How We Overcome Political Division In America | Adam Hinds | TEDxNorthAdams

[Music] I'm willing to bet that each one of you has been judged by someone else in this room at some point today I know it sounds strange but humans are tribal right and we we form teams easily we look for the smallest queue to decide if someone's in our group or not and it's likely because we've evolved for intergroup conflict and I think understanding that dynamic is key to understanding the current divisions that we're experiencing in this country including political divisions if you're like me you're pretty sick of politics which sounds strange I know coming from a politician but you know it's I'm the state senator here and before that I spent a lot of time in the Middle East nearly 10 years with the United Nations mostly focused in in negotiation settings and conflict analysis in Iraq Jerusalem and Syria and you know they clearly liked me they said what intractable conflict civil war send Adam he likes that stuff but but that background means that I'm incredibly interested in understanding you know what it is that has gotten us here to this moment in our in our in our history and more maybe maybe more importantly how do we extract ourselves my sense is that we spend way too much time focusing on the the kind of outward manifestation of conflict and my preference is looking at the the kind of individual and group level dynamics that will help us recreate a national unity so it's my hope that by the end of today we can agree to three different things that will allow us to change our approach to the political process and maybe to all human reactions or inter relations for that matter so it's an easy task you know basically what I've been focusing on is in since the 1980s and 1990s we've seen major shifts in our political process in media and social media and in the economy and each of those shifts have actually encouraged conflict you know they've torn our social fabric and here's a chart that shows how we've we've transferred the the white congressional districts highlighted in 1976 on the top they've moved towards landslide districts for Republicans in gray and Democrats in black by the presidential election in 2004 and then trying to explain that a lot of people point to gerrymandering right it's it's clearly led to fewer swing districts and it's incentivize candidates and and politican politicians themselves to you know be more extreme to cater to those who are more likely to vote in a in a primary and and so we've seen that parties are actually you know focusing on big data to micro-target in districts down to the block level so that their parties can maintain power in a state and this this is the district in North Carolina that was recently became the first district that was blocked by a federal court for being unconstitutional because of partisan gerrymandering and also there's we've seen another shift in the amount of money entering the political system since the 1980s and it also incentivizes folks to maybe be more partisan to attract that new money and make sure it's not used against them and for an opponent you know we've also seen shifts in media since 1980 we've gone from those three major Network televisions would give a neutral take on the news and they've switched over to cable and which is now catering to ideological perspectives and maybe folks even come home and stream entertainment and skip the news altogether and there were there were economists at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas who said that it was this proliferation of media that was the biggest contributor to political polarization amongst the things that they looked at and part of it they thought is its overlapping with a flaw in our human cognition which is confirmation bias right you you start with your view especially when it's moral and political issues and then you just look for information to confirm it and then of course there's the internet you know since the 90s and then social media after that it may not mean that cause division and we've seen studies that show that older folks who are not necessarily online are dividing at the same rates but it certainly can amplify division and so you know we've seen in in so well I guess in reality right now we know that four out of five of your Facebook friends have the same views same ideological perspective and we know that you're more likely to read or share news that you agree with and so if you're like 62% of America right now that gets their news on line or from social media sixty-two percent that's a majority I just did the math for you 62 percent of America then you're probably seeing things that you already agree with you're not seeing the other side and you know you can see that in in an article I put up two weeks ago on my Senate facebook page and this is the exchange that happens we've seen classic studies that show the this kind of sense of either you know perceived and amenity inanimate e or relative distance allows you to be more aggressive writing versus talking to someone makes you or allows you to be meaner and so these are examples of that I want to talk lastly about shifting the economy because it's also kind of led to this sense of division we see here now that the majority or the largest industry in the in the United States in the 1990s was manufacturing in most states and in manufacturing with with high-paying jobs available to anybody regardless of your education level and they were replaced by by service jobs and so by 2003 you can see that it's now retail and trade that is the dominant in 34 states in the country and by 2013 it's it's health care and social assistance and so there's this there's this kind of the last 30 years a wage stagnation right as those the the dominant jobs have just are paying less and less and so we've seen by 2014 a third of food stamp recipients actually if somebody in their family who's working and they just can't make ends meet and there's an element of income inequality as the economy is shifting towards this these winner-take-all cities that where the the pay is higher and if you have a higher education level of education you're more likely to move to that and then you can see there where a division emerges and so you can see remember from that original picture of the spread it's the parties have become rural identified as rural versus urban and people in surveys have said that they're more likely to date someone from their own party and not some from the other side and I'm other theta-not have friends from someone from the other side so I started by saying you know I want to understand the individual reactions to