The midterm elections here in the United States are happening tomorrow, and passions are running incredibly high.  After a solid decade and more of rapidly growing mistrust and distaste on both sides of our two-party system (as documented by Pew Research Center polls, among myriad other metrics), we’re looking down the barrel at “the most sweeping and divisive national referendum on any administration at least since the Great Depression,” as one political scientist told the Washington Post.

Normally I would dismiss such talk as dramatic hyperbole, but for many of us, “polarization” has become the watchword of the day. The very intensity and intractability of America’s partisan brawling is starting to become as concerning as the issues that we were brawling about in the first place!  The fact of polarization seems to be just about the only thing that the country can agree on these days: according to a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, a record-setting 9 out of 10 Americans believe that partisan divisions are a “serious problem” for the U.S. today.  But true to form, the same survey naturally shows that each side points fingers at the other party as by far the primary cause of the divide.

If Stoicism is ever called for in our political lives, surely the intensely adversarial atmosphere that attends a divided country is one of those times.  How might a rational, affectionate, and morally driven προκόπτον (prokopton) navigate the sensational morass of adversarial politics in an unusually polarized time?

This is a harder question than it might at first appear.  I’ll approach the issue here in a few different ways, but overall I want to suggest that the Stoic concepts of ignorance, Temperance, Courage, and (especially) Socratic dialogue have a great deal to teach us about how to engage ethically and effectively in polarized conversations.  And to close, I’ll share a bit about my recent experience in an inter-partisan dialogue workshop that brought a group of self-identified “reds” and “blues” together for structured exercises in building mutual understanding.  Dialogue movements of this kind strike me as something that Stoics of all political persuasions ought to be able to support, despite the legitimate misgivings some people have about such methods on their surface.

Confrontation or Accommodation?

Headlines and hand-wringing over polarization and disunity are a dime a dozen of late.  The last week alone has seen op-eds on the topic in the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, New Republic, USA Today, Psychology Today, and more.  Most of these writers ask us to find ways to tone things down: emphasize common ground, break down echo chambers, build relationships with people who think differently, vote for politicians who emphasize bipartisanism, et cetera:  in a word, to be more accommodating of the other side.

But not everyone agrees.  In a provocatively titled Time Magazine op-ed, award-winning novelist Tayari Jones argues that “There’s Nothing Virtuous About Finding Common Ground.”  For Jones and many other advocates of more confrontational methods, calls to deescalate ideological fault lines ultimately amount to what we Stoics would term a lack of Courage: “The search for the middle,” she writes, “is rooted in conflict avoidance and denial.”

Which approach to take in a given situation is itself a notoriously controversial (and, yes, polarizing!) question, and one that seems to show up in every generation.  When the African-American intellectual giant W.E.B. De Bois accused Booker T. Washington of being an “accommodationist” during their famous reconstruction-era clash, you can be sure it was not meant as a compliment!  Their historic battle over tone and method echoes to this day, and “accommodationism” remains popular as a pejorative term (though I’ll continue to use it in a neutral sense here).

My personal favorite defense of confrontational rhetoric comes from the French literary genius Blaise Pascal.  When critics found his legendary slam of Jesuit moral scholarship rude and offensive, he doubled down and eloquently argued that mockery and ridicule is “perfectly just,” often deserved, and sanctioned by “God himself.”  His polemic deserves to be recognized as the among the first and best modern attacks on so-called “tone policing.”

Arguably the most historic example of accommodation ever seen, meanwhile, was offered by Abraham Lincoln. In a bold, history-defining moment, Lincoln famously used the 1860 speech that catapulted him to the presidency to distance himself from radical abolitionist rhetoric and to sharply criticize the violent methods that had recently been taken by John Brown in the Shenandoah Valley (Brown had attempted to start a slave revolt in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia).  As the country stood on the brink of its Civil War a year later, Lincoln appealed to the “better angels of our nature” in his historic inauguration address, and made one last futile attempt to mollify and accommodate the grievances of the southern states.   He even expressed his support for an amendment to the U.S. constitution that would have permanently (!) protected the institution of slavery in states where it existed.

