How do we disagree, agreeably?
In several learning meetings Alice has asked how do we encourage more debate and discussion about making Swiss Cottage fairer and greener? Or, in the words of a popular Podcast, in an age of populism and division, how do we disagree, agreeably?
My work in the Global South involved numerous ‘community conversations’. We can see these either as a methodology or as an integral part of social life.
One example. In Ethiopia, I supported researchers and social activists to reduce childhood prostitution in the capital Addis Ababa. The research showed the children ran away from home at around 10 years of age. They supported themselves by becoming servants in neighbouring towns. When it didn’t work out, they ran to the next town. Eventually they got to Addis, where they were drawn into prostitution.
So why did they run away in the first place? Mostly it was because of the custom of childhood marriage in rural Ethiopia. The social activists started community conversations in the rural villages. The exchanges were difficult, but not only did they shift opinion of childhood marriage, they also led a radical reduction in the practice (and also reduced the number of children running away, and becoming prostitutes in Addis).
There are some community conversations in England, and even organisations dedicated to the method. I have been very impressed by We Walworth developed by Pembroke House. As Richard Galpin explains on Ratio Talks, the approach places Westminster and local authority civll servants in conversation with local residents, talking about things that matter for local residents. They did this at scale.
More turns on the nature of community conversations than the methodology of making them happen. Alan Finlayson a political scientist at University of East Anglia is an expert on rhetoric, or the way we go about persuading people about a political standpoint. Talking on the Past, Present, Future podcast he discusses the art and skill of disagreeing, agreeably (and how this is undermined by ‘retail politics’). I think he is saying:
Argument must be for everyone (so how we say things matters)
Everyone must free to contribute to the argument (so don’t restrict participation to sub-groups)
Truth is important, but not perhaps as important as finding consensus between competing positions (which means those starting the conversation have to be ready to change their positions)
The key element is action. Argument leads to collective action. (People will fully invest in a community conversation if they think it will lead to some improvement in the world).
Finlayson is a politics professor, so he talking about political rhetoric. The Winch might reasonable conclude that Good Neighbourhood Project does not extend to political rhetoric. I can see both sides of this argument. The Winch isn’t involved in party politics. But it is proximal to and involved with the politics of daily life, the conversations at the school gates, in coffee shops and pubs, in public meetings called after a traumatic event in the community.
All places where difficult things are said, minds change, and ideas about how to live peaceably with each other are shaped.