Fingers crossed for Trump to be voted out of the White House ASAP! Instead of “Making America great again”, Trump is more dangerous to this country than all the incarcerated criminals combined. Simply claiming the election as “fraud” — only because he lagged behind Biden in the number of votes — is enough to ignite violent protests from his base for the most fraudulent cause. Is there any other incarcerated criminal capable of doing that?
While watching the updated election results closely (every hour if not more frequently, mostly on Foxnews.com and Politico.com, which seems to provide more in-depth analyses than others and above all, the New York Times), part of me is worrying about the nation deteriorating into a limited or regional civil war (no immediate threat right now, but the probability is larger than 0 for sure). I then came across this old piece from NYT in 2019, which feels longer time ago than it actually is due to the fast changes in pandemic and the election.
Briefly, this study, called “America in one room” and run by two political scientists, invited 526 registered American voters from all walks of life, all demographic groups, all ideologies and all over the country to a resort in Texas for one weekend with just one task in mind: To talk among them to see how their political attitude would be changed.
It is not exactly a natural experiment because the setup was clearly artificial and isolated from the rest of the society. Still, the findings are encouraging with proven value of empathy, listening and talking with no strings attached. Of course, the results are highly subjective, and it is likely that the participating voters, with everything for the entire trip completely paid for, may feel the pressure to praise the study and to somewhat exaggerate its impacts.
Potential Hawthorn effect aside, it makes intuitive sense that if people had the opportunity to sit down and calmly express and exchange their personal preferences, values and political opinions, they may act differently. One weekend of time is not enough for most to fundamentally change their views, but enough to raise their awareness of the perspectives of others and modify at least their way of saying things. This mindfulness of others may be all that is needed in a highly divided nation, at least for starters.
It is easy for humans to form some quick judgment of others, because we all tend to allocate less amount of time to appreciating others than to pondering our own opinions. Just think of this election: When I first heard the news that the majority of Floridians voted for Trump, I said to myself “What a bunch of losers from Cuba!” It is only after about 10 minutes of being upset to the Floridians that I calmed down and realized how stupid it was to blame anybody for his/her preference — And I thought I was more open minded than the average American! The truth is, I am just as bad as others when it comes to stereotypes and quick judgments without evidence whatsoever to support the opinions.
Can we duplicate the idea of this study in society? Yes we can. The easiest way of doing that (In fact, the original study could have designed it online on Facebook for example) is online with one of the social media platforms, where people are literally assigned into different chat rooms and just talk.
The real challenge is not to duplicate the study but to change people’s patterns of behaviors toward others. That is easiest to do when we are young. Everyone has a short window of times (a few early years of our lives) when we are most open to learn and most flexible. In my case, my parents taught me when I was little to think almost everything twice, once from my own perspective and another from someone else (a typical teaching of the Confucianism of daily self-inspection or self-criticism for words and deeds). This has been religiously followed by me throughout my life!