This was a series of discussions at the August 2018 Resilient Communities Mini-Unconference.
Participants
Discussions
During the combined Saturday morning session:
- Shawn: I'm working with Better Angels to bring Democrats and Republicans together to do a workshop; another similar group is having them share meals
- Argument over The Righteous Mind and the morality of Republicans
- Judy: See also the Oregon Conversation Project
- Unfortunately, not many conservatives show up
- Shawn: This may be because conservatives are more likely to be low on the personality trait of openness to new experiences
- Judy: Critical thinking and decency has been sacrificed
- Shawn: When things break down and survival becomes more important, political differences fall away
- Judy: My faith that humans rise above was shattered by the election
- Judy: The idea that there is objective truth has been lost
- I agree that truth is subjective in some ways, but if an event happens and you say “that didn't just happen...”
Saturday afternoon at the kitchen table
- Argument between Judy, Shawn, and Brandon, with a couple of interjections from Eric, about whether to treat Trump voters with respect or consider them "deplorables" for putting a sexual predator in office
- Judy agreed that we should try to find common ground with them, but it's hard because she feels afraid of them
- Brandon used a metaphor with the conflict between windsurfers and inner-tubers
During Who are we? part 1
- Ben: I feel urgency that sometimes makes me want SolSeed to do more activism
- Shawn: I see a different path for problem-solving than activism: A resilient community can help many other people after the system collapses
- Argument with Judy about whether we're also obligated to work to prevent collapse, or whether collapse is inevitable
- Shawn: I prefer going orthogonal to head-butting conflicts
- Judy: I believe in making personal responsibility for working toward good in the world
- E.g. helping create a market for electric cars
- It feels like people who don't take responsibility, e.g. for struggling to change the political paradigm that gave us Trump, are putting that burden on my shoulders
- Judy and Ben: The hopelessness of realizing that despite all efforts and progress, not enough people are struggling to keep things getting better, and in fact all the progress will be undone