Public Discourse
For the moment I recommend you pay no attention to the political discourse going on. The primary season will arrive soon enough, and then our airwaves will be consumed with debates and negative ads. I use the term, debate, loosely because television appeals to the lowest common denominator by potraying social and political debates as people shouting at each other. Everybody on TV exercises his or her right to express dogmatic beliefs at the top volume, but we almost never see a model for deep, attentive listening. The value of genuinely being in each other’s presence, regardless of whether we happen to agree, seems to be almost completely lost in our social discourse. That’s why we get so little meaning from all our public arguments. It seems that we don’t even know how to facilitate genuine presence, the authentic being-with-each-other that may actually bring about real, positive change.
