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A protest sign at my campus made me choose between shouting and listening
During a heated rally about a visiting speaker, I stood holding two signs I made: one with a sharp insult and one with a simple question. I chose the question sign, and a student from the other side actually stopped to talk with me for ten minutes. When did you pick dialogue over confrontation, and what came from it?
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samk771mo agoTop Commenter
That's awesome. I had a similar thing happen back in college when I put down my "cancel this guy" sign and just asked someone why they were supporting the speaker. We ended up chatting for almost an hour and actually found some common ground on a few things.
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west.casey1mo ago
My buddy Dave was protesting a fossil fuel event downtown, all fired up with his signs. He saw this older guy just standing there listening, so he walked over and asked what the deal was. Turns out the guy worked at a plant for 30 years and was worried about losing his pension, not the climate. They talked for a bit and Dave ended up grabbing coffee with him, still disagreeing but seeing where the other was coming from.
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allen.iris1mo ago
Oh man, @samk77, that really hit home for me. I used to be the type who would just dig my heels in and not even want to hear the other side out, you know? I thought if someone disagreed with me on something big, they must be totally wrong about everything. But a few years back I had this conversation with a neighbor who voted totally different than me and we ended up talking about our kids for like an hour. It made me realize that people are more than just their opinions and it forced me to actually listen instead of just waiting to argue back. So hearing your story about the college speaker just reminds me how important it is to put down the signs and just talk to people even when it feels awkward at first.
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karencampbell1mo ago
That line about "people are more than just their opinions" really stuck with me, because that's the whole secret right there. Once you stop seeing the other person as a walking argument and start seeing them as a human with their own worries (like that guy's pension), suddenly the wall gets a lot lower. I think that's the hard part most of the time - not finding a perfect argument, but remembering that the person across from you has a life just as messy and complicated as yours.
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