I’ll pay you $10 if you catch me breaking this well-intentioned conversationalist pledge

6 beliefs and commitments to having more productive conversations about difficult and sensitive topics with people who have reached different conclusions than me about the world.

From Dan Fincke’s Civility Pledge

1. Truth exists, is discoverable, and is useful. I believe that truth can be approached via an honest examination of evidence and an open mind. This truth leads to better predictions and strategies for living life in a meaningful and productive way. Therefore, it’s worth my time to have conversations about beliefs, evidence, and objective reality.
2. I’m willing to be wrong. I admit that I’ve reached the wrong conclusion about some number of things… I just don’t know which conclusions are the wrong ones. Therefore, I will not shut anyone down merely because they have reached a different conclusion about something.
3. I’m curious about alternative perspectives. I invite other well-intentioned conversationalists to challenge me by introducing new evidence that contradicts or supports any of my positions, or to request further evidence on any point.
4. I will integrate new evidence, and consider changing my mind. I have an interest in examining evidence that contradicts my current position, so that if I’m wrong I can change my position on those topics. Therefore, I will explore new information with an open mind and try to suspend disbelief long enough to allow a thorough analysis to occur. And I will ask follow-up questions about the evidence in order to make sure I understand it fully.
5. I will understand first, then attempt to be understood. After I understand the alternative positions and evidence, I will try to articulate my positions in as much detail as possible, surfacing both the strongly supported points and the weakly supported points. Therefore, I invite people to present new evidence related to any of those points, or request more detail on my positions.
6. I won’t make it personal and will act with good intentions. I’ll try to refrain from personal attacks, broad generalizations, and condescending tones, and focus on evidence. I’ll act with a strong conviction that I am currently not wrong about my positions, because I will never be able to be entirely certain about things, and need to act.

How I want to use this

Before I jump into a difficult or sensitive conversation (or maybe in the midst of one as I figure out how to actually use this), I will express my above intentions. I may also ask if you share any of the above intentions, just to get a gauge for what is expected from both sides (but that won’t be a requirement for moving forward). I will pay attention to whether or not this is working, and continue to adjust it.

Call me out, and I’ll pay $10

If you see me breaking any of the above pledges in public or private conversations, please call me out during any point in the conversation and point me to which above item(s) I’m breaking, and I’ll give you $10 or donate it to the charity of your choice. I will also attempt to course-correct my approach to return to the pledge’s original intentions.

Please suggest improvements to this pledge!

It’s a work-in-progress, so reply here or send me a note some other way if you have suggestions for ways to make this more useful.

UPDATE 2/19/2017: I was pointed to Dan Fincke’s The Camels With Hammers Civility Pledge which seems to have been drafted in a similar spirit to this one. The image at the top of this post is borrowed from his post.