RE: Criteria for policy effectiveness/success

[David James <james.david@epa.gov>]

Rich Puchalsky, disagreeing with my assertion that a "good place to start civil dialogue is at the point at which you presume good will even among folks who you disagree with," thinks it is equivalent to "saying that people should be truly tolerant of the mugger's desire to rob people as well as other peoples' desires not to be robbed."

I think this is overstated. While I agree completely that "Some members of the public do not have good will towards others," I disagree that it will be "difficult to make real progress until this is generally recognized."

In fact, I'm starting to think that real progress will ONLY be made if we all start with the presumption of good will -- or at a bare minimum, the appearance of the presumption of good will,even in the face of genuine evildoers.

There are several reasons for presuming good will.  In almost all real controversies, your opponents have valid points to make. In fact they might even be able to present evidence that YOU find creditable that supports their viewpoint -- but you'll never know if you don't listen.

Yes, there is genuine bad will out there. But in the environmental disputes I have grappled with in my career, one type of person really stands out in my mind -- the person who has his mind completely made up. I've become convinced that men and women who see the world in black and white miss, in their stridency, opportunities to advance their agenda that don't occur to them because they are so sure their opponents are evil doers. I'm Irish enough to have followed the struggles in Northern Ireland for a long time now, and it's been said that the Republicans have an incredible ability to "seize defeat from the jaws of victory" when nothing short of complete success was acceptable to them. It would be a tragedy if the environmental troubles in our world were similarly allowed to continue, simply because the environmental activists with the most vision weren't willing to live with incremental solutions.

Building a U.S. that is environmentally responsible is going to require a change in behavior in the masses. If you're ever going to change the minds of large chunks of the U.S. population, you're going to have to demonstrate compassion, not condemnation or hidden contempt. 

When I am exposed to controversies in subjects I know less about than environmental issues, I actually use the civility with which opponents treat one another as a clue [it's not determinative, but it's a clue] pointing to the side with the more reliable source of info. And I'm not the only one who draws conclusions that way. So even when you absolutely DO know that your opponent is a malefactor, presenting your case courteously can win you credibility in public fora. Hostility turns people off, even when warranted.

Here are the questions I try to ask when I'm sitting there in a public meeting and someone speaks up who I utterly disagree with: 

What has driven this person to say this? What would I have to believe in order for me to be able to say something like that?

What rules of evidence do they use which could allow them to accept such evidence -- evidence which by my rules of evidence can safely be discounted out of hand? Are there realms of discourse removed from the current controversy in which I can accept the source of these rules of evidence in a more neutral manner?

I've found that asking myself questions such as this helps me to form a much more sophisticated idea of why they believe what they do, and I think you might, too. This goes beyond environmental controversies -- I ask similar questions of myself when I run across folks who think professional sports are worth paying attention to, or who think anything can be said about your personality based on the time of year you were born in!

David James
Atlanta
james.david@epa.gov