I have Satellite radio in my car and it is almost perverse that I get to choose to get my news from Fox OR CNN/MSNBC. I listen to both just to hear how slanted both angles on things seem to be. Then to make it more ridiculous there are now the Patriot Channel and the Progress Channel. They are MORE biased and MORE shrill caricatures of the already biased news media outlets.
Online Huff Post and Breitbart frame the debate. I feels like there is no longer a credible middle ground. Where would Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow work if they were in this environment today.
I have already gotten rid of TV in our house and I could just listen to music in the car but I still want to stay informed.
That is the media situation for me, but recently with the kneeling controversy, and now the gun debate flaring up, I have begun to notice a phenomenon happening in my men’s groups and conversations. I live in a fairly progressive town near New York City. Most, but not all, of the people I talk to lean at least a little towards the progressive side. When talking to people who we agree with on a topic we sound like the MSNBC/CNN broadcasts. “Can you believe this?” “What an outrage!” When we (I) do not agree we trade talking points.
What is missing in the conversation is all the stuff we agree on. The common ground.
Last night at the men’s group the gun debate came up and we started in with our progressive gun script. Then a man recounted a story about a recent trip he made through Ohio. His truck had broken down and he was taken in by a great family while they fixed it. He learned that guns were part of the culture, they even ran a range where all the locals would get shooting training. Being in this environment with these amazing good hearted folks opened his eyes. He now had a middle to his perspective.
I came away from the night with a new initiative. To try to cultivate the practice of starting a conversation with all the things that are in common and then moving to “making our point”, if that is what we are moved to do. So the gun debate might start out with the progressive and the conservative sides listing all the points that they agree upon. Once that is done, move into the differences. My guess is that the connection and common ground found might even have the power to change it from a debate into civil discourse.
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—Photo Credit: Flickr/FHKE