THE URGENCY
EF: I was shocked to learn that throughout most of the second half of the 20th century, the concern in political science was that America wasn’t polarized enough — that you really couldn’t tell the two parties apart.
And what we’ve seen in this century is the worst-case scenario: We haven’t really polarized on the substantive issues; we’ve polarized on the emotion. So even though we don’t necessarily disagree more in the 21st century than we did, say, 30 or 40 years ago, we have a huge difference in how much we dislike the other side, which is the opposite of what we’d want. I want us to have big differences on substantive issues but ideally without hating the people on the other side.
NK: It’s interesting that you say that. Because this gets back to the whole essence of the Center for Enlightened Disagreement.
EF: We need disagreement.
NK: Yeah. And I’m actually going to take a small opportunity to disagree with you ...
EF: Excellent!
NK: ... because I would say that there is divergence on the substance of the issues, but that divergence might be swamped by our feelings of how much disagreement there actually is. So when you actually look at policy preferences, people on the Left and Right don’t perfectly agree on climate policy or immigration ...
EF: Oh, sure. That’s right.
NK: ... but the ... perception of the gap vastly outweighs the reality of the difference.
EF: Yeah.
NK: As a society, we want that disagreement. We just want it to be accurate as much as possible. We want to understand the substance of our disagreements and to have heated discourse and passion about the issues. But we need to be, as we say, “hard on the issues and soft on the person.”
It’s important to note that one of the foundational aims of the center and one of the things that distinguishes it from other efforts is the fact that we’re not looking to tamp down disagreement. Lots of efforts have just focused on “How can we get people to get along?” — but we know that can actually be problematic. ...
There’s a lot of insight in difference. We don’t want people to stop disagreeing but rather to harness the power of disagreement.
Lots of smart people have opinions about how to mitigate disagreement or address political polarization, but until you subject those ideas to the scientific method, you can never actually determine empirically what is accurate and effective.
WHY HERE, WHY NOW
NK: With the Center for Enlightened Disagreement we’re trying to generate an evidence base — rooted in fundamental science — for what strategies and interventions really do work and then spread those insights as broadly as possible.
EF: It’s been exciting. The amount of enthusiasm from the highest levels of the University administration has been enormous, and we’ve heard from dozens of different organizations around campus saying, “How can we help?”
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s no accident that we founded the center here at Northwestern. Kellogg helped revolutionize business education with this idea of teamwork and collaboration, and we’re known as leading experts on negotiation.
NK: And Northwestern, even more broadly, is fundamentally an interdisciplinary place. There are so many initiatives on campus that bring together people from different backgrounds and experiences. We have a very diverse student body that’s passionate about issues. And we want them to be passionate about those issues.
EF: Totally, yeah. It’s been fun serving as the nexus ... to bring the campus together but also to bring people in from the outside so that Northwestern is both harnessing its inherent power but also interfacing broadly with businesses, governments, other universities and so forth.
NK: These are issues of global concern, and they’re becoming more important over time because as the world has gotten more interconnected and as people from different backgrounds have come into additional contact with one another, you’re seeing the wonderful things that can occur as a result, but you’re also seeing some of the tensions that can exist as a result.
We’re seeing widespread conversations around the world about challenges like immigration. We’re having to coordinate as a global society on difficult, vexing problems like climate change. With the variety of perspectives about how best to tackle all of these challenges, you’re going to need to be able to both surface disagreement and then work through it effectively. The moment is ripe for the work that we’re doing.
EF: Yeah, I mean ... the urgency to solve these problems has just never been greater.
NK: That’s right. And that’s why it’s so exciting to be doing this work at Northwestern, because it’s an institution that fundamentally cares about different perspectives and has students and scholars who understand the importance of the stakes and are committed to doing the work to bring solutions to life.
EF: People here know that the solution isn’t to silence the people who have views that we don’t necessarily love. ... There needs to be a more inclusive way of engaging. This is a time when we could make a real difference on significant national and global issues.
Martin Wilson ’10 MS is senior director of creative production in Northwestern’s Office of Global Marketing and Communications.
Northwestern’s Center for Enlightened Disagreement supports the University priority to defend free expression and promote engagement across differences. Learn more at northwestern.edu/priorities.
Reader Responses
Thanks so much for your "Enlightened Disagreement" cover story. I wish I had disagreed and debated more when I was at Northwestern doing research in biomedical engineering in the 1960s.
Debates can motivate and enrich our lives and our relationships enormously. But we often feel isolated and bored when we do not engage.
I participated in the 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic Convention while at Northwestern. But after that intense confrontation, I distanced myself from disagreements, as I struggled in my personal and professional life. But I now realize that there is hope if we agree to disagree more.
—Harry S. Pearle '71 PhD, Rochester, N.Y.
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