Monday, July 05, 2021

Talk To Your Opposite - NPR's One Small Step

Have you given up on dialogue with people who vote differently than you? NPR is asking for volunteers who still believe they can talk over political fences.   

An Alaska Public Media webpage has this description:

"No matter their political leanings, a majority of Americans agree that divisiveness is a major problem impacting our ability to deal with the pandemic and serious challenges facing our country. There is hope: A majority of Americans also say they are optimistic that our country can overcome political divisiveness in the years ahead.  At a moment like this, aren’t we called to try to find a better way forward — together?

One Small Step is an effort to reconnect Americans, one conversation at a time.

Apply to be matched for One Small Step"




The map shows seven locations where they are trying this:  Anchorage, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, California, Nevada, and Vermont.  I can't tell from their map the cities in the other states.  I'm not sure how diverse a group you get from people who listen to NPR.  Maybe it's more diverse than I realize, but I think the audience leans left. But maybe it just leans rational.  But that no longer includes most Republicans.

Let's see if this goes anywhere.  




6 comments:

  1. All comes from the one breath. Cooperation (harmony) is true, competition (disharmony) is not true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very zen. Concise and seemingly inscrutable - left for the seeker to find the meaning. No less relevant than long-winded attempts to explain things. How can you have responsibility if you have no power. That sounds like, you're guilty for not carrying out the responsibilities you have no power to carry out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a meaningful documentary about Tibetan medicine called The Knowledge Of Healing (1996).

      There is chronic inflammation known euphemistically as climate change (which is fatal if left untreated, like jumping into lava).
      It might not be entirely unhelpful in western thought to 'understand the illness and target an intervention' (carbon credits), but the master stroke includes the human picking up the impulses of the earth in order to become healthy seemingly on its own; we cannot act on our own since we require these very impulses.

      This points directly to erroneously seeing the earth as a resource, and erroneously seeing man as existing inherently.

      Delete
  3. Anon - First, I invite you to find a name to sign with so we know if the same person is commenting or not. Second, there's no resistance here to the idea of balance in human approach to dealing with the world. If by impulses you mean getting in touch with nature, again no problem. And full agreement about the problem of looking at the earth as a resource, though certainly we do need to interact with the earth sustainably - to eat, to breath, to drink, and to live in some sort of comfort.

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. Comments with personal insults, rambling tirades, and significant repetition will be deleted. Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers (my call) will be deleted. Click here to learn to put links in your comment.