Duncan Autrey referred us to this article, saying that it was very much in line with our thinking. He was so right! Just as Chris Honeyman said earlier, that the statement by Michael Luttig, a former judge testifying before the January 6 committee, "reads as if you [Guy and Heidi] and Sanda wrote it," I thought exactly the same thing as I read Carcasson's article.
Carcasson is saying many of the same things that we said in our CRQ Feature article, sometimes even using the same words (e.g., "bad-faith actors" instead of "bad actors," which seems to be the more common term). We hadn't read this when we wrote our article—had we done so, we likely would have cited it profusely, particularly in respect to Carcasson's observations about neutrality, bad-faith actors, and the threat of hyper-polarization. We will try to make up for that oversight now.
We don't have the research background in argument that Carcasson does, nor have we run a center for public deliberation for fifteen years (though we have run a Consortium focused on intractable conflict for over 30). That's why it is particularly encouraging to us that someone with that strong a background—and, indeed, a somewhat different background from ours— is coming to such similar conclusions. We wanted to share those to this discussion. We strongly encourage our readers to read the full article, but we are summarizing the ideas which most relate to this discussion below.
— Heidi and Guy Burgess
Summary of
"The Case for Principled Impartiality in a Hyper-Partisan World"
by Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess
September 25, 2022
Citation: Martin Carcasson, National Civic Review. Winter 2022, Volume 110, No. 4. https://www.nationalcivicleague.org/ncr-article/the-case-for-principled-impartiality-in-a-hyper-partisan-world
Martin Carcason has been running the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University for 15 years. This is an "impartial organization dedicated to helping the community address difficult shared problems productively." At the beginning of this article, Carcasson observes that people in many roles who used to consider themselves "impartial" or "neutral" —journalists, librarians, teachers, scholars, community mediators, for example, "are struggling as never before to navigate the natural tensions inherent to the work" in the context of the hyper-polarization swirling around them.
My goal in exploring this concept of principled impartiality is to help practitioners and communities better engage the inherent tensions to democratic life in hyper-polarized political environments, particularly at the local level, where partisan interests, bad faith actors, and “conflict entrepreneurs” tend to have less power and influence than they do at the state and national levels, and thus the possibility of quality democratic engagement persists. My argument is based on the belief that hyper-polarization and our inability to engage across perspectives represent the most significant public issue currently. If we do not transform how we engage each other, we will not be able to take on any of the societal challenges we face, because the polarization has undermined the systems we rely on for democratic decision-making to function well. The good news is as we make progress in addressing that issue, we will inherently build community capacity to address all the other challenges more productively. Such progress, however, will clearly require the revitalization and expansion of impartial institutions to pave the way.
This echos our sentiment that we alluded to in the CRQ Feature article where we said that "hyper-polarization impedes the dialogue necessary for jointly resolving real problems and may even lead to violence." We have made much stronger statements in the past. For example, in The Intractable Conflict Challenge, we say "destructive conflict "(which is broader than, but certainly includes hyper-polarization) "is the most serious threat to our common future. It ruins personal lives, prevents us from solving common problems, and underlies dystopian trends toward further authoritarinism, chaos, and large-scale violence." This argument is also at the core of our Constructive Conflict Initiative. So we couldn't agree more.
Carcasson continues by explaining his work on persuasion:
Data clearly shows they [narratives and emotion] are often much more powerful than quality evidence from credible sources due to the proclivities of human nature. Humans are primarily narrative creatures rather than logical ones. Indeed, one of the main reasons why democracy can be such a challenge is that logically strong arguments do not necessarily have an inherent advantage over weak ones. This is particularly true when the weak arguments fit simple narratives about “us” and “them” and heroes and villains that audiences are prewired to believe. This reality is an important one because it sets up the critical role of impartial practitioners focused on addressing this situation and helping people avoid or overcome these natural impulses. The marketplace of ideas does not work as we might hope. Weak arguments and bad ideas are often best sellers and stronger ones can struggle to compete. We need systems and processes that counteract these natural tendencies and help people engage more productively. Impartial practitioners thus play a critical role of intervening in the marketplace of ideas in ways that helps improve its functionality.
