“I, too, elected Trump.”
De-polarizing: How to get out of our own bubble: that’s the name we gave our recent workshop in the open learning community Comunidade.cc in Florianopolis. Here’s why and what we’ve learned from the session.
A couple of months ago, we were in Rio and experienced a political phenomenon that seems to be occurring in other parts of the planet as well: It was election day and two candidates were running for mayor in the city. We were cheer- and hopeful, our liberal left-wing candidate seemed to be in a good position to win the race. Walking outside of our airBnB, most people wore stickers in support of Marcelo Freixo — hardly anyone displayed support for the opponent Marcelo Crivella. Also our interactions with friends from other parts of the country — who were following the elections in Brazil’s second biggest city — confirmed Freixo’s high chances of winning.
A couple of hours later: Freixo was defeated and Marcelo Crivella doubtlessly elected mayor of Rio de Janeiro. How did that happen?
Rio is a metropolitan city with over 7 million inhabitants. Having lived there for over a year, we had moved in a radius of approximately 10% of the city (or less). It’s the same 10% of the city that tourists visiting the city will usually reach, and also the same 10% that are marked in purple in the map below — being the ones where a majority voted for Marcelo Freixo:
We live in a polarized world and in Rio this polarization has geographic barriers. But more importantly, it has barriers of social class and religion. Crivella — an evangelical bishop who openly condemned homosexuals and catholics in the past — is a great example of the rise of religious conservatism in Brazil. This is reflected in Rio’s election where voters split along the following lines: Crivella supporters in the suburbs and poorer regions of the city vs. the young, liberal and/or hipster dreamers in the rich areas of Southern Rio. Such polarization can be found in many parts of the world today.
Religion paired up with conservatism can be a driver for polarization but — as this article by RSA points out — an even bigger driver is social class. “We’re rightly hung up on issues concerning race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so on, but it’s around different classes that the biggest walls still need to be scaled”, says author Adrian Chiles.
How diverse is your reality?
Our workshop in Comunidade.cc started off with political polarization — given that BREXIT and Trump’s election have opened our eyes for the topic. We started off by asking participants simple questions — while only allowing them to choose A or B as answers. Was it impeachment or a coup? Should abortion be legal or not? Should universities have affirmative policies or not? Although these are questions that divide Brazil, they did not divide our participants — exactly was we had expected. Although some participants feel like their social environment is quite diverse, we generally agreed that we tend to choose our friends based on our values and these include our political views.
Families seem to often be a space where opinions clash: “We don’t talk politics or it doesn’t end well”, a participant explained and most others agreed. In the family context, discussing politics can easily get mixed up with personal offense and past conflicts. So how can we avoid making politics and beliefs a taboo? Inspired by this article we shared with our participants, we agreed that we should start by checking our own intention and openness before getting into these conversations (Are we open to truly listen? Are we willing to review our opinions? Are we getting into it to learn or only to try and convince others?). Having checked that, during the conversation we should focus on listening to the person, rather than the opinion. Instead of jumping directly into arguing, we can ask “How did you get to this position?” or “What makes you think that?” — but only if our intention is to understand rather than convince the other side to agree with us.
Another big topic was the internet — particularly comments sections. “Whatever you do, don’t read the comments!” one participant shared her personal rule and another attendant explained how he unsuccessfully to give constructive feedback in a forum. “Maybe the internet is a space where we should simply not discuss opinions and points of view” was one of the group’s conclusions. “The internet takes away the option to see the person rather than the opinion”, said someone about the anonymity that people can enjoy on the internet, which also leads to a lack of human connection among people in the virtual world.
Trump and I
“I have come to the conclusion that I elected Trump”, one of our participants suddenly said and left us perplexed. “We all have”, she continued, “I mean, of course we didn’t vote for him. But we did contribute to a world that made his presidency possible.” You might think this is a far fetch, but if we continue thinking that we always have to pick between two sides, and that those who choose something different than us are simply wrong, we won’t be working to build any bridges or find any alternative options. If we are not able to proactively dialogue with and understand “the other side” we are, in a way, being part of the polarization and it’s effects.
The conversation at Comunidade.cc soon dug deeper into our own role and brought us back to the elections in Rio: “Who are we to say that Freixo is the perfect candidate for the poor?” Indeed, his supporters like us struggle to understand why the poorer regions of Rio would not elect the one candidate who is fighting for human rights, social justice and inclusion. But have we talked to anyone who lives in the Northern part of the city? Have we experienced how it is to struggle to put food on the table? “We cannot patronize them and the political left cannot either”, someone contributed. And this whole conversation brought us back to the small steps we can all take to step out of our bubble and de-polarize the world.
As Adrian Chiles beautifully wrote: “Ask yourself this: when’s the last time you had a conversation with someone of a different class to yourself? I don’t mean a nice chat with someone you’ve had to deal with, be it a plumber or lawyer or Uber driver or oncologist or whatever. I mean a proper talk with a friend; someone you’ve chosen to spend time with.”
If you’re interested in de-polarization, I suggest this reading about a white supremacist who changed his perspective when becoming friends with people totally different from him.
