Nurturing Democratic Discourse
Recent polling by the Gallup Organization on political orientations revealed a staggering gender gap among women and men aged 18 to 30, with women holding views 30 percentage points more liberal than men of their generation. This is a relatively new phenomenon—the ideological divide took just six years to open up—and there is no shortage of analysis as to the origins of the gap. Folks may contend that the divergence is in reaction to specific public policies, elected officials, and court decisions, or the product of dynamic cultural understandings of womanhood and manhood, or exacerbated by a fragmented online world that exploits emotions for profit; whatever the genesis, however—and that genesis is likely multiple—the divergence is real, and something that bears careful watching.
My interest is not in the precise space that men may be occupying on the political continuum; all of us are certainly entitled to express a political orientation. And many of us are particularly curious about the political engagement of young people as campuses across the nation became convulsed with protests. However, most civic engagement doesn't start at a protest, but rather in political and intellectual conversation. What concerns me is the caliber and quality of this kind of conversation, and our boys’ capacity to participate in it meaningfully and respectfully and constructively, should this gender divide persist.
There are any number of thinkers and writers willing to endorse ways of negotiating increasing polarization. They suggest a willingness to talk across differences, to open oneself to alternative points of view, and to evaluate the ideas of one’s interlocutors, not the interlocutors themselves. Nonetheless, in a world which can reinforce the idea that swift judgment and blaming others offer the best solutions to uncertainty and disagreement, risking a hard conversation as an individual in the wild may feel impossible. Why not instead retreat to the comforts of an ingroup that will categorically affirm your worldview?
“We have the opportunity to intentionally and carefully encourage and support meaningful encounters with difference—with different ideas, opinions, and perspectives—in ways that are constructive, honest, respectful, and hopeful. ”
It is here, I think, that schools can play a vital role in serving democratic discourse. We have the opportunity to intentionally and carefully encourage and support meaningful encounters with difference—with different ideas, opinions, and perspectives—in ways that are constructive, honest, respectful, and hopeful. The boy who is consistently and enthusiastically called upon to reflect upon and support his own ideas (“Why do I think this?”) while also genuinely inquiring into the ideas of others (“Why do you think that?”) is on his way to developing clarity of thought, sympathetic imagination, and an understanding of the virtues of inquiry, revision, and reiteration. He is, in short, becoming a thinker, someone who is committed to discernment that is both independent and responsible, both aspiring and humble.
And if we are committed to our boys’ full development as learners, our school community will work to enculturate these skills and dispositions by creating spaces and opportunities that insist upon the regular, reasoned, open, provisional, collaborative evaluation of viewpoints--not ad hominem dismissal of those who hold those viewpoints. Browning must be a place where we not only permit but in fact celebrate the effort to grapple with difficult concepts and their implications, so long as this grappling is done in the spirit of our community values, with authentic honesty, curiosity, and interest in safeguarding the dignity of others. Our ideal—our requirement—is a climate of mutual care where hearts and minds are won not by force, intimidation, or groupthink, but by the persuasive power of an idea.
An independent, responsible thinker is, of course, well-positioned to make the most of their educational opportunities. That thinker is also going to be a needed antidote in an unhealthily fractured polity. Preserving democracy requires those who can mediate ideological divides by listening and discussing across differences, by finding places of common agreement, and by honoring the humanity of those who hold diverging points of view. We owe it to our boys to embrace a learning community where ideas are not markers of ingroup belonging, but rather tools to be tried and tested; where approval is given not simply to clear answers, but to thoughtful questions; where dialogue is preferred to diatribe; where minds change through persuasion, not coercion; and where members can trust that they are known and loved as they strive, err, and strive again. This is what Browning hopes to contribute to our collective democratic health, for this is the community that Browning seeks to be.