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Some people consider civil discourse as something to be avoided. It can be messy and confrontational, and emotions can run high. On today's episode, the third and final in a multi-part election series, Political Science student Zachary Dillingham walks our host  through why civil discourse is so important for our democracy and how to participate in it successfully.

Andrew 

Hi and welcome back to Bear in mind my name is Andrew Galster, your host and today we're continuing our multi-part series — voting, protesting all things that you might think are the backbone of our democracy. And while these things are all critical, they pale in comparison to one of the most important parts of what makes our country tick — civil discourse.  

Yeah, right. I hear you saying, but really, civil discourse and how we partake in it shapes how our country works from the highest level of government down to our daily interactions. It is one of the most important aspects of shaping public policy in the workings of our judicial system and even the way we look at the executive branch. It is so critical that the U.S. courts website gives ground rules on how to partake in civil discourse.  

But to maybe ground what seems like, to me, a lofty topic, I have Zachary Dillingham in the booth with me today to talk about how to approach civil discourse. He spent most of his life running debate teams and judging debate competitions, and now he's going to use those skills to shape government policy here in Colorado. 

Zach 

I'm an Econ and a Political Science major and a senior here at Â鶹´«Ã½. 

Andrew 

Very nice. So, I understand you did debate in high school. I don't know anything about debate. What does that look? 

Zach 

It’s a lot different than I think you would like traditionally think of debate. It's really structured. It's like, in high school there are three different main types of debate. They differ at the college level. They're pretty structured around every, every two months you get a topic, but it's essentially something like heavily like government related and it's like really niche that you wouldn't have an opinion on. Like, the United States abolished plea bargaining. Or something like that, something you wouldn't already have, like a pretty strong like opinion on. Yeah. And they're normally framed that way because you have to write a case for each side so you don't get to pick a side like you genuinely will have to be able to debate either side. You and whoever you're competing against, whether it's a partner event or a solo event like I did. 

One of the two teams will read their case. The other team will then read theirs, and depending on the event, might start actually attacking their case. But normally after that you'll have a question period. 

Andrew 

And I understand you do a little bit of judging as well. 

Zach 

Yeah.  

Andrew 

Yeah. So, when you are judging a debate, what are what specifically are you looking for? 

Zach 

It's a pretty broad range of things because not only are you scoring the debate, but you're also scoring their presentation.  

Andrew 

OK.

Zach 

A lot of scoring is absolutely, how you how you speak, you know, how clearly you speak, your, you know, how loud you are. Like, I mean generally what you would look for when someone is public speaking. But there's different things to look for like you normally you do kind of like an impact calculation at the end of every round, you'll kind of look at the impacts through each case and through our through rebuttals and everything and weigh evidence. That's the thing with like, especially competitive debate, whether it's at the high school or the collegiate level, it does become subjective down to the judge. 

Andrew 

Literally judging debate. And doing debate for a super long time at what I understand was a high level, if I'm having an argument, a civil discussion here in real life, not that debate is not real life, but you know. What are some things that I want to bring into that interaction? Because I understand, you know, from personal experience, everybody having a disagreement with someone is not easy. 

Zach 

Kind of the biggest thing when it comes to like discoursing with other people is avoiding anecdotes. That's the hardest thing for people when they're in any sort of argument, like, not necessarily argument, but like discussion. It's always very anecdotal if some, if I were to tell you some, like government statistic like, oh, unemployment is down, there's always going to be the person that's like, well, I'm having a hard time finding a job. Or I know around here. I know a lot of people having a hard time finding a job.  

Those anecdotes don't really provide a lot to the actual discussion. You're not helping anyone. At that point, it's just kind of like hard to continue discussion when it's just like anecdotal. I kind of start like there, if I if you're ever like discussing with anyone, I try to avoid anecdotes like if we're actually like trying to come to an agreement somehow, but you definitely also have to go into it with the understanding that you're not necessarily going to get everyone to change their mind. I mean, for me, I'm very much like um, I like to know as much about something as I can. So, it really helps to actually kind of know, like actually have like the background. Or at least read, you know, about what you're talking about. Whether it is, you know, the economy or international relations. You know, stuff like that. It helps to actually be aware. 

Andrew 

So, I guess if you're going to be, you know, engaging in any type of civil discourse, maybe do your research beforehand. 

