While this is a theoretical question, I was thinking of some public hearing sesssions I have been at, as well as some holiday family gatherings. I do believe that some people view discussions as a competitive activity. The more heated things get, the more they become vested in proving their point. As a result, I believe, no one gets anywhere, because it’s all about arguing. In the case of public hearings, it can become a shouting match. But in either case, the idea of listening goes out the window.
As you all point out, it is conditional. I will sometimes just turn around and leave. Other times, when I was younger, I might have taken someone’s side and contributed to the heatedness of the controversy. But nowadays I prefer to try to cool things down, so that we can have a productive conversation. I often find that people disagree simply because they are using words differently.
But, how to do this?
I have tried stepping into the middle and urging people to calm down—perhaps follow Robert’s Rules of Order (not that I know them, but the principle is fairness, and I hoped people would get that). I don’t like this approach because I don’t really like being the center of that kind of attention, and I don’t feel like I’m strong enough to get away with it.
My strength, I believe, (how to say this?) is an ability to analyze a situation and identify sticking points. Like what is the word they are using differently. Another aspect of my strength, as a sense of an alternative process, which I think of as the talking stick process. Native Americans used the talking stick at council meetings. One could only talk as long as one held the talking stick, and one could talk as long as one wanted (this is mediated by invisible social pressure—most people can feel people getting restive). The person holding the stick passes it on to the next person they have chosen to speak. My version of this method is the old standby of going around the room in a circle.
How can you apply these techniques in a setting where you are a late-comer, and other rules have been established? As a late-comer, you don’t know what has been said, and you don’t know how the rules, often unspoken, were established. In addition, you don’t necessarily know the pecking order.
So you have to be subtle, and find a way to demonstrate an alternative technique for discussion without actually calling attention to the fact that you are changing things. One thing I have done that sometimes works is to ask people to define a term that they are using. “What does this mean,” I ask. Sometimes, as a result of this question, people discover that they haven’t been talking to each other, but past each other, because words mean different things to them. This can settle people down a little, perhaps enough to overtly suggest a different way of doing things.
I don’t have any other tricks in my basket, though, and I’d love to see if anyone else does. I will say that I’ve used this technique with mixed success online in other forums. I have not had to use it here, which, I think, is a huge point in fluther’s favor.
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