A Great Alternative to Polarization

Tower VI, steel

I recently got to participate in a wonderful event organized by a pair of women in our town, a conservative and a liberal, who created an open format to encourage people with opposing viewpoints to listen to each other's perspectives so we can learn from each other.

Well I am happy to report that the conversation was a wonderful exchange. Unfortunately if there were any conservatives who participated, they were invisible.  We talked about how to attract some broader perspectives.  There were some good ideas about encouraging wider participation, but I wondered why the idea of dialog was only attractive to people on the left.  How do we move forward with people who aren't interested in the debate or at least to exposing themselves by it?

There is a lot of talk of political dialog and in fact many positive new ideas for improving society but all the action seems to come from one side which is trying to forge a future in an increasingly integrated world.  The other side seems to be trying to preserve the smaller, less-integrated community of the past; a kind of tribal value system.  Fear of change is sometimes a helpful stance but it doesn't exclude creative dialog.   It seems that a better description of right and left may be "closed" and "open".   If globalization were optional, tribal thinking might be a good idea.   Otherwise, why not dialog about it?