On Extremism, Inconsistency, and Uncertainty
This is Alfie Kohn's final post with Deborah Meier on Bridging Differences. A new blogger joins Deborah next week.
Dear Debbie,
I'm tempted to continue talking about competition with you, trying to hash out whether it (like conflict) is really inevitable, and asking what message we send to kids when we permit or even endorse activities that pit them against one another. But I was intrigued by your more general comments about consistency and other features of holding, discussing, and acting on one's beliefs. Before I yield the floor to your next conversational partner, then, I thought it might be interesting if, for my final contribution to this blog, I joined you in going "meta."
I may be wrong, Deb, but there occasionally seems to be a subtext to our conversations in which a moderate or reasonable position on a given issue (yours) is contrasted with one that's more extreme (mine). I'm not sure that's an accurate description of most of our disagreements, but clearly a lot of disputes are framed that way. In fact, your views, too, are sometimes regarded as pretty far out there. I think this way of describing positions that people hold is actually more complicated than it seems, however, and certain distinctions come into view only when we squint hard.
Can we start by agreeing that our culture is skeptical of anything that seems radical or immoderate? A middle-of-
Dear Debbie,
I'm tempted to continue talking about competition with you, trying to hash out whether it (like conflict) is really inevitable, and asking what message we send to kids when we permit or even endorse activities that pit them against one another. But I was intrigued by your more general comments about consistency and other features of holding, discussing, and acting on one's beliefs. Before I yield the floor to your next conversational partner, then, I thought it might be interesting if, for my final contribution to this blog, I joined you in going "meta."
I may be wrong, Deb, but there occasionally seems to be a subtext to our conversations in which a moderate or reasonable position on a given issue (yours) is contrasted with one that's more extreme (mine). I'm not sure that's an accurate description of most of our disagreements, but clearly a lot of disputes are framed that way. In fact, your views, too, are sometimes regarded as pretty far out there. I think this way of describing positions that people hold is actually more complicated than it seems, however, and certain distinctions come into view only when we squint hard.
Can we start by agreeing that our culture is skeptical of anything that seems radical or immoderate? A middle-of-
