Wednesday, June 15, 2005

How to Talk to Conservatives

And yes, we have to.

Over there at Christian Conservative recently, Michael made a sincere effort to get his people to hear the liberal voice. How well it worked, I can't say. [I had some hope at first that actual communication was occuring, but it seemed there was a rapid retreat into "those guys don't have G-d in their hearts, so they MUST be wrong, we'll just call them evil and stop up our ears"-- but I might be wrong. Maybe someone/some folks learned something.]

Anyway, the idea -- the effort -- was, nonetheless, a right one. As the Rogerian model points out, we won't progress, as a society, so long as we continue to divide ourselves. We have to seek common ground.

This site

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/howtorespond

suggests ways liberals can speak so that conservatives might hear.

And, may I add, since they're in so much trouble right now? Maybe they might be ready to listen.

One might hope.

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