To this day, Lincoln and John Brown have their respective critics and admirers: gruesome as his tactics were, it does appear on the surface that it was Brown’s hyper-confrontational approach—not Lincoln’s effort at placation and accommodation—that ultimately succeeded in freeing the enslaved peoples of the United States.  Whichever approach you may sympathize with more, the fact is that the choice between confrontation and accommodation is seldom a foregone conclusion, and serious moral concerns motivate both approaches.

Stoicism and Conflict Resolution

Thankfully, polarized as America may be this election season, violence is not seriously on the table.  But if anything, that only makes it all the harder to decide how to engage virtuously.

I believe that Stoic philosophy has a lot to contribute to the conversation over tone and conflict resolution.  As with most issues, however, Stoicism (and virtue ethics in general) offers few absolutes here, and—as we will see—Stoic ideas can be used to support aspects of both accommodation and confrontation. Every situation is complex and different, and while right and wrong are real, objective things for Stoics, general rules are hard to come by.  Instead, we are expected to exercise φρόνησις (phronésis), or “practical wisdom,” to work out for ourselves the best response for each specific situation.  “Once someone has thoroughly understood and learned the structure of the ultimate good,” writes the early Stoic Aristo of Chios, “he can prescribe to himself what should be done in each situation” (as quoted in Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 94.2). As Epictetus has it, Stoic education aims to teach us a sort of alphabet for moral vocabulary that we can apply in new and creative ways:

If you have practiced writing, you are also prepared to write anything that is required.  If you are not, what can I now suggest [as advice]?  For if circumstances require something else, what will you say or what will you do?

—Discourses, 2.2.24

Pat answers not forthcoming, then, let’s look at some of the general Stoic principles that might be relevant for how we handle a polarized conversation.

1. Ignorance

At risk of biasing us toward the accommodation side of the argument before we even begin, perhaps the most obvious starting point is Stoicism’s call to kindness, cosmopolitanism, and “heartfelt love” of all humankind (φιλοστοργία, philostorgia).  As Stoics, we can never allow ourselves to fall completely into the perspective of “us versus them.”

Our Socratic heritage teaches us that when human beings do wrong, their misdeeds ultimately come from ignorance (ἀμαθία, amathia)—albeit sometimes an especially deep and pernicious form of ignorance.  Even in extreme cases—when people intellectually know that what they are doing or saying is flat-out wrong or unjust—they still do evil because they believe (even if only for a moment) that being unjust is somehow “good” for them.  When we accept these Socratic definitions,  there is no such thing as pure malice: only mistaken judgements about what is good and bad for human beings.

At the very worst, then, the Stoics counsel us to view our relationship to misguided people as akin to a relationship between a doctor and a patient.  We should always wish them well and, fate permitting, support their recovery from error.  No passage from the classical Stoic texts expresses this charitable and humanizing attitude so well as the much-beloved opening of Meditations 2, worth quoting here in full (similar sentiments can be found in book 2 of Seneca’s On Anger):

Say to yourself at the start of the day, I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable people.  They are subject to all these defects because they have no knowledge of good and bad.  But I, who have observed the nature of the good, and seen that it is right; and of the bad, and seen that it is the wrong, and of the wrongdoer himself, and seen that his nature is akin to my own—not because he is of the same blood and seed, but because he shares as I do in mind and thus in a portion of the divine—I, then, can neither be harmed by these people, nor become angry with one who is akin to me, nor can I hate him, for we have come into being to work together, like feet, hands, eyelids, or the two rows of teeth in our upper and lower jaws.  To work against one another is therefore contrary to nature; and to be angry with another person and turn away from him is surely to work against them.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1