these shifts and each of these changes are measurable problems that that really start to give this sense of I'm under attack and it's conflict 101 that you know you have some basic needs to be met and if they're not you're in trouble all right you need to put food on the table you need a roof over your head and if that's not there we're gonna have a conflict and another universal pieces is relative deprivation I need this amount and I can only get that amount you know I used to be able to make this amount and now I can only make this amount but somehow I see over there there's this group of people they seem to be doing all right you know another piece that you you can see right here is that it's there's this status and consistency what matters how do you get your worth is it is it the folks with 25 years of experience or is it that advanced degree and whatever you have as a group or an individual you're more likely to value and so each of these are triggers for saying man okay we've got a problem here the the kind of what we need as a group is not consistent with the needs of another group and that frustration that you might feel can give energy to a response in a reaction especially if another group is held up as the reason for that misfortune and so it leads to things like distrust or you know a feeling that that other group is probably maybe you know indifferent to your your needs or even hostile they disrespect you and your group and you can see that those those dynamics are so tangible so accessible right now when people are angry I hear it every day they're angry they can't make what they used to and they're not sure about their kids alright and it means it feels like a duty to stand up for your group especially when you feel like you're getting antagonized by another group so in my mind in this environment you know fighting for securing social mobility and workforce development and and and addressing income inequality becomes a matter of national security and national unity we've reached a stalemate and essentially we have a point where you know we no longer are making progress in our national conversation or progress at the national government all right with Congress they can't get anything done and when they do they you know it gets overturned as soon as another party takes over and so from a conflict perspective stalemate is not the worst thing all right it can often be a moment where we say okay maybe we're going to open up and go to the next stage and so I would press the kumbaya music on here if I had it but before we get there there is a there's a sense that you know you're not going to get there when every sides feel like now we've given too much time too much energy too much money into this fight and so the first thing that you have to do is both sides need to realize okay we were actually in a stalemate we're not getting anywhere and so we also realize the second thing is you know what we actually need the other side's consent to reach what we want or we need them to change their action so we need them involved and so it's time to start putting ideas on the put on the table proposals that you can work with the only thing left is problem solving so what I'm proposing today is nothing short of a new approach to politics and I'm calling calling it problem-solving politics and there are three things that we can all do three mostly because nobody remembers four and five is too many and so it's three with a couple of subsections so first people need to be heard create the space for them here comes the good news finally there was a very recent MIT study that showed that when folks can actually tell their story explain their cause so someone in the other group it changes the way they feel about that group and it kind of gets at this idea that a barrier to reconciliation has been this feeling this fear that I'm going to be ignored and so you know typically in conflict situations we would say you know what you just need to understand the perspective of the other side or you know what we're gonna we're gonna move away from the personality we're gonna focus on the issues but this this makes it clear that you actually there is a serious opportunity when people are allowed to tell their story all right we need to be heard again so I often we focus on making sure there are town halls for folks to talk with each other and all of you can make sure that you're you're allowing that space in your conversations but go deeper this is a subsection for you taking notes at home go deeper you know I'm amazed at how often we actually do not talk about the real issue at hand right we take a very strong position but we don't think to ourselves yeah you know what but actually there's probably another way I can get to what I really need and so I often are I'm asking folks why do you need that or what is it you're trying to achieve and you can find that that that opens up the possibility of other options for okay we might be able to work together to reach out to the other you need them you know I one of the big concerns that I find from the shifts that I just described is that when you have this group dynamic emerge and group bonding you're very quickly able to to say you know what I am for my group and I'm gonna go after the other group or when you have you know the sense of group support you're more confident in your positions and when you have the sense of relative anonymity it's it's really easy to be more aggressive and dehumanizing and you know evolutionary psychologists believe that our what minds aren't wired for truth-seeking they're wired for bonding and so you're willing to say and do anything to be accepted by the group and it just keeps going right and then you know the more that you have that anonymity you're more likely to just make very simple conclusions out of complex issues and enter confirmation bias again and you you're getting information that you agree with me or not seeing the other side my point is it's a powerful dynamic and it's one that becomes attached to our own self-identity and it's very easy to start putting folks in a box and as antagonistic and so but I want to say that the good news here again is that we do know the antidotes we do know that human contact actually reduces prejudice we do know that when someone in your group actually has a friend in the other group that helps we know that positive media portrayal of intergroup actions interactions that helps online contact even through gaming good news even through gaming can help with your feelings of another group and so I think that it's critical that we're taking these steps solve problems number three don't win debates