Carcasson does just that with his Center for Public Deliberation at CSU. While he started out describing the Center and his work as "impartial," he found out that not only was "impartial" too "dry" and "uninteresting" to recruit students, it also suffered legitimate pushback. As several other writers in this string of discussion posts did, he also quoted Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” He added that his
firm commitment to impartiality was again challenged when an activist group brought talking points that were full of exaggerations and false information. Adapting Tutu’s insight, we recognized that if we were neutral in the face of clear and purposeful misinformation, we have chosen the side of the bad faith manipulator.
In response, he developed the notion of "principled impartiality," which is intended to reflect a commitment to 1) impartiality, 2) democratic values, such as "inclusion, equality, free speech, pluralism, and human rights," and 3) quality information and arguments (hence a commitment to accuracy, clarity, and reasonableness, and opposition to misinformation, manipulation, and logical fallacies." He fully acknowledges the tensions between these three elements, and seeks to balance and honor them all in his work.
We believe that working to identify these tensions, put them on the table, and do the hard work to manage them works to elevate conversations. ..."the concept of principled impartiality is not designed to end discussion, but to spark deeper discussions that must be engaged. I argue that is the heart of the work of the deliberative practitioner, as well as other impartial practitioners like journalists, librarians, teachers, city/county managers, etc.
Yet growing societal polarization has made that balance increasingly difficult:
By all accounts, the importance of good process has exponentially increased at the same time that trying to negotiate the tensions inherent to principled impartiality has become almost hopelessly complex and fraught with peril. Unfortunately, one primary reaction to the hyper-polarization and proliferation of bad faith actors and tactics was increased pushback on and dismissal of the role of impartiality and neutrality.
But, he asks:
what conception of neutrality is being targeted? I would contend that a frequent target is a simplistic, straw person version of neutrality. The most common attacks on neutrality or impartiality are: (a) it is impossible, (b) it’s a myth, (c) it has never been achieved. All three of these arguments stem from the same basic point. The idea is that we all have biases, many of them subconscious, so to assume a pure sense of having no bias is an unreachable ideal.
He answers this charge by suggesting (and we—Guy and Heidi Burgess—would certainly agree) that most professionals acting in "neutral roles" fully understand this. As Carcasson explains "The point is not to be purely neutral, but rather to see impartiality as a particular commitment among others that is critical for supporting their particular role." The other, substantive, criticism of neutrality is when it unfairly supports the status quo, maintains injustice, or allows manipulation of facts. This charge is "solved," if one follows Caracasson's notion of "principled impartiality," which, we would assert, again, that most professional conflict resolvers do, even if they do not call it that. Principled impartiality is certainly consistent with the notion of neutrality that we (Guy, Heidi, and Sanda) championed in our CRQ feature article.
Carcasson concludes by saying:
In the end, democratic decision-making in the face of wicked problems, hyperpolarization, and the proliferation of conflict entrepreneurs is exceedingly difficult. In this environment, those attempting to serve as principled impartial resources for our communities face immense challenges and vocal opposition (often from multiple sides). Nonetheless, I would still argue we have no other choice than to soldier on. To abandon impartiality completely and simply join the fray as partisans will likely only further erode our political culture and exacerbate the problems of polarization, distrust, and misinformation. Fighting fire with fire is likely to simply burn the whole democracy down. ... I recognize the likely objection of the perceived weakness of impartiality in the face of powerful bad faith actors—my work was once described to me as “speaking nice to power”—but I would argue they revel in a hyper-polarized environment where opposing arguments can be dismissed as “fake news,” and no one trusts any source of information. For our communities to get back on track and improve their ability to address their shared problems, institutions committed to defending democracy and helping us distinguish between strong and weak arguments must be developed or reinvigorated.
