A week after the political debate event on campus, students from a Peacemaker Project hosted a roundtable debate review for students to reflect on it and consider dialogue techniques moving forward.
Gabe Pettitt from the Peacemaker Project conducted the event, opening it to a wider discussion regarding hard political conversations, something they strive to work towards in their events.
The Peacemaker Project began over a year ago and is affiliated with the Department of Political Science at BYU. They have goals to build bridges of understanding and enlarge perspectives.
“There are places where we can agree and find commonality,” Pettitt said.
At the debate and roundtable events, members of the Peacemaker Project referenced the late President Russell M. Nelson’s talk “Peacemakers Needed.”
“We can literally change the world — one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue,” President Nelson said in the Sunday morning session of the April 2023 General Conference.
Eric Kaufmann is a prominent political scientist who published a study in 2022 about the political demographics of universities in the United States.
His survey analysis of 57,000 students concluded that BYU leans conservative, but not greatly. Out of surveyed students, 48% were conservative.
His paper also mentioned that only 14 of 159 colleges contain more conservative than liberal students.
Although this survey describes a higher percentage of conservatives than liberals in the BYU student body, BYU has a more even distribution than many other schools.
Due to the variation in political beliefs and President Nelson’s invitation to “show that there is a peaceful, respectful way to resolve complex issues,” political dialogue should be open and easy — but that’s not always the case.
“There’s a kind of fear of conflict, even a conflict without contention. Many of us are uncomfortable having somebody argue with us about something,” Kirk Hawkins, a BYU professor and faculty advisor for the Peacemaker Project, said.
He mentioned that this fear led the Peacemaker Project student leaders to be nervous for this year's debate event because they faced some contention last year.
Despite this, Hawkins urged them to give it a chance. He said that debates are less common than more casual political dialogue, but that they serve an important purpose.
“Spaces like that are needed,” Hawkins said.
He credits debates for giving students a place to practice their conflict skills and learn techniques that can help in more intimate settings with friends or roommates.
“There’s a lot of learning that we all need to do that could make us into better mediators of conflict,” Hawkins said.
Many people struggle to initiate conversations with opposing viewpoints because of political polarization.
“This year, [the debate] was a lot more informative, structured and orderly,” Pettitt said at the roundtable event.
According to a study published online in 2022, people often “overstate the ideological extremity of the other party … these perceptions about the ideological distribution of the opposing party will fuel greater affective polarization.”
The study suggests that people use stereotypes that result in “considerable animus toward the other party.”
This evidence shows that it may not be the actual polarization that stops us from having political dialogue, but it might be our incorrect assumptions that make us feel unsafe to speak.
Hawkins discussed that there are several other barriers that hinder political dialogue.
He mentioned four: the rise of social media, our wealthier society, the information bubble and the lack of a common cause for citizens to unite towards.
He said that citizens are “focusing on differences more, and not thinking about what we have in common.”
Despite these challenges, organizations like the Peacemaker Project are popping up all over the country to try and facilitate dialogue, like The Depolarization Institute and the Better Arguments Project.
Hawkins said there are things that we can do on a smaller scale to make political dialogue more comfortable.
“Talk to different people,” Hawkins said. “Listening to other people is relatively easy.”
He said that maybe the best method to gaining confidence in political conversation is to talk less and listen more.
Hawkins said that encouraging people to share their stories can help us gain a greater understanding of where they are coming from and dilute some of the more polarizing data and facts that often plague arguments.
Hawkins explained that people usually already have their minds made up about a topic and that our conversations should not be built around persuading one another, but instead on finding common ground.
“You’re always going to find something you have in common … and when you see that, it’s good to highlight,” Hawkins continued.
He said that students on BYU campus have a good opportunity to find commonality with the gospel and shared community.
Once citizens find ways to engage with each other productively, we can start making positive civic changes to the hostile political climate.
“Some of our attention also needs to be on persuading those in power that they should act as peacemakers,” Hawkins said. “That’s a hard thing to do.”
Hawkins said that it is our responsibility to decide what kinds of leaders we want and what political climate we set for ourselves.
Gaining mediation and conversational skills on a smaller scale at campus events like debates or discussions can give good practice for greater civic dialogue and common goals.
“We do have some power as individuals. Mostly, we’re powerful as we band together as citizens to try and create change,” Hawkins said.