Of course, we shouldn’t confine ourselves to taking a patronizing or conceited stance toward our opponents!  If we simply dismiss others as “ignorant,” we still risk falling into a vicious contempt that only exacerbates tribalistic fallacies.  Apt as the doctor-patient metaphor may be, in reality we are all patients.  We are very prone ourselves to being mistaken about the issues, and to falling into irrational beliefs supported by echo chambers and superficial readings of the facts.  And on a deeper, moral level, we are none of us Sages, all of us are subject to amathia, and the Stoics even say that we are all equally distant from virtue (at least in some technical sense).  “We should constantly be focusing our attention, I think, on the following thoughts,” says Epictetus: “‘Could it be, perhaps, that I too am one of these people?'” (Discourses, 2.12.8).  Marcus exemplifies this more egalitarian understanding of ignorance in another celebrated passage from the Meditations:

Whenever somebody wrongs you, ask yourself at once, ‘What conception of good and evil led him to commit such a wrong?’  And when you have seen that, you will pity him, and feel neither surprise nor anger.  For you yourself still hold the same opinion about what is good as he does, or another not unlike it; and you are thus obliged to forgive him.  Or if you no longer suppose that things of that kind are good or bad in themselves, you will find it easier to show kindness to one who is still in the dark.

—Meditations, 7.26

The general principles of cosmopolitanism, philostorgia, amathia, and showing “kindness to one who is still in the dark” are about as close as we can find to non-negotiable absolutes in Stoic ethics.  Taken together, they offer a powerful antidote to our all-too-natural tribal tendencies as human beings.  As we will see, these idea’s don’t necessary confine us to a strictly “accommodationist” approach to conflict.  But they do put a major peg in the ground that, at the very least, points sharply away from certain extreme forms of confrontation.

2. Temperance

Conflict can be thrilling, alluring—even downright pleasurable.  Who hasn’t felt an intense desire to give an opponent a “piece of their mind” now and again?  Or to indulge in a little self-righteous mockery of a point of view we disagree with?  Who hasn’t rushed an argument in the heat of the moment, and found themselves defending irrational or oversimplified claims? And who doesn’t sometimes wish that they could just bulldoze their way through an ideological impasse with a burst of belligerent energy?  These temptations can appear all the more justified when they are directed at highly important and noble goals, like justice.

These feelings are a fundamental and ever-present part of our human nature.  Like most “proto-passions” (προπάθεια, propatheia), they are there for a good reason, and we shouldn’t ignore them entirely. Sometimes the actions these feelings point toward are well-justified.  There comes a time to put our foot down, proverbially speaking, and the impulses that we feel toward action help keep us alert and focused on fighting for what’s right!  But other times, of course, these impressions lead us wildly astray if left unchecked.

Stoicism’s famous Discipline of Desire calls us to moderate these impressions by cultivating a conviction that virtue is infinitely more important than these external desires. But independently, the Discipline of Action requires us to prudently distinguish between the actions that they suggest: is this really the time to scoff, drop a barbed insult, or to make a sweeping and grandiose claim about the other side?  Or am I being mislead into unethical behavior by an attractive impression?

The Internet is one giant laboratory that shows just how bad human beings are at this kind of discipline.  It should go without saying that most of the petty trolling and snark that we associate with social media debates is fundamentally “un-Stoic.”  “For what’s more feeble,” says Seneca, “than anger huffing and puffing to no purpose” (On Anger, 2.11.1)?  None of us being Sages, however, even forums dedicated to Stoicism draw their own share of drama and disfunction!

During our practice of Stoic mindfulness (προσοχή, prosoché), it may be pretty easy to notice a temptation toward especially gross behavior—like trolling or petty insults. What is not so easy is deciding the finer points of when a more stern or polemical tone is in fact ethically (and strategically!) appropriate during a serious argument.

