Yesterday AVA ventured out into the daylight to host a public, face-to-face, conversation rather than an online one.  (As in radio, there’s always that slight fear of people finding out what you really look like.)  About 30 people came to the Sagamore Institute to discuss the difficulties involved in holding a civil, evidence-based political dialogue about such controversial topics as the recent detainee bill, immigration policy, and election reform.

The conversation included several local opinion-makers.  There were two city council members and two Indianapolis Star columnists, although in fairness I should add that one of those council members and one of those columnists are AVA regulars.  There were several recent retirees (who had time for a midday meeting) from many of the city’s  prominent institutions.  Several of our own  bloggers and board members—John Clark, Sheila Kennedy, Bill Groth, and Bil Browning—did us proud by introducing discussion topics.

True to AVA principles, we did not waste our time castigating the negative, misleading campaign ads that infect our tvs this time of year.  Instead, we tried to be the change we want to see in others—that is, we put some very difficult issues on the table and had a reasoned dialogue about obstacles that prevent civic discourse from approaching them rationally.  No one was intentionally excluded; no one was overlooked.

We got some sage advice from onlookers.  A local economist reminded us that “mass” attitudes are usually changed by staking out a position, raising large sums of money, and hiring public relations experts to spread the word.  Someone else suggested we could do a great service by becoming an “arbiter agency” capable of scoring the fairness and accuracy of politicians and political material.  (For the record, many of us aspire to such a role but there never seems to be enough time, people, or money to do the job that needs to be done.)

Most importantly, though, people saw, heard, and participated in a conversation they seemed genuinely eager to join.  They thought of friends they could bring to the table.  They imagined taking part in our online dialogue. They floated new ideas for future face-to-face meetings.

Right now we are a grass-roots organization that is fully dependent on the donations of our friends and mostly guided by idealist volunteers.  But at Thursday’s lunchtime conversation we all caught a glimpse—at least for a moment—of a Values Alliance capable of pushing the conversation toward civility, focusing public attention on hard evidence rather than spin, and dragging the election process toward fairness and inclusion.   There are days I feel puny because I know we’re making it up as we go along, but yesterday I felt like I was on the right side of something that mattered.  

The post-9/11 period has been excruciating for all Americans and a lot of people have circled the wagons and turned inward, buffering themselves with the politics of fear and exclusion.   Twenty years from now America will either have emerged from its cocoon as a more inclusive, rational society,  or it will have huddled into an even more narrow-minded, closed one.  Whichever way it goes, when my kids—adults by then—look back and ask me, “Dad, what did you do when things got rough?”, I want to be able to tell them I looked for the good in people and tried to help shape the kind of society both they and I would want to live in. 
 

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