Cafeteria Conversations & Friendships in America | Dr. David Bobb | Constitutional Conversations
Dr. David Bobb, President of the Bill of Rights Institute invites you to have hard conversations with your neighbors.
0:00 so thinking about teachers and students and I’m wondering what the lesson is in the individual day-to-day lives what we can do in our world in the classroom in the school in our community to help bring about this this hounam this concept that that was articulated so well by Madison and Jefferson I think
0:22 one of the things that I’m always struck by and reflecting on the example of all of this disagreement this tumult this tremendous ferment that happened at the time of the American Founding is that there was still a kind of dedication to seeking out the opinion of those with
0:44 whom you disagree when you go into a cafeteria setting everybody feels those butterflies where should I sit especially if you’re new right you don’t have your circle of friends if you’re one of those people that’s been at the school for a while and you have a group of friends invite that newcomer over and if you’re the person who’s who’s alone
1:05 figure out ways in which you can be bold and courageous to go up and meet new people but base that on things like who might disagree with me on certain ideas cuz you know over the course of a school year right there are disagreements when you talk about big important issues there are disagreements seek out those people that maybe you had a little bit
1:26 of a heated conversation and say you know you made a good point on that I hadn’t thought of it that way studies have shown that when you do that in a conversation that immediately the pressure goes down and that there’s something in the human psyche that says upon receiving a compliment like that that you’re more open to continuing the conversation right now we do a lot of
1:48 shouting at each other of course social media has exacerbated this so rather than just staying on social media set that down go over have an in-person conversation with somebody who you think can really challenge your viewpoint and that you can challenge theirs and see what comes of it because my experiences that bend that when you do that you
2:08 often come away learning something and more often than you’d ever think you come away with the new friend