The Stoics don’t offer us any absolute, perfect answers for distinguishing between sound reasoning and unsound rationalization when it comes to the desires and impressions we feel during interpersonal conflict.  They ask us to practice Temperance and Prudence, and to make an attentive effort to distinguish between what is good and bad: “Don’t allow yourself to be dazed by the rapidity of the impact,” Epictetus famously advises, “but say, ‘Wait a while for me, my impression, let me see what you are, and what you’re an impression of; let me test you out'” (Discourses, 2.18.24; see also Enchiridion 1).  The rest, we hope, will follow from the process of skill development that this mindful Discipline of Judgement allows (the third of Epictetus’s three-discipline scheme of desire, action, and judgement).

What they do offer us are two solid admonitions.  First, full-blown anger is a kind of desire for revenge, and thus something that we should avoid:

No one can at the same time be both angry and a good man [sic], any more than he can be both sick and well.

—Seneca, On Anger, 2.12.2

Second, a lot of our conflicts with other people do ultimately arise from our attachments to external things.  Because these things ultimately have very little value in comparison to virtue (they are like a “candle to the sun,” in a common Stoic metaphor), sometimes it does make sense to resolve conflict by practicing straight-up accommodation.  Epictetus illustrates this in the context of family conflict, admonishing his students to

never to contend with your brother for anything that lies outside the sphere of choice, but to be happy to give it up, so as to have a better share of the things that lie within the sphere of choice.  For consider what it is to acquire his good will at the price of a lettuce, perhaps, or a chair: what a bargain that is!

—Discourses, 2.10.8,9

Of course, human rights are a whale of a lot more important than a lettuce or a chair, so this approach has limits!  It seems that the approach Epictetus recommends for vegetable and furniture disputes may be of very sparse usefulness in a political context.  This brings us right to our third key principle:

3. Courage

When Tayari Jones argues that there is “nothing virtuous” about seeking common ground, she offers us a direct reversal of Epictetus’s lettuce illustration. When it comes to the reality of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, she says, we are misguided if we believe that “the fact we can’t all get along is more significant than the issues over which we are sparring.”  Expressing the same classic mistrust of compromise that we find historically in Pascal, De Bois, and Brown, Jones artfully boils down the dangers of falling into an accommodationist extreme:

The middle is a point equidistant from two poles. That’s it. There is nothing inherently virtuous about being neither here nor there. Buried in this is a false equivalency of ideas, what you might call the “good people on both sides” phenomenon. When we revisit our shameful past, ask yourself, Where was the middle? Rather than chattel slavery, perhaps we could agree on a nice program of indentured servitude? Instead of subjecting Japanese-American citizens to indefinite detention during WW II, what if we had agreed to give them actual sentences and perhaps provided a receipt for them to reclaim their things when they were released? What is halfway between moral and immoral?

Whether or not you agree with Jones’ assessment of the moral issues that are currently at play, it is certainly true that a virtuous approach to conflict sometimes requires us to exercise a big dose of Courage, and to overcome our natural aversion to tension and disharmony.  We ought to be willing to “speak truth to power,” as the saying goes, or (in terms more popular on the right) we should be unafraid of being “politically incorrect” when the situation demands it.

For all we can say about their love of social harmony and their temperate approach to conflict, the Stoics were certainly no stranger to courageous acts of resistance and opposition.  Socrates—often taken as a model by the Stoics—is known not only for his brave defense of himself before his Athenian accusers, but also for his valor as a soldier in the Peloponnesian War, and for serving on a council where he single-handedly blocked an unconstitutional vote in the face of death threats from an angry crowd.  Seneca tells us that, despite the Stoic injunction against anger, “sometimes we should feign it if our listeners’ sluggish minds need stirring,” and “sometimes we must strike with fear those with whom reason gets nowhere” (On Anger, 2.14.1). The famous Stoic statesman Cato the Younger invented the filibuster, and rigidly refused to make compromises that he viewed as threatening to the Republic—even as civil war loomed and Julius Caesar became more and more dangerous and popular a foe.  “If wicked men come along,” Epictetus says while encouraging his students to mimic the Courage of the mythical Heracles, “you’ll rid the world of wicked men.  ‘But what if I should die in doing so?’ Then you’ll die a good person, accomplishing a noble deed” (Discourses, 4.10.10–11).

