Ohio State helping others navigate difficult conversations

Ohio State helping others navigate difficult conversations

Listen. Learn. Discuss. platform helps university community disagree with purpose

Aaron Yarmel isn't interested in stopping your arguments. But he is interested in making them more productive.

"I actually do think that arguing would be a step in the right direction - at least we would get some engagement. But where arguing is insufficient is that when we go into an argument, we typically have the goal of winning. We typically have the goal of proving that we're right and the other person is wrong," he said. "And what civil discourse asks us to do is to assume that we have something to learn from someone who disagrees with us about the issues that really matter."

Yarmel, associate director of the Center for Ethics and Human Values (CEHV), joined The Ohio State University in 2022 after earning his PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His academic interest focused on facilitating dialogue, particularly among young children, and included a dialogue facilitation program in local public schools.

"My dissertation research was about activist ethics. I thought a lot about conflict within activist communities and disagreements. And when this job came up, it seemed like what had happened was somebody had described all of the weird interests that I had developed over the past 10 years or so and then put it into a job description," he said. "I applied, I got this, and it's been a dream job."

In addition to his work in the classroom, Yarmel hosts workshops on civil discourse with his colleague, Kathryn Joyce, who directs CEHV's Civil Discourse for Citizenship Program. The workshops are just one part of CEHV's longstanding civil discourse offerings that have been recently highlighted through the Listen. Learn. Discuss. platform. Under the initiative, Ohio State community members can develop skills to safely and respectfully navigate difficult conversations, practice those skills in productive and facilitated environments, and gain new perspectives to become more effective thinkers, communicators and influencers.

"[CEHV has] this framework for civil discourse called the four Cs. And the four Cs are, Be Curious, Be Charitable, Be Conscientious, Be Constructive. We see them as virtues or character traits; if you learn them, you'll be able to navigate challenging conversations," he said.

Yarmel said the point of the four Cs is to use the concepts as tools to engage and respond to others even when you disagree strongly on contentious social and political issues.

"We're thinking about how to be fair when we're evaluating [others'] views and how to be resilient and not get defensive when we hear critiques of our own views," he said. "And then when we're being constructive, what's happening is we're working towards common ground, where common ground might just be a shared picture of where we disagree. If we can have people disagree about an important topic and then come away from that with a shared picture of exactly what's underlying the disagreement, that's real progress."

Understanding disagreements and learning to engage in arguments should not be confused with an unwillingness to hold strong opinions or to express them.

"When a lot of people hear about civil discourse, what they think about is politeness. They think about holding back from really expressing your strong feelings, and that's not what we're about. When we think about 'civil,' we're primarily thinking in terms of civic and civic responsibility," he said. Instead of politeness, Yarmel recommends respect: "If I'm having a civil conversation with you, I want to respect you [by] approaching you as somebody who can teach me something."

Like in biology, philosophy or calculus, there are tools and techniques people can use in civil discourse to help engage in arguments in a more productive way. Yarmel talks about a technique where you work to rephrase someone's point of view until they agree that you have understood them. Then you invite them to reciprocate.

"I've found that this move of just telling somebody what you think their view is and giving them the opportunity to correct you - it's almost like a magic trick. It de-escalates situations and it's this gentle on-ramp into civil discourse," he said.

The value of the university's Listen. Learn. Discuss. platform is that it collects several already successful programs under one banner, Yarmel said. Students, faculty and staff can find information about workshops, classroom experiences and related resources. Programs like CEHV's Civil Discourse for Citizenship Project, OSU Votes and the Divided Community Project are connected through Listen. Learn. Discuss.

"If there's something that you're struggling with or there's something that your unit is struggling with, please reach out. [CEHV] can come up with tailored workshops for you," he said. "In some cases, what you might want is a broad training program. We have online training programs that are infinitely scalable and accessible."

More Ohio State News