Living Room Conversations

<p>Joan Blades knows something about political intensity. In 1998, she and her husband sent an online petition urging Congress to censure President Clinton and move on to pressing issues. It went viral before viral was a word, gathering half a million signatures and spawning MoveOn.org — one of the most influential progressive organizations in American politics. But by 2004, Blades realized she had a problem. She had deep exposure to progressive viewpoints and almost no visibility into why conservatives viewed the world differently. In 2007, she connected with Michele Combs, the communications director of the Christian Coalition, at a retreat. The two became friends — and then unlikely partners, when MoveOn and the Christian Coalition teamed up to preserve net neutrality.</p><p>That improbable friendship shaped what came next. In 2011, Blades co-founded Living Room Conversations with Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler. The concept is simple and replicable: a structured conversation, following six basic rules of discourse, held in someone's living room (or a coffee shop, or online) between people who disagree. No special training is required. No facilitators, no institutions, no budgets. Just neighbors committed to trading judgment for curiosity. Blades — a mediator and attorney by training — calls the work "a domestic peace initiative."</p><p>Over 25 conversation topics are available as open-source guides, from food to guns to voting. The model is designed to be self-organizing and horizontal: anyone can host, anyone can participate. Living Room Conversations has spread across the United States, providing a platform for people who would otherwise never talk to each other to discover they care about each other. The relational technology is the conversation guide — a few simple rules that create a container strong enough to hold disagreement. The insight is that polarization is not primarily an information problem. It's a relationship problem. And relationships are rebuilt in living rooms.</p>