you know the big issue here is that we I feel like we have to go in the automatic first step when you see this contentious interaction and say all right we need to shift energy and move towards a process where we can actually talk to get underneath and talked about ways that we can actually work together part of the challenge in in these shifts I've described is that power has shifted right if the old way was that okay we're going to get power going to create our lines we're gonna put use our money for influence we're gonna get the politicians we like we're gonna get the policies we that'll help us that doesn't work if there's a stalemate and the the policy is going to change as soon as someone new comes in and so for me that where we are now is that the real power described as getting other folks to work with you to meet your needs it comes from relational power and it comes from you know working with folks so that you can actually understand each other and get to something that's sustainable it comes it grows out of restoring the reciprocal obligation of democracy I love that word and so at some point you know you'll have to you might want to take a stand and it helps for leverage but at some point you're gonna have to take the time to be with each other in a problem-solving process to really get what you want now you know it's problem-solving isn't easy we've used it in Iraq we use problem-solving politics in Iraq when I was there the United Nations and mostly focus on the north of the country and the Kurdistan region divided from the rest of the the country and it resulted from Saddam mostly pushing the Kurds out of these disputed areas a fault line from Syria to Iran and he used chemical weapons at times and the result was this very contentious existential conflict and the Kurds said well we know the answer we just have to have a referendum on these areas and the winner can take the territory and of course that would just lead to more conflict whoever lost was likely to fight and so we needed a new approach and we spent a year and a half flying around sometimes in Black Hawk helicopters landing in and far-off desert villages it probably conducted over 100 interviews and in each one of those conversations we couldn't start the conversation about problem solving and getting to a negotiation without first letting them tell their story about how the attacks and oppression impacted them personally and so eventually we could we got to the point where we could to say to folks give them dignity of recognition and saying we know over that mountain that Saddam attacked a village thirty years ago and we want to make sure that never ever happens again but to get that level of security you're gonna need Baghdad you're gonna need the other side otherwise they'll just line up their tanks and bring jets and so let's get to the negotiation table and so we did we started a process where we could talk about mutual interest but it was it was that being heard and understanding the value of the other side then having a process to enter its what mattered and so this is what it looks like here in the district we're very clear about setting up a process to identify issues that matter and get the right people in the room and and and set up a problem-solving process we had a 15 year old shoot a 17 year old broad daylight morning commute on the side of the road and and community was up in arms and a lot of tension about which which neighborhood is to blame and so he said you know we've got to create a forum for folks to talk they have to hear each other including members of the family of those impacted and this was the result you know two hundred fifty people in a room maybe more wanting to be a part of the process and so we made sure that there was a there was a very clear path for how you're going to bring in the right people and start a problem-solving process they resulted in a common project a mentoring program that still flourishes today so you know problem-solving politics isn't easy I'm still told by folks don't talk to me about problem-solving you know I know I'm right you need to say it publicly and if you don't I'm never going to vote for you again and you know I get given these dynamics it's hard not to feel like it's you need to be aggressive in the face of aggression but this isn't about capitulating this isn't about giving in this is actually about how to identify a way to get more of what you need it's also not about just meeting halfway particularly with groups like white supremacist right you have to stand for your principles we have to stand for overcoming racism and gender equality and LGBTQ rights but it's too when you're standing up for your principles it is that contact and shared experience that is going to get us there and work together and reduce hate and finally it's also it's not about just kind of moving to the center to represent all sides it's about solving problems so that and just landing wherever that lands quite honestly so I just wanted to conclude and say that what I'm asking of you today is to demand that your elected officials not buy on or any when you're talking to politics about not my end to this divide and rule tactic you know remove social support for that approach demand and reward that they take on a problem solving politics approach and you can take you can commit yourself to say you know what I'm gonna take those three steps myself next time you see something that's offensive take a breath maybe don't tweet right away and and kind of say you know I hear you your experience matters let's talk a little deeper and figure out what your real needs are you know by the way this is how the other side sees it and here's why but let's lock arms and work like hell to make sure this never happens again and so you know I feel like the bottom line is we're not defined by being Democrat and Republican we're defined by who we are together right that's how the world sees us that's how we feel about what's happening in this country and we've defined an approach here locally we think is can be replicated across the country we can create a style of politics that we can believe and we can to create a style of communication that matters that we can be proud of and that is the way we're going to get through this contentious moment in our history with our heads held high because we want to make sure this division never ever happens again thanks a lot [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 9,776

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Global Issues, Community, Government, Politics, War

Id: -_MiDEaozjY

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 20 2018