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Street Roots » , Jan. 20-26, 2017
Let’s talk
A conversation with Oregon Humanities9 Executive Director Adam Davis,
who helps Oregonians engdge in conversations about the difficult stuff
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
fosters?
r
'
S T A F F W R IT E R
A.D.: The hardest thing is to get people in the
p a large degree, the 2016 election was
room.
So, are we working with partners in their
defined by vitriolic, personal attacks
community that will draw people? Do people care
between candidates, the influence of social
media and fake news, and a deep divide between about the topic? Can you, from the get go,
rural and urban America - not the civil political encourage listening and genuine conversation?
discourse citizens may wish to see in federal Are people looking at each other? Can you get
them talking about personal experiences? Can we
politics.
bump
people back to seeing each other as human
Adam Davis, the executive director of Oregbn
beings?
Humanities^ thinks the caustic divisiveness that.,
characterizes political conversations of late has
A.W.: When people talk about their personal
been emerging for quite some time. Oregonians
experiences, they’re not talking about politics at all.
need look no further than the occupation of the
■
Malheur Wildlife Refuge last January to see how
diametrically different our views can be,
particularly over something as fundamental as
who should control federal lands and how.
Oregon Humanities is a nonprofit that
encourages Oregonians to engage in conversations
that are the complete opposite of what we might
see on the evening news: civildiscourse with an
eye toward understanding, not condemning or
even persuading.
With an organizing principle to help Oregonians
“get together, share ideas, listen, think, grow,”
Oregon Humanities co-sponsors dozens of events
each year designed to get people talking.
The Conversation Project is co-organized with
local organizations throughout the state to attract
Oregonians of different backgrounds and beliefs to
talk about a particular issue - homelessness,
immigration, race or one of the 30 topics Oregon
Humanities suggests - for an hour and a half.
Davis says the conversation’s facilitator always
tries to get people to step back from their
preconceived ideas, both about their owns beliefs
and the beliefs of others to think about a topic in
a fresh way.
The organization’s Think & Drink series invites
participants to engage in “public conversations
with critical thinking and fresh ideas.” In 2016,
Oregon Humanities celebrated the 100th
anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize by bringing to
the state prize-winners, including journalists
Katherine Boo and Isabel Wilkerson. In 2017, the
•series will focus on the importance of place and
home. *
Tickets to Think & Drink routinely sell out, and
Davis says the requests from communities to host
Conversation Projects have never been higher,
and attendance is strong - signs that Oregonians
want to engage in conversations about important,
controversial topics in the public interest without
engaging in mud-slinging.
Davis, who has been Oregon Humanities’
executive director since 2013 and previously
served as the director of the Center for Civic
Reflection, an Indiana-based organization that
promotes dialogue and reflection, talked with
Street Roots about why the need for civic
conversation is more important than ever - and
not as hard to do as it might sound.
A.D.: As a starting point. Let’s take affordable
housing. It sounds like an issue where you can get
the statistics on ¿it and take a stand on a particular
side. Take the word “home.” What do you feel or
seein your head when you hear the word “home.”
If you ground a conversation there...you’ve got
common ground. You’ve put everyone in a place
where you can imagine them feeling at home or
feeling not at home.
A.W.: J imagine it could be disorienting fo r people
to have that sort o f conversation.
A,D.: It can be disorienting for people to come
into a room and realize that they may not come up
with an answer by the end of the discussion. That
there may be just as much disagreement in the
room as there was at the beginning. It can be
disorienting to see a person as more individual or
more human than you expected to see them. In a
way, we?re hoping for some positive disorientation,
both towards how we see others and how we see
our own beliefs. Can we see each other and our
ideas in a fresh way? It can be disorienting, but
also usefuland satisfying.
A.W.: It’s frightening to some people to engage in
the sort of conversation that you’re talking about-
they could be frightened that they could be proven
wrong, insulted, and so on.
A.D.: It seems that way. How can we create
Conditions where people are comfortable enough
to reconsider their own opinions? We’ve seen this
with some subjects - just mentioning a subject,
like guns, that already stir a response that is not
necessarily a conversational response, even
though the goal of the activity is to get people
talking about these things.
We’re limited when we can’t hear each other.
The more we’re able to open ourselves to the
experiences with others, particularly with those
we disagree, the fuller and more just our lives will
be.
A.W.: Could you talk more about what you mean
by that?
A.D.: Ralph Waldo Emerson talks about how we
A.W.: How do you get people talking, engaging in
the kind of conversation that Oregon Humanities
S e e LET’S T A L K , p a g e 9
P H O T O BY JOHN RUDOFF