Building a culture of public conversation key to social cohesion

A culture of conversation deepens ties and enables us to recover from the upheavals caused by the world. Throughout the pandemic, people suffered innumerable losses in their professional and personal trajectories and talking about it and acknowledging setbacks are initial ways to recovery

From Hungary to India, from the Philippines to the United States, from the United Kingdom to Brazil, from Indonesia to Italy, the public conversation […] has turned more and more into a high-decibel slanging match, where harsh words, used wantonly, leave very little scope for backtracking. […] There is a clear feeling that civilization as we know it, based on democracy and debate, is under threat

- Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times

Social cohesion is all about dialogue. In order for people to come together and accomplish collective aims, they need to interact and converse. Yet, the public sphere today is marked by sharp divides and increased polarisation. Ideally, the public domain should be marked by debate of public issues involving rational argument. However, instead of an attempt to further understanding and empathy based on reasoned argument, the trend today is to work with pre-packaged ideas of the "other" side, a pattern which diminishes the possibility of objective assessments and social conversations.

As Banerjee and Duflo note in their study, in the US, 81 per cent of those who identify with one party have a negative opinion of the other party. 61 per cent of Democrats say they view Republicans as racists, sexists, or bigots. Fifty-four per cent of Republicans call Democrats spiteful. A third of all Americans would be disappointed if a close family member married someone from the other side. Similar trends are seen closer home, where people are categorized into reductive binaries and villainized or celebrated heedlessly. This takes us away from progressive advances as a society and staggers our collective development.

When organisational efficiencies are marred by people unwilling to cooperate with each other over apparently irresolvable tensions, the economy and the society suffer directly. For the respective forums and organizations, it is a failure of purpose, while for our social unity, it is a loss of credibility. When we stop conversing with each other, we stop thinking together, turning every difficult moment into a vicious cycle of attrition and animosity.

History bears witness to the fact that nothing can be unresolved with reasoned argument, and thus, from issues of wages to media reportage to education, we can and will make progress with dialogue. This culture is fundamentally essential to the democratic functioning of society. Dialogue involves not just authentic articulation but also patient listening, which enables resolutions acceptable to all parties in question.

An example of how this works can be imagined as the following. A bunch of documents you expected at work remain unlocatable. You could yell at the person who was supposed to ensure them, or you could politely ask him about it and discuss where they are. The first alternative creates unwarranted tension and does not solve anything, the second keeps harmonies intact and resolves the issue. This is how conversation, instead of conflict, can prove instrumental in curbing all tensions.

Furthermore, a culture of conversation deepens ties and enables us to recover from the upheavals caused by the world. Throughout the pandemic, people suffered innumerable losses in their professional and personal trajectories and talking about it and acknowledging setbacks are initial ways to recovery. Even at the workplace, for instance, as experts David Honigmann, Ana Mendy, and Joe Spratt note, leaders need to invest time in cultivating open, compassionate conversations about what has been lost in the pandemic. They should validate that there is an emotional impact and that it can be a topic of discussion in the workplace. If we are generally used to a conversational arrangement, we are likely to deal with transformations and losses better collectively.

Above all, conversation enriches the value we create together. To quote William Hazlitt, "the art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard." Exchange of opinion and information under a conversational dynamic can generate influential and powerful ideas and provide input for political decision, economic action and opinion formation. The confluence of traditional media and online platforms gives us an unprecedented opportunity to talk, reinvigorate our togetherness and understand oppositional views. The emphasis here is on debate, mobility and learning, instead of individual egotism, reductive name-calling and immobility.

On the whole, with building a culture of conversation, we make a move towards fairness, cohesion and progress. Conversation instead of attrition is a resolution-oriented approach that brings people together and provides a counterweight to the divides that separate us.

(The author is Founder Upsurge Global and President SAHE (Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour)