I’ve been trying to understand why people never seem to improve at talking about politics. The skill of political discussion simply does not seem to grow among the people I've had such conversations with over the years. Although in most areas experience tends to fuel improvement, the ability to Talk Politics seems the exception. I don't think there's a question that improving at this skill would be valuable. Politics, after all, mostly has to do with how our cities, states, and countries are run and anything that might help these entities run better is welcome in my book. The stakes feel high enough to me that I gave this question some extra thought this week.
I’m tempted to accept one of the commonly cited cliches about political discourse as an explanation. The bubble concept is a good candidate. We are all in our own bubbles, right? Given that a bubble is a reliable way to preserve the status quo, it seems like if we all Talk Politics exclusively within bubbles then stagnant skills would be a logical result. If the game doesn't get any harder, no one needs to get better at the game. But this doesn’t explain why politicians seem subject to the same rule of stagnant skills because their jobs are to talk to colleagues with different political views. I can't imagine a politician that could be described as being in a bubble yet it seems like for the most part they also never improve at Talking Politics.
I suspect the importance of being right affects these discussion skills. People tend to behave differently when they feel right, preferring to talk in terms of evidence and explanation rather than engaging in any form of open conversation. This doesn't necessarily have to relate to Talking Politics except that from my experience it's pretty routine for a political discussion to involve people convinced that they are right. (In fact, I think people who aren't sure whether they are right simply hide from such discussions.) This means what passes for a political discussion these days resembles something like what I imagine happens on Judge Judy, each side taking turns to present evidence while accusing the other side of lying (or at least, presenting false evidence). There is a certain skill involved in presenting evidence but I don't think these skills have much value for Talking Politics. For the most part, in these discussions the 'skill' of presenting evidence is merely a matter of knowing how to speak in compound sentences, but compound sentences aren't a prerequisite for Talking Politics. In fact, compound sentences might be a hindrance for Talking Politics because long soliloquies rarely encourage healthy conversation (though of course we all know from watching TV that it isn't Talking Politics until you interrupt someone else by accusing them of trying to interrupt you).
I think the way to become better at Talking Politics is to learn how to talk with someone who you can admit is right even while you continue to believe you are right. Ideally, these 'right' views would essentially be opposites of each other. This might sound slightly ridiculous and I suppose it probably should – how can two sides be right at the same time while holding opposing views? The contradiction goes away when you throw out the assumption that only one side can be right. If you want to become better at talking about something like politics, the challenge isn’t to become better at proving your point, the challenge is learning to find shareable space between two seemingly incompatible views. It's not possible to work together with others unless you can find this space.