Having the Courage to maintain your moral integrity even to the point of openly defying a dangerous tyrant is a common metaphor throughout Stoic literature, and sometimes more than a metaphor.  In what we now sometimes call the “Stoic Opposition,” a band of philosopher-politicians who had studied under the great teacher Musonius Rufus openly opposed tyrannical emperors during the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties of the Roman Empire.  Their methods were the exact opposite of Seneca’s accommodating support for Nero (which Seneca has been much-criticized for), and it ultimately got them executed.

Point being, courageous confrontation is an important part of our moral and political toolbox, and (when handled virtuously) it is perfectly compatible with Stoic values and practice.  Granted, Cato and others like him are endlessly controversial figures, and some argue that his stereotypical Stoic stubbornness accelerated political polarization in the Republic and hastened its fall.  But the case is hardly black and white.  Commentators like Teyari Jones certainly fall into hyperbole when they suggest that there is nothing virtuous at all about “finding common ground,” but she is correct that principled Courage is a vital political virtue.

“Compromise by itself is not praiseworthy,” writes modern Stoic politician Pat McGeehan in Cato’s defense. “Compromise can sometimes be involved in virtuous intentions and actions, but compromise can never stand as a virtue alone, especially if it means the sacrifice of principle.”

4. Socratic Dialogue

Praising the value of temperate and courageous dialogue, respectively, is all well and good.  But what matters is how we apply these virtues on the nitty-gritty level of a real conversation.

The Stoics offer us a nice rule of thumb here, which I have increasingly come to view as brilliantly useful: whenever possible,  craft your argument so that it meets your opponents where they are.  Or stated differently, we should approach arguments as if were were talking “with friends.”

Simple as it sounds, this idea was a big deal in the ancient world.  It  was specifically associated with the Socratic method, or ἔλεγχος (elenchus).  The difference between elenchus and its more confrontational alternatives is neatly expressed by Socrates in Meno (emphasis mine):

If he were a philosopher of the eristic and antagonistic sort, I should say to him: You have my answers, and if I am wrong, it is your business to take up the argument and refute me.  But if we were friends, and were talking as you and I are now, I should reply in a milder strain and more in the dialectician’s vein: that is to say, I should not only speak the truth, but I should make use of premisses which the person interrogated would be willing to admit.

Today we usually think of the Socratic method as a cheeky sort of adversarial tit-for-tat, aimed at tripping up the opponent or even embarassing them.  But for the Stoics, elenchus was much more about stopping at each step and making sure that everyone is on the same page (see Cicero, On Ends, 2.1, among other places).  This method is loosely related to what we sometimes call the Principle of Charity today: in the hands of the Stoics, Socratic dialogue was the precise opposite of eristic posturing and of ridicule, and it was a fundamentally non-coercive mode of conversation.  We see this clearly in Discourses 2.12, where Epictetus goes on at some length in recommending the Socratic approach:

A good guide, when he sees someone wandering astray, doesn’t abandon him with a dose of mockery or abuse, but leads him back to the proper path…

It was the principal and most distinctive characteristic of Socrates that he never got overheated in an argument, and never resorts to abuse or any form of insolence, but would patiently endure abuse from others and put an end to any conflict.

—Discourses, 2.12.3, 14.

Most provocatively, Epictetus emphasizes that this methodology is focused squarely on winning the heart and mind of your opponent, and not on putting on a good show to persuade third-party observers (2.12.5):

How did Socrates act, then?  He forced his interlocutor to bear witness for him and had no need of any other witness.  He was thus able to say, ‘I can do without everyone else; it is always enough for me to have my interlocutor as witness; as for the rest, I don’t seek their vote, but that of my interlocutor alone.’

