Of course we do. It is quite sad to see the daily inability of people to enage in thoughtful, civil dialog. From the streets to city councils to state legislatures to Congress, dialog fails. Then, add the “cancel culture” and people — well, some people — become afraid to speak up for fear of being “cancelled.” I say #KillCancelCulture and let’s talk. Have some dialog (dialogue if you prefer).
I recently bumped across a very interesting article at Engaging in Dialog Can Dissolve ‘Cancel Culture’: President of Summit Ministries (theepochtimes.com) which goes into great detail about the pervasiveness of the failure in dialog, and the author’s ideas of the source thereof. His focus is the cancel culture. My concern is that the cancel culture is now operating on steroids at the hands of Big Tech.
The 800 pound gorilla of cancel culture now is Big Tech: the companies I love because (a) I’m a technophile and (b) their stocks have done well. But their involvement in the most massive and pervasive aspect of the cancel culture — censorship — is quite bothersome. Given the ability for them, including Facebook (let’s see how long this post stays up), to move opinions even to the point of influencing political opinion is beyond scary. How can we have that necessary dialog unless these platforms like Facebook, Parler, Twitter and others are open? I support them shutting down discussion that is clearly planning criminal activity. But that is not what they are doing. Unfortunately, this must be addressed by Congress. However, there is much that we individually can do within our interpersonal relationships.
As a mediator I am all into dialog. I see it make a difference, every time. Granted, the dialog usually occurs via my working back and forth between the parties but it is, in its basic sense, dialog. I most often start a mediation with parties somewhere between 15 degrees out of sync to 180 out. However, after a few hours, somewhere between 3 and 7 or 8 hours later with a lot of assisted dialog in between they reach a point that each side can live with. Mediation Makes the Difference™.
References
Philipp, J.J. (2021, January 16). Engaging in Dialog Can Dissolve ‘Cancel Culture’: President of Summit Ministries. The Epoch Times. https://www.theepochtimes.com/engaging-in-dialog-can-dissolve-cancel-culture-president-of-summit-ministries_3658716.html
The Dangerous Roots of Cancel Culture and How to Push Back—Interview With Jeff Myers | Crossroads
Image credit: Two men talking. (NeONBRAND/Unsplash)
