As someone who has a lot of friends who inhabit the Progressive Bubble, I have had a lot of opportunity to argue politics with people who ONLY read the Washington Post, New York Times, and even more embarrassingly for them, the Boston Globe. They accept, unquestioningly, the editorial (and now news) slants of those once proud organs of information. They will not admit into their bubble anything to the contrary.
I was hoping that you would have some great tip for how to talk to people in the bubble. Some of the people that I have known who I thought were the most intelligent are in the bubble. Had to rethink my definition of intelligent. I always think that if I could just find the right words…nah.
I was heavily involved in a group called “Braver Angels” for several years. Its mission was to get reds and blues talking to each other in meaningful ways. We ran sessions where 7 reds and seven blues met and through various exercises, actually did talk meaningfully. It was very difficult to get reds to come to these sessions. Privately, to me, the excuse most people had was “it sounds like another place where liberals want to tell me how stupid I am.”
But everyone who participated in the sessions really enjoyed them.
The thing I took away was how close people are on the issues. It’s a cliche that I found to be true; most Americans (well, the subset that is open to this kind of session) were between the 40 yard lines on most important issues.
The polarization we now have means people cannot even begin to see each other on the field.
I was hoping that you would have some great tip for how to talk to people in the bubble. Some of the people that I have known who I thought were the most intelligent are in the bubble. Had to rethink my definition of intelligent. I always think that if I could just find the right words…nah.
Hi LL,
Alas.
I was heavily involved in a group called “Braver Angels” for several years. Its mission was to get reds and blues talking to each other in meaningful ways. We ran sessions where 7 reds and seven blues met and through various exercises, actually did talk meaningfully. It was very difficult to get reds to come to these sessions. Privately, to me, the excuse most people had was “it sounds like another place where liberals want to tell me how stupid I am.”
But everyone who participated in the sessions really enjoyed them.
The thing I took away was how close people are on the issues. It’s a cliche that I found to be true; most Americans (well, the subset that is open to this kind of session) were between the 40 yard lines on most important issues.
The polarization we now have means people cannot even begin to see each other on the field.