The opinions stated in this article are solely those of the author. 

A recent article in a national magazine took the position that America’s problems, especially its partisanship (Blue State vs. Red State, CNN vs. Fox News, non-religious vs. earnest believers), was the result of us not having meaningful conversation. Conversation should not be confused with brief chats over the phone or through email; instead we need casual conversation, sharing our stories and our feelings, being curious enough to ask questions of people we might know little about.

What we have now is too much group-think. People live in the same neighborhoods where too many people share the same political belief, worship at the same church and figure their personal values eminently equate with everyone else’s.

As I read the article, I thought about my wife and I attending a start-up “salon,” a French concept in which people – often total strangers – would sit down and discuss various intellectual or political topics. We were involved in the monthly Utah salon for about one year, meeting a wide variety of men and women from across the Wasatch Front: retired businessmen, school teachers, college students, faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, atheists and one guy who presumably was homeless. Someone would lead off with an introductory topic, everything from the fear of big dogs to the ramifications of leaving a faith, but the discussion would usually veer off into other topics during the course of two hours.

It was thought-provoking. We were not debating, trying to show the other side was wrong. We weren’t trying for conversion, attempting to elicit support for our personal views. We weren’t regurgitating positions heard on a radio talk show. 

We were simply learning from others. As a professor is quoted in the magazine article, conversation is for “airing ideas, umbrage and merriment, comparing experiences, sometimes expressing sympathy and sniffing out bull crap!”

In our conversation salon we sought out ideas, some of them uncomfortable and some perplexing, but it was never dull. It was a world devoid of routine but filled with human connection. (Unlike our world as novelist Rachel Joyce describes in her newest novel, “These days it is all safe motorways and Uber, paying with your phone, and please keep your distance, and podcasts, and milk made with oats and meat made with plants and everything streamlined.”) 

Conversation can result in ambiguity and surprise, things not found on smartphones and message boards and online structures. The professor believes that talking person-to-person and really listening to what each other has to say can change our minds “while sustaining our souls.”

“Ideas don’t move people on their own,” said a world champion debater. “People move people.” A sermon may temporarily force a person’s hand, but a realistic conversation is more like a helping hand.

American politics rely on an echo chamber where marching to a beat is superior to discerning complex ideas, and in many cases even family members are seemingly too busy for true conversations. 

And that’s something to talk about!