This interpretation of elenchus, odd as it may sound to those of us accustomed to thinking of Socrates as the master of snark, is consistent with the way that Socratic dialogue is used by psychotherapists today.  Sometimes called the “cornerstone of modern therapy,” this modern version of Socratic questioning uses a “spirit of respectful curiosity” to uncover the basis for a person’s beliefs, along with any irrational distortions they may have fallen into.

Socratic questioning is a fundamental part of today’s Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy toolbox, and at one time it was an essential component of philosophical training and practice in the Western world.  Maybe it’s time for modern Stoics to dust off elenchus as a spiritual exercise, and to bring its non-coercive, person-centered approach to conflict back to the fore.

When Being Nice isn’t good Enough

This accommodating interpretation of Socrates’ example was clearly held in high esteem by the Stoics.  But it clearly shouldn’t be treated as an absolute standard, applicable to any and every situation.  The Stoics’ narrow interpretation of Socrates as a cordial, accommodating interlocutor seems to ignore his famous capacity for Socratic irony, and Epictetus himself was no stranger to witty sarcasm that borders on derision!  Seneca’s aforementioned claim that “sometimes we must strike with fear those with whom reason gets nowhere,” moreover, certainly implies that we should sometimes suspend the principle of meeting people where they are.

Of course, the Stoics could be wrong about all of this, and their example isn’t gospel truth—but overall I think they do a good job of expressing the major aspects of behavior that we should try to be aware of during a conflict.  The remaining question is how we ought to tie all the pieces of this moral alphabet soup together when facing specific challenges—and that’s where modern scholarship can step in and try to develop the philosophy further!

In their 2011 book Reasonable Atheism, Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse offer one of the best attempts I have seen to define the specific circumstances under which we should consider using a more confrontational approach to rhetoric (Modern Stoics may recognize Aikin as the co-author of a notable modern theory of Stoic feminism).  Drawing on the concept of Socratic irony, they begin by positing that “most often, one must be polite in argument,” and that this should be our default mode of interaction.  Where this starts to change, they argue, is when we are involved in a “momentous disagreement” in which important matters are at stake, and when “it seems that one’s good arguments are simply not getting through to those on the other side” (p. 72).  This is very similar to Seneca’s idea that the rules change when “reason gets nowhere.” Here’s how Aikin and Talisse explain precisely what they think those rules look like (p. 75–6):

Calm, reasoned, and respectful engagement should be the default in argumentative exchanges.  But there are times when rudeness is most effective and appropriate.  Importantly, the objective in these escalations in tone is not to dismiss people like Tom [a recalcitrant interlocutor] as ignorant and unworthy of argument, but rather to spur them to be better interlocutors.  That one’s opponents may hold one in contempt for one’s performance should motivate one to be better.  We should be free to communicate our frustrations when we communicate and argue.  Combative tone is a good, useful thing when used properly.

This may be as good a synthesis of “accommodation” and “confrontation” as we can hope to find, and I think it offers us a good starting point for understanding how the virtues of Temperance and Courage might interact to produce an ethical understanding of the ideal “Socratic” dialogue.

Dialogue as a Stoic Response

This summer, in the Shenandoah valley of western Virginia—just up the river from where John Brown’s violent efforts to free American slaves polarized the nation 159 years ago—a summit of 3,100 members of the “Better Angels” organization convened to draft a manifesto of depolarization.  Taking their name directly from Abraham Lincoln’s accommodating inauguration address, Better Angels rejects the idea that “civility is a sign of weakness” and that “name-calling is preferable to reason-giving.”

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a Better Angels workshop at George Mason University which brought together seven “red“-leaning students and seven “blue“-leaning students for a series of structured dialogue exercises.

What I admire most about these events is how incredibly efficient they are.  I have had many one-on-one conversations across world view divides before (religious and political)—and they easily get unwieldy!  World views are huge things, and it is easy to get mired in an exponential number of details, and to get stuck on especially controversial quagmires.  Dialogue events led by trained organizers help avoid these pitfalls.