Zach 

Well, yeah, like it's a very simple thing to do, but it's still so fleeting for a lot of people. Like they like, we hear this everywhere. You hear it on TV. When it comes to voting, like you hear a lot of really, like, just heavy discourse about learning about what you're talking about. I mean, even here in, like, Colorado, they have the blue books for voting. Like to actually explain to you costs and benefits of legislation of different candidates, and I think just having a baseline is the most important thing because everyone knows less than they think they do. Like that is like a pretty good generalization. 

Andrew 

Yeah. And it's like there's no way you can know everything. 

Zach 

Well, that's it. You can't. And so it helps to at least try and, like, understand. And if you're not like, and obviously you can't read everything, you know it takes a lifetime to even master one subject, let alone many. But it helps to have that baseline, so you at least have something to build off of. 

Andrew 

For sure. So, I'm gonna run a situation by you. Say, me and my estranged uncle get into an argument about what type of car is best, right?  

Zach 

Yeah.  

Andrew 

I love my muscle cars, right.  

Zach 

Sure.  

Andrew 

He loves Japanese cars. How do, what are some, like, attitude things I should probably bring into that interaction 

Zach 

The biggest thing is being open to the conversation. 

Andrew 

Because I shouldn't immediately shut off the idea of Japanese cars? 

Zach 

Well, I mean, yeah, I think like, don't. If you go into, if you go into any discussion immediately with the thought that I don't like what they're about to say, and I'm going to disagree with it. It's going to make it very hard to have that discussion, which there are a lot of, obviously topics that it's hard to go into them without already having those predispositions. But it's better to go into it, I guess less, you know, open to hear everything but more open to hear the reasoning why. Because you can disagree with a fundamental concept, but still understand why someone might believe in it. And I think that really helps come to a common ground is understanding why, not just the objective topic, but the subjective reasons outlining why someone might support it.  

Andrew 

Yeah. I guess, along with that, I can't come on like super hot either. And at that point, why are you having this conversation? Why are you having any type of discourse if? 

Zach 

Well, at that point, it's not even discourse. You're just arguing you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. You know? 

Andrew 

That's a great point. And yeah, that's not the goal at the end of the day. 

Zach 

It shouldn't be. And if I think a lot of times people go into this, like this mindset of I want to have a civil discourse. But then they come on so hot that it becomes very clear that in all reality, they didn't come here necessarily to listen to what you have to say as well, but more tell you what they believe. 

Andrew 

So, I guess first important note is, come in with an open ear. And I'm sure you saw that during debate as well. 

Zach 

Well, that's like one of the I think the core skills or just like generally, any sort of like public speaking class is good for anyone. One of the most important things you have to learn, outside of the actual like case breakdown and questioning and speaking, is just how to keep your composure. Because it's very different in the fact that you can very much write on someone’s ballot ‘I did not like the faces you were making, it was not appropriate.’ Like you can straight up put those critiques on a ballot. And so you have to learn very quickly to, even if you hear the most outlandish thing come out of someone's mouth, keep a completely straight face. You have to learn how to keep a poker face. 

Andrew

I can't imagine that's easy. 

Zach 

No. It definitely takes a while. I mean even like, that doesn't mean that you're gonna have a perfect one anyway, but you definitely have to learn to keep your composure. Like it is extremely important to be able to keep your composure. 

Andrew 

So, if I like come up to you and I’m very confrontational ‘Car should not have wheels! They should float!’ You just got to keep that stone wall up? 

Zach 

I mean. Yeah. I mean that's the thing is you don't want to escalate it to an argument because you're there for a reason.  

Andrew 

Mm hmm. 

Zach 

And once you start to like, argue or be defensive, you start to just move away from the initial point. At that point, why even continue? Because clearly neither of you want to be involved and actually listening. So it's going to be a lot better and a lot of like again, not necessarily that you're going to make this person believe you or agree with you, but you can at least give them the understanding of why you believe the way that you do, and a lot of times that that just helps make people more compassionate towards the belief system.  

They may not agree with it, but if they understand fundamental reasons why someone might believe in it, they're going to be more compassionate, more sympathetic to something. And not immediately write you off as or you're psychotic. You want cars without wheels? If you were to sit and say, well, it's, you know, it's because I think it'd be more efficient if they flew. I'd be like, OK, that makes sense.  

