almost disembodied from the originating issues or concerns that may have generated them,
they self-replicate. In sociology we call that reciprocal causation. The causation of the
continued conflict is independent of its originating issues. So it’s reciprocal in its repetition.
An eye for an eye goes on forever. So what happens at that point is that your eyes and your
ears change. You no longer see and hear the same way. So if I’m sitting in this conversation
with you right now and in my imagination you are a Trumpian [laughs]. You are a die-hard,
“Make America,” red hat, white supremacist. My eyes and my ears change.What happens with polarisation is that we start listening with our eyes. Depending on how
I see who you are and where you come from orients how I listen. Because the first question
I ask is, “Who’s saying it?” Not, “What is the quality of content they speak about or to.”
I’m not listening to that. My eyes are watching who it’s coming from. And that then shifts
the interpretation that I give to their words. Now they could say, “We want to create a loving
community” and I could say, “I don’t believe that crap for nothing.” [Laughs].Because look who said it! Right? So your eyes tell you. What we’re trying to do with the
improbable dialogues is get two or three people who you would not expect to be together
to begin to talk and walk in a way that has a public echo. This then creates what I would
call a curiosity pause. Observers can’t immediately attach meaning according to who said
it. And either agree with it or dismiss it. That’s the effect of polarisation. Right? They have
to take a pause to ask the question. “Wait a minute, these people are not what I expect, I’m
not sure what’s going on here. It’s created a disruption in my system.” That curiosity pause
is what’s needed for becoming more mindful of how we have become dehumanised in our
polarisation. It corresponds to a little theory in The Moral Imagination, which I referred to as
the critical yeast. The small element that helps other things grow. But it has to be diversely
mixed into the mass. So you don’t move immediately to critical mass, you have to have
that critical yeast. And then there’s the siphon approach. I’m basically using the physics of
a siphon, that if two or three people move against gravity they will have an ability to pull
many more. You don’t have to get the whole thing to move at one time. You’re trying to get
those who have a capacity to pull. And that’s precisely what you’re doing—the gravity is the
polarisation. Especially at the level that we have it today. It’s the pullback into the bubbles.
I can dismiss you purely on the basis of who I perceive you to be. And so the question becomes,
“What’s the quality of the two or three that you’re trying to get to move against gravity?”Exactly. The whole notion of a siphon is that
if certain people begin to move together in a
direction, they have an ability to pull others
with them. And the question is how do you get
that two or three mixed in such a way that they move together? So it’s the movement together
that is improbable. Initially I think it’s a lot of circulating but it’s also then sustaining a
dialogue that begins to have an impact on a wider ethos.So I’ll just describe my cutting edges. And it’s not changed, as in I have
arrived and it is done—it’s that I find myself in constant evolution and
growth. So there’s a range of changes. Patience. There’s a part of social
change that is impatient, and should be, because there’s a lot of people
getting harmed. But you know, after a lot of work in places that are really
tough, I’ve come to respect in new ways the kind of sticky persistence that’s needed to stay
with something. So I’ve shifted to this provocative question of, “How do we think in decades?Right.
[Laughs].
And this “quality” of the two or three people you speak of—
I imagine they are well-connected individuals both within their
own community and within existing power structures?
Fascinating. So then speaking
of impact and change, how have
you been personally changed by
a life devoted to social change?61THINKS IN DECADESCONVERSATIONS