We all need a refresher course in how to disagree with civility
Leavers tend to see their fellow Leavers as intelligent, open-minded and honest, and Remain voters as closed-minded, hypocritical and selfish. In return, Remainers are even less generous in their views of Leave voters.
On both sides, only a minority said that they would be happy if their child married somebody from “the other side”, and again Remain voters were significantly less likely to be happy with the idea.
This research, cited in the recent “Divided Britain” report from King’s College London Policy Institute, shows that today’s divisions go far beyond a coolly rational weighing up of the political and economic benefits of retaining or renouncing EU membership.
We are more inclined to see political issues in terms of identity, which means that questioning our opinions feels like a personal attack on who we are.
From social media jibes to frosty family gatherings, politics is feeling more personal, and less reasonable, than any previous time this century. How then to get from here to more constructive disagreement?
We cannot escape the significance of the issue that divides us most: Brexit, which has taken over from party political loyalties in our sense of what defines us.
There was never any doubt that the outcome of the 2016 referendum would change the course of the UK’s future, and though the result is yet to be played out, that is still true. There are real issues of power at stake: who wields it, how, and accountable to whom.
Those issues won’t go away, no matter how civilly we disagree. Those who dream of returning to a pre-referendum Age of Innocence need to wake up. Politics is back, with all the conflict and challenge that competing visions of the future entail.
Past political divisions usually rested on widely-shared perceptions of how society worked. Politics tended to follow a left-right axis, linked to class loyalties as well as divergent ideas about the ideal role of the state in our lives. Even while taking different sides, opponents shared an understanding of the issue.
Today, the basis of our disagreements isn’t always so clear. That makes conflict less comprehensible and more frightening, and accounts for some of the personal and vitriolic division.
We can’t even agree on fundamentals like what democracy means, or whether certain words or subjects are too toxic to be discussed in (or by the) public. Although I’m using the rhetorical “we” here – recent manoeuvrings in parliament and the courts seem designed to keep the rest of us quarantined from the power struggle playing out over our heads.
In pursuit of political victory, both sides are tearing up precedent and leaving little intact of the institutions of democracy. From the arcane traditions of a constitutional monarchy to the simple principle of Losers’ Consent on which majority voting rests, nothing can be taken for granted any longer.
Nevertheless, there are things that we can do to make political conflict less corrosive of the social fabric, and use it as an engine for better thinking.
Civility of language matters less than genuine respect for our fellow citizens. If both sides think themselves open-minded and honest, let’s prove that by being open to hearing opposing ideas.
After all, if our own ideas are better, opening them up to challenge will only temper them to resilience and hone their cutting edges. Your opponents are honest and intelligent in their own eyes, so they at least think that they have reasons for their own views that are as reasonable as yours. Listen to them.
It is easy, and common, to see your own views as rational and your opponents’ as emotional – by which we usually mean that they fell prey to the manipulation of their fear or anger while we coolly weighed up the evidence.
This is nonsense. Without emotion, we literally could not care about the outcome of any action. Unreasoning emotion can lead to apocalyptic panic or scapegoating rage, but all of us use both emotion and reason to make decisions.
Dismissing your opponents as stupid or bigoted is mere laziness of thinking. It also doesn’t work, if your objective is to change their minds. And in a democracy that should be the goal, because anything else is a dictatorship.
Whatever happens in the next few years, we will continue to have plenty to disagree about, so what we need now is to rebuild some kind of shared ground on which to argue. What that looks like, and what ground rules we agree to share, is something we all urgently need to debate.
Timandra Harkness is speaking on multiple panels at the Battle of Ideas over the weekend 2-3 November at the Barbican Centre.