In this case, we were asked to perform a couple of exercises.  In one, for example, they divided us into our “red” and “blue” groups for a stereotypes exercise: we were asked to brainstorm the top four stereotypes we feel our own political group is stigmatized with.  Here is what our respective cohorts came up with:

• Blues:
  • Communist
  • Snowflake
  • Un-American
  • Hedonistic Freeloaders
• Reds:
  • Don’t care about the poor
  • All rich white men
  • All racist
  • Anti-LGBT

Then we worked together within our own cohort to explain what is wrong with each stereotype, and—here is where it gets interesting—to identify the grain of truth that lies behind each stereotype.  After hashing out this “two-step movement” amongst ourselves (which isn’t always easy—Lord knows people of the same party often disagree!), the reds and blues were brought back together in the same room, and we presented our conclusions to each other.

The results of this and the related exercises they walked us through were fascinating.  In an opportunity that rarely occurs “in the wild,” we were all able to listen to our opponents express self-awareness about the pitfalls and (moral) tensions within their own movement.  Relieved from the pressure of an adversarial environment, we were able to be honest about the reservations and misgivings we have surrounding our own partisan preferences, even while being clear that the criticisms we hear from the other side bother us deeply and go too far in many ways.  This vulnerability, as I’ve argued before, is essential to mounting a strong defense of our favored group or movement.

We were able to listen to Republican-leaning students contest the idea that their party is made up of “all rich white men,” for example—while at the same time listening to a politically active young woman open up about how she does, in fact sometimes feel out of place within her own party.  On the flipside, the red group had the opportunity to listen to us blues explain how abusive and insulting we find the word “snowflake”—even while we admitted that passions do certainly tend to run high among progressive movements, and that we have our own misgivings about how to keep activism in check.

Now, the natural worry one might have with these sort of initiatives is that they result in a shallow sort of accommodationism.  Dialogue’s humanizing effect, it seems, can lead us right into a feel-good “Kumbaya moment” that puts us at risk of making inappropriate compromises and losing our Courage to take a forceful stand on important issues.  As Jones and McGeehan advise us above, there is nothing inherently virtuous about compromise, and too much focus on harmony creates a slippery slope to dangerous false equivalences.

My experience completely neutralized this objection for me.  Participants in dialogue exercises don’t leave their pressing concerns at the door, and at no point does indulging the “better angels of our nature” through humanization and empathy mandate that we pretend both sides’ beliefs are equally correct and equally good.  As our moderator pointed out, participating in Better Angels does not “turn everybody purple.”

In the end, then, it strikes me that whatever unresolved and complex problems political polarization raises for a practicing Stoic, dialogue practices and movements like Better Angels offer one fantastic and fruitful framework for us to combine and practice our core values of Temperance, Courage, acknowledging ignorance, and the Socratic method.  I’ve become a dues-paying member (it only requires a minimum donation of $10 a year!), and I invite you to consider doing the same.

Dialogue is just one tool for handling “momentous disagreements” (as Aikin and Talisse call them), and it is not the absolute end-all be-all.  We certainly need other forms of debate and criticism, and, as we’ve seen, even ridicule has its place sometimes.  But dialogue is one powerful and positive tool that seems to have a very slim chance of being misused for evil—and it is for that reason that I think dialogue, like the elenchus of Socrates, commends itself as a sound core practice around which to to build a Stoic approach to polarization.  It may not solve all our problems at once, and it may be a long and frustrating process at times, but that shouldn’t bother us if we are in it for the long game, and for the good of humankind:

When the man, who was consulting with him, said, “I seek to know this—how, even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain myself in a state conformable to nature?”  Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is.  If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer you that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen.

—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.15

E. O. Scott

is a computer scientist in the Washington, D.C. area. He runs the Stoics for Justice Facebook group and writes the blog Euthyphroria.