Andrew 

Well, you see now we're at agreement. OK, I get what you're saying. So, moving away from flying cars for just a quick second, we're talking a lot about civil discourse and how to approach it, but what exactly does civil discourse do for us as a society of young voters and things like that? 

Zach 

I mean, if you want to take it like really abstract to like the theory point of view. I mean, that's kind of like how the democratic process is supposed to function. The dissemination of views among different groups of people. Because that's how we become sympathetic to different movements. I'm a straight white guy, you know, like, there are a lot of things that don't directly apply to me, but through discourse, through this understanding of other people's viewpoints and what's important, you're able to say oh, even those things that probably don't affect me, you know, like, whatever it might be, I should still…’ 

Andrew 

Hear those points? 

Zach 

I should still hear those points and be an advocate for them if I agree with them. 

Andrew 

How we go about partaking in democracy, voting, protesting all the things that we have the rights to do starts with these on ground, civil discourses that we're going to have. 

Zach 

Well, I think so. And I mean the biggest part is civility. I think, is like what's most important and kind of what we touched about earlier. If people aren't willing to be civil, it makes it very difficult. Or if they don't know how to be civil in a discussion, it makes it very difficult for us to share our opposing views or wise views that we might have.  

I mean, it's a really important thing for what we do because no one can live in like, you can't live and vote and make decisions for the greater whole if you just live in a room with no internet and don't talk to anyone. And especially we live, you know, we're very lucky to have all of the avenues of information of learning that we have now, that I think the civil part is what's so important now because we have the ability to discourse. If anyone on the planet, if we need to. 

Andrew 

Great point. I never would think about the scope of people which we can interact and argue with. No, argue is not the right word. Civilly discuss with. 

Zach 

There you go. I think that's why it becomes so important to learn how to civilly have these discussions, because we can discuss. But you have to be willing to do it. 

Andrew 

So, what are some like beginner tips? Right. I'm a hot, hot-headed person. I'm very passionate about the things I'm passionate about. What are some tips you would give me to maybe have these conversations be a little more peaceful even? 

Zach 

The main things for me are what we've kind of touched on already. The biggest thing is first, be compassionate. At the end of the day, you know, 99% of people believe in something for what they think to be a good reason. Whether or not it societally is, whether or not you believe it is. Coming in with the compassion that they have like a belief in something is going to help the most. I mean, it's what we talked about earlier, kind of, you just have to go into it with an open mind in the sense of this person believes this for a reason. It wouldn't hurt to find out why, and they'll probably respect you a lot more if you do it.  

Composure. Obviously, no one wants you know, you just want to get lit up. It doesn't do anything for anyone. And then one of I think what I do personally, but that's just cause I spend so much time reading and things like that. When I'm learning about any given topic or any like main viewpoint I have, not only is it important to learn the reasons to support it, but also learn the underlying reasons why other people don't that you might encounter. And know how to respond to and I think that's something that stemmed from doing debate is that's what a lot of it is, is you just have to be ready for anything to hear. 

Andrew 

Yeah. 

Zach 

It helps to learn as much about it, which obviously not everyone has the time to do that. But give yourself enough information that you can hear a counterpoint and be able to say, well actually ‘it's this,’ or ‘I understand, however.’  

Andrew 

I feel like just from my personal experiences, having civil discourse with someone else, someone bringing up a point that you didn't expect shouldn't immediately be a reason to put your walls up. From what I understand. 

Zach 

Well, that's exactly it. Yeah. You want to be able to hear that point and be able to, you know, respond. Like, the biggest thing is there's no discussion if you can't respond. At the end of the day, it's just them telling you things and you saying, ‘well, no, because I don't want to listen,’ or something like that. You know, there's no discourse there if you don't actually have the information to discuss. 

Andrew 

Cool. So, let's talk about just briefly here, civil discourse on a higher level than just us as peers. Just real quick, could you remind me what you do for your internship? 

Zach 

I would be a legislative aide for Colorado House 10s representative from Boulder. So yeah. 

Andrew 

Very nice. That has to do with the public policy, yeah. 

Zach 

Yes. So, I would be commuting and working in the capital like once or twice a week and actually like just kind of a legislative aide. Like basically just helping the representative with everything she needs. 

Andrew 

Gotcha. So, uh,  working in that environment, how does civil discourse directly affect how policy is made? 

