susanc's blog

In our work on issues of public policy, one of the goals of the Public Conversations Project is to bring partisan stakeholders together.  Partisans may disagree on the role of government and the type of action that will bring the most benefit to our communities, but perhaps we can all agree that, especially in moments of crisis, we need our leaders to put aside politics long enough to focus on policies that address critical issues. 

When Marjorie Ingalls described her internal conflict about having conversations with her kids about Israel on the Web site for Tablet Magazine, she received some strong responses from readers. That’s no surprise, since there is a wide range of deeply held viewpoints and emotions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the Jewish community.

Yesterday, the New York Times printed an article entitled "On Israel, Jews and Leaders Often Disagree," which began with the following characterization: "Criticizing Israel has long been the equivalent of touching the third rail in many Jewish families and friendships, relegating disagreements to a conversational demilitarized zone where only the innocent and foolhardy go." This hit home with me for a number of personal and professional reasons.

Would you like to learn how to facilitate constructive dialogue between individuals or groups at work or at home? Participate in one of our upcoming workshops!

Today is my birthday and I'm reflecting. I've been thinking about why I do the work that I do. I find that all of my answers relate to a question we hear frequently at the Public Conversations Project: "So what?"

"They are just words….so what? So you help people play nice: What difference does it really make?"

I often find myself scratching my head when this question comes up because—to me—the connection between words and other kinds of action seems so self-evident.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby ruined my New Year’s Eve. His final column of 2009, “New Adventures in Incivility” interrupted my annual effort to prioritize self-improvement strategies for the incoming year, a mental ritual that has usually been an effective distraction from excessive brooding about ominous trends in The Big Picture.

This fall, I clearly saw the ripple effect of pollution.  There was symbolic pollution, as town hall meetings were filled with a toxic mix of angry confrontation and political theater. There was personal pollution as I spent more than a month discarding the detritus accumulated during thirty-two years in our house—canceled checks from banks that have been defunct for twenty years, painted rocks lugged home from summer camp, the ashes of a beloved dog finally released into his special spot.

University, Fearing Animal-Rights Violence, Axes Baboon Study That's the headline on Discover.com about a recent news story citing fear of controversy as the reason the University of Oklahoma is nixing an anthrax study using baboons.

When my children were small, I happily parked them in front of Sesame Street, and watched with them from time to time. We were all enchanted by the gentle world of Big Bird, Oscar, Gordon, Mr. Hooper (my husband and I cried when he died!), Maria, and the rest of the multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-species ensemble.

I hate it when people talk at me. Since childhood, when a parent or other authority figure assaults me with words, sentences, paragraphs… they fail to communicate and I shut down.

When my children were young, I tried to remember that sensation and to avoid doing the same thing to them.  Sometimes I fell short. Lectures, tirades…whatever you call them… if I couldn’t resist the temptation, words were said and meaning was lost.