (like me) who wants to hear and process the words as clearly as possible, without distraction. I fully realize that this is just something I can hope for, but not expect out of many people.
• Understanding my perspective fully. As I always strive to do for someone in a conversation, I can most engage another when I know that they are trying to see an issue from where I stand, and ask the questions necessary to get there. If it is always left to me to “make my position clear” and the other person isn’t invested in helping, then things quickly turn to debate and thoughts of victory for victory’s sake, instead of genuine mutual understanding.

Here are some things that really don’t work for me:

• Interrupting. If I’m interrupting someone, then we’re not having a conversation, we’re exchanging monologues, and we’re back to trying to win instead of trying to understand or agree. If someone is interrupting me, then I no longer have any sense of confidence in their ability to hear me out, and I just want the conversation to be over. I know that many, many interruption-laden conversations happen every day in families, businesses, and public spaces every day, and I know that it seems normal to some, but for me it’s a symptom of the declining quality of important dialog.
• Justifying a challenge based solely on vague personal declarations of understanding about how the world is. I’m fully in support of having conversation in this country that is LESS focused on the might and power of logic to the detriment of emotion and less cerebral forms of connection. But, if you’re going to tell me that I’m wrong about red, you can’t JUST tell me that it’s because you feel that way: “Chris, you’re wrong about red because everything I’ve ever experienced tells me so.” Whatever your reasoning, or emoting, or deep sense of right and wrong that guides you, you have to find a way to help me see it if we are to understand each other.

When I challenge someone, there are a number of things I take into consideration:

• Is this a situation where challenging this person can have a good and worthwhile outcome? Is it possible for us to have an exchange that is meaningful? If not, is the challenge about an issue that is important enough to go ahead anyway (i.e. standing up for something on principle more important than my relationship with the person I’m challenging)? Will the resulting conversation be impacted negatively by the setting? Would a written challenge be more effective?
• When I challenge someone’s views, can I do it in a way that authentically represents my own views or that respectively questions the reservations I have about their views, or is it just going to be a negation of something they’ve said that leaves no real path forward for them in the conversation? Am I challenging out of care, or out of the desire to be right?
• When does it end? If we challenge each other, and we don’t come to some point of understanding or clarity, how will we find closure? Does the other person want to resolve the challenge as much as I do (or more, or less)? What kinds of signs should I look for that they’re done? When and how will I express my need to end the conversation?

That’s what I have for now. What do you think? Do you like to challenge or be challenged in a conversation? If not, why not? If so, what methods or approach do and don’t work for you?

My response, posted in the forums (despite my better judgement):

It would be possible to debate some of Mr. Yevcak’s points related to the role of the courts, the history and nuances of U.S. immigration policy, and the legal technicalities of the recent presidential intervention in the Libby case. But I’m not sure what purpose that would serve, since Mr. Yevcak seems intent not on having meaningful debate or dialogue, but just on disparaging and insulting a wide swath of people, essentially on the grounds that they don’t agree with him about how the world should work. And of course, when that is someone’s goal, you can’t really have a meaningful conversation with them.

Whenever I see those kinds of comments, I’m always on the lookout for what sort of hope, what sort of ideological alternative the speaker has to offer us, so that the conversation can be about what’s possible and what we want for the world and each other, instead of what’s wrong with each other and why we should be afraid and hateful. Progress can certainly happen when we engage each other about the issues that are important to us, even when we disagree strongly, but I think it can only happen if we’re open to the possibility of something new, something better, something greater than ourselves. If we’re just here to insult each other’s backgrounds, views, and lifestyles, then we’ve resigned ourselves, I think, to a life that does not at all honor what’s possible or good in the world. We’ve decided that our differences are all that matter, and we lose out on what it means to be a part of humanity.

I look forward to future letters to the editor that have some positive vision to share, some sort of inclusive hope for the future and how to get there. Even if I have strong disagreements with the author’s world-views, I know we can move past our initial tensions to have those conversations with respect and with an eye on the common good.

Right now, the Pal-Item has a troll infestation. Ewwwww. And it’s not just the obvious kind either (though there are plenty of those). They’ve also got the kind that like to spread negativity, hate, oppression and self-referencing, oversimplified explanations of how the world is and should be, all under the guise of participating in some sort of great online community experiment. Which means it can take one or two reads of a post and a few seconds of brain processing time that you’ll never get back to realize that you’re dealing with a troll – who has the patience for that?

And so you’re just reading along looking for interesting conversation or news, and all of the sudden you spot a troll offering up its bait!

A-ha! Maybe if you were a forum newbie, you would try to respond with some positive perspective, a plea for civility, or some other retort. When you’ve been reading online forums as long as I have, you become jaded and bitter (or you just realize you have better ways to spend your time, like tending a garden or adoring your sweetheart), and you don’t bother with that any more. The instinct becomes to look for the button that says “IGNORE ALL POSTS BY THIS USER.” That’s the nice thing about trolls – they tend to be consistent in their ability to offer up nothing of value.

The issue is, a lot of forums don’t have that “Ignore” button available. Sometimes it’s an actual policy issue, and other times they just haven’t gotten around to it or there are other barriers. And then there’s the awkwardness and privacy issues of having your “ignore list” visible by the administrators of the forum – faux pas galore!

Enter the power of technology to help you reclaim your forum browsing experience. Here’s what you do:

1. Make sure you’re browsing the web using Firefox, one of the best web browser software packages available. It’s fast, free, secure and regularly updated and improved. Wow.
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox. It’s free, easy to install, and allows you to do some mighty cool things (though it doesn’t do much on its own).
3. Install the phpBB User Ignore script for Greasemonkey. Also free, also easy to install.

Now, remember our silly little troll friend? After you follow the steps above, the next time you pull up the forum page, you get a little [X] next to its name:

When you click the [X], the Troll is added to a list of forum users on your computer who you never want to hear from again. And when you reload the page, you experience blissful peace and quiet:

Of course, if you REALLY want to see what they’re saying, you can toggle that easily. And you can always take them off your blocked list if you need to. This system works for most any forum that is powered by phpBB, one of the most widely used forum packages out there. People have even begun to adopt it for use on other forum types as well.

Perhaps not surprisingly, once I built up my Troll-inventory and browsed the Pal-Item forums, I enjoyed the wonders of largely empty pages, ghosts of pettiness and provocation fading into the background as a few gems of halfway coherent comments popped up now and then.

In all seriousness, I’m sure some of the above sounds a little harsh at times, and the discussion about whether or not it’s kosher or helpful to just wipe other people out of your browsing experience is certainly one worth having (um, without the trolls). In most cases, I’d rather not be using an online forum at all – real human interaction can’t be beat. But for those times when you want to keep up with a virtual conversation and your box of Troll-B-Gone hasn’t arrived yet, I think this is pretty handy. Let me know how it works for you.