Zach 

Well, I mean, I think you have to think your most effective legislation is legislation that's bipartisan. You know, you have to talk to the, to the people you are directly opposed to. You have to, a lot of the times for legislation to get passed, you know in those legislative bodies across the US that don't have super majorities, you know, in their houses, it becomes a point where you have to or if you really want something passed, you're gonna have to work with another legislator. 

Andrew 

So important topics to us individually have to almost partake in this civil discourse just to find that medium ground. 

Zach 

Well, I mean, it's why you hear a lot of House bills pass all the time, but immediately fail in the Senate especially. I think a lot more contemporarily, as divisions within government have become a lot stronger, you'll see pieces of legislation passed through the house with one vote. Like there were strictly party lines, but immediately fail in the Senate because they don't have enough to meet the majority in the Senate, the 3/5 needed. So, it ends up showing that like if you really want something done like you can't — it just doesn't work that way anymore in government.  

Andrew 

Yeah. 

Zach 

That's why you see it tend to be more like structural legislation. Like which obviously even that's changing now, but even still you'll see like, you know, legislation for like jails for example, or prison reform, stuff like that. Things that tend to be less hot button that you can get more support for, or like whenever we see funding, you know government funding, like they have to. That’s the only way it gets passed is if they have to work together. And those like, some of the clearest within government that you see. 

Andrew 

So just to you know, dumb it down for my sake, being able to have this like civil discourse with peers, even at our level, but all the way up to the top of the cream of the crop of the government — is important to have policies punch through? So, I feel like learning how to do this correctly, kind of like we talked about is like almost an essential thing.

Zach 

Without a doubt. 

Andrew 

Even if you're not super politically active or motivated or anything like that, knowing how to have these conversations is crucial. 

Zach 

I mean, even your least political people, there's still something that they're, that is important enough in their life that a lot of them, like we're seeing now like, you know, get record turnouts every year at this point. Voter turnout. It's because even if you're one voter, you know, a one-issue voter, there's something you care about. So, to be able to have these conversations, whether it's on a broad range of government or just your personal life views with another person, it helps to approach it, you know to be able to do it civilly. It just applies to everything you know. It doesn't stop just with us. Once you get to government like it, it's a part of the democratic process. It's part of every part of the process, is being able to have these conversations. 

Andrew 

Umm, I just got a couple last questions for you. Say I am, again just completely talking, no idea what I'm saying, right? Cars shouldn't have wheels and they should fly, right? And you take issue with that?  

Zach 

Hmm. 

Andrew 

How would you approach me civilly to be like, hey man, I disagree? 

Zach 

If they're like, obviously saying it to me in hopes of having a conversation about it. I think it, I'm very much someone where I just kind of start with. Well, I mean have you seen this instead? Like, why this? And normally, like by that point, you can kind of understand like how someone's going to take it. Because if they're like, open to it, then you have the conversation. You sit and say well, actually this is what's going on. This is why it's happening. This is why cars have wheels -  logistically.  

Andrew 

There’s roads for a reason! 

Zach 

Yeah. And like, we kind of just haven't invented the efficient technology yet. And you know, if it's someone who is actually open to a conversation, you hope that they say, ‘oh, I didn't know that,’ or, ‘oh, that's cool.’ And even if they don't end up agreeing with you, they can be like. ‘OK, whatever.’ You know, I guess I know why now, even if I don't agree with it. 

Andrew 

Yeah, like I’ll, in my imaginary world, fly above the potholes and we'll be all good. 

Zach 

Yeah, yeah. And if you still believe that, that's like cool we, you know, we talked about it. I know that you want a flying car, like I learned something about you.  

Andrew 

Yeah. Now, now I know who you are on a more. Personal level, yeah. Like the interaction. 

Zach 

Yeah, you have to be able to take something out of it, or else it's just not worth it, you know. If you don't take anything out of it, that's why again, the discussion is important. So you take something out of it. 

Andrew 

If I could have you breakdown the three things you said were important for debating me, just in one or two words each, what would those things be? 

Zach 

Probably like compassion, composure. And then, I don't know how to say this one word. Just like research, yeah. 

Andrew 

Yeah. Yeah. Book it. Yeah. Yeah. So next time you're about to be in a civil discourse position in a debate, whatever happens in your life. Yeah. 

Zach 

There you go. Doing some civil discourse.

Andrew 

Keep those three things in mind. Thank you for being here with me, Zach. I appreciate your time. 

Zach 

Yeah, of course, man.