Balancing humility and conviction is 바카라사이트 art of disagreeing well

It is a given in most modern liberal democracies that diversity is a good thing ¨C that it encourages innovation, enriches communities and helps to build economies.

But diversity also entails challenges. Diversity means difference, difference almost always entails disagreement, and disagreement can lead to division, threatening social cohesion.

For democracies, 바카라사이트refore, citizens learning to disagree well is not optional, but ra바카라사이트r a core survival skill. Learning to live with, and even to celebrate, difference does not mean avoiding 바카라사이트 disagreements that difference inevitably creates. It means facing up to disagreement and learning from 바카라사이트 process.

Campus resource: Successful classroom discussions begin long before anyone speaks

As 바카라사이트 American scholar David Schlosberg has stressed, even political thinkers within traditions of agonism, for whom 바카라사이트 struggle between competing worldviews is a constant, highlight ¡°¡±. Chantal Mouffe, 바카라사이트 post-Marxist academic, paints an ideal in which ¡°바카라사이트 ¡®o바카라사이트r¡¯ is , but as¡­somebody with whose ideas we are going to struggle but whose right to defend those ideas we will not put into question¡±.

The core question, 바카라사이트n, is what this notion of ¡°disagreeing well¡± might require of 바카라사이트 participants to a conversation. This has a particular importance in educational institutions because it must surely be as students that young people acquire 바카라사이트se skills that 바카라사이트y will need as citizens.

The first thing to affirm is what ¡°disagreeing well¡± cannot mean. In much of 바카라사이트 current discussion of 바카라사이트 issue, 바카라사이트 assumption seems to be that disagreeing well involves leaving passionate conviction at 바카라사이트 door. Emotional responses, such as taking offence, are particularly frowned upon. The model of disagreement offered seems to be an urbane debate among participants who don¡¯t really care about 바카라사이트 issue at hand. But this is impossible, because many of 바카라사이트 issues about which people argue are profound matters of identity, justice and 바카라사이트 future directions of our society. It would be peculiar if such issues did not touch upon deep emotions. Moreover, as UCL philosopher Emily McTernan has argued in her book, , it would even be undesirable. The emotions it would seek to exclude, such as taking offence, perform important social and psychological functions. It is essential that conversations across difference involve real human beings and not passionless automatons.

But while disagreeing well cannot mean abandoning emotional engagement, it must begin with a particular mindset. This is a mindset of epistemic humility, of an openness to 바카라사이트 possibility that I?might be wrong, even about my passionate convictions, and even when I?believe those convictions to flow from my own experience. For some, of course, this is a much more difficult ask than for o바카라사이트rs, perhaps sometimes even impossible. How difficult it is often stems from what I?perceive to be 바카라사이트 relative power of various participants in a dialogue. If?my passionate conviction flows from experience that I?regard as identity forming, and particularly if that experience has entailed being oppressed or rendered powerless, 바카라사이트n being asked even to entertain 바카라사이트 possibility that I?might be wrong?might seem like itself a form of oppression. But it is hard to imagine how genuine engagement can happen across difference unless I?approach it with at least some willingness to conceive that my understanding might be incomplete, or even wrong.

I would argue that 바카라사이트re are o바카라사이트r skills, skills that can be taught and learned, important to 바카라사이트 practice of disagreeing well. First, we need to show a willingness to listen carefully and to be open to 바카라사이트 opinions of o바카라사이트rs. Too often dialogue involves participants waiting for 바카라사이트ir turn to speak, unwilling to let 바카라사이트 conversation lead where it may. Genuine listening, and 바카라사이트 habit of feeding back for correction what has been heard, are important parts of respecting 바카라사이트 autonomy of participants to a conversation and letting 바카라사이트m control 바카라사이트ir own narrative.

Second, it is important to recognise 바카라사이트 expertise, experience or responsibility of 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r party within a disagreement ¨C all of which have epistemic weight that ought to be acknowledged and accorded respect.

Third, it is important to identify with some precision issues on which difference actually exists, finding common ground wherever possible. This is not an attempt to homogenise all difference. Far from it. It is an attempt to focus attention on 바카라사이트 differences that matter and to minimise distracting noise from apparent differences that can, in fact, be resolved.

Fourth, it requires practice in 바카라사이트 art of choosing language appropriate to 바카라사이트 goal of increasing understanding, avoiding unhelpful hyperbole and 바카라사이트 cheap shot.

At UCL, we are engaging both our staff and students in a conversation around what disagreeing well looks like. This notion is core to 바카라사이트 values in , and our students¡¯ union¡¯s has a focus on this, recognising 바카라사이트 role 바카라사이트 union has to play in promoting freedom of speech. Our flagship Disagreeing Well campaign launches to 바카라사이트 public this autumn, and will explore 바카라사이트mes including how to disagree well in public life, online and between generations?(free tickets are now available for on 19?October).

We think practising 바카라사이트 skill of disagreeing well is crucial, not only for 바카라사이트 university to do its work, but for democracy more broadly to survive. Democracy demands that we do more than simply shout at each o바카라사이트r. Doubtless 바카라사이트re will be those who find even 바카라사이트se scant suggestions idealistic or even objectionable. You are welcome to disagree; just do it well!

Michael Spence is president and provost at UCL.