<h2 id="69a92215-debf-4788-9b75-5b4e4d7412d1" data-toc-id="69a92215-debf-4788-9b75-5b4e4d7412d1" style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2;">Love and Respect can coexist with conflict. In fact, that may be the only way they can coexist.</h2>The world began to fall apart when we stopped being forced together. In my view, the decline of civil discourse accelerated when people started having more than one television in the home.When I was a kid, I didn't know anyone whose house had more than one television. In our house, we all knew what the others were watching, and often watched it together. So, watching television often meant watching something that you did not choose. We also often had to listen to the same radio, although each of us preferred different stations.We would bring ideas from TV, from school, from work, from church or from the library, and discuss them at home. We might start into a debate or an argument. But the willingness to continue living in the same house meant that we would have to return to dialogue, and an acknowledgment of nuance.Today, each of us has our own screen, and we seldom consume the same information. It has become so easy to immerse ourselves in a bias-confirming stream of propaganda that we don't even recognize it as propaganda.We have lost the art of dialogue, and have been corrupted by its evil twin, debate. We support sociopolitical dogma the way that people support sports teams.When I was a kid, I had a broad set of interests, partly because we had to share the TV. When one of us was watching something on TV, the rest were watching that person watch those shows, perhaps while reading or drawing. In this way, each of us expanded the others' perspective a little.Each house was a sort of filter bubble. &nbsp;But what it filtered out was extremism and narrow mindedness.Nowadays, with each person having their own screen, one person can be alone in a room watching Star Trek or Doctor Who, while the other members of the family can be in other rooms watching ....whatever people watch if they don't watch Star Trek or Doctor Who.In the old days, if you didn't have common ground, you were required to find some. If you got angry, you had to calm down. Of course, you might get angry, or hurt, and storm off to your own room if you had one, or go for a long walk. But eventually, you came home, sat at the table, and broke bread with the people who cared more about you than anyone else in the world.I have met people in small remote communities, from the equator to the arctic, and seen how they regulate their emotions. When you are in a village of 400 people, and walking away from it means going thousands of km before you meet another person, well, you are strongly motivated to get along with your neighbours.There was a time when politics sought to identify popular opinion. Now, politics creates their niche. Political parties, in the past, would aim to identify themselves with the popular middle. Nowadays, they manufacture a niche by using one-sided arguments.<blockquote>"Most of society’s arguments are kept alive by a failure to acknowledge nuance. We tend to generate false dichotomies, then try to argue one point using two entirely different sets of assumptions, like two tennis players trying to win a match by hitting beautifully executed shots from either end of separate tennis courts."Tim Minchin</blockquote>

Love and Respect can coexist with conflict. In fact, that may be the only way they can coexist.

How to Fight Well with Others.

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How to Fight Well with Others.

How to Fight Well with Others.

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