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A wish for 2013, from Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

“When I was a teenager I wished for world peace, but now I yearn for a world in which competing ideologies are kept in balance, systems of accountability keep us all from getting away with too much, and fewer people believe that righteous ends justify violent means. Not a very romantic wish, but one that we might actually achieve.”

It’s a goal we’ll be we’ll be keeping in mind with our new project The Asteroids Club.

(Photo credit)

“The greatness of America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835, lies “in her ability to repair her faults.” In the face of crisis we band together, we compromise, we overcome.

These days, not so much. We have suffered through years of partisan bickering at all levels of government. But it is not the bickering that offends. It is the paralysis that results. Significant policy challenges remain unsolved and, at times, even unaddressed. That is the troublesome part. While political conflict is part of our national DNA, the inability to solve difficult problems is not.

Perhaps we should be a little less certain of how right we are and consider a healthy dose of humility.

You remember humility. It is a willingness to listen respectfully to others and to question our own certainty. Perhaps even more important, it is courage to compromise when appropriate.

Humility should not be confused with weakness or absence of conviction. The guiding stars of humble persons are usually quite clear; they just don’t blind one to believe in their own perfect knowledge.

Too often, acknowledging a contrary opinion has become unacceptable. To settle, to negotiate, to compromise is seen as weakness. We’ve forgotten that compromise “is the essence of the democratic process,” says Princeton historian Barbara B. Oberg, editor of the papers of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

We enjoy a unique legacy of humility in this country which most Americans have forgotten.

• The humility expressed by the 84-year-old Benjamin Franklin as he moved adoption of the U.S. Constitution, “I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present; but sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: … the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and pay more respect to the judgment of others. … I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the convention who may still have objections to it, would, with me … doubt a little of his own infallibility and … put his name to this instrument.”

• The humility shown by George Washington when he peacefully relinquished his command after the Revolution and later when he voluntarily stepped down as president after two terms. The latter decision prompted King George III to comment that in doing so, Washington was “the greatest man in the world.”

• The humility shown by Lincoln as he appointed his chief political rivals to the Cabinet because he needed their experience to run the country. It was also clear when Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address, not boasting of the bloody victory over the Confederacy, as would be expected, but poetically asking for peace and healing, “with malice toward none; with charity for all.”

Humility is the key that opens the door to purposeful dialogue. But we have lost dialogue to debate. We know so much, we are so sure of our opinions that we do not listen anymore. We rush in to tell our truths about the way things are and must be, not allowing there might be other truths and possibilities. We talk over each other, with not even a gap for politeness, much less for silence and consideration and that “doubting of your own infallibility.”

It reminds me of playing sandlot baseball as a kid. We would argue up to the point of the kid who owned the ball taking it and going home in a huff. Americans are losing the perspective necessary to know when the dispute has gone too far. We risk permanent paralysis by failing to even try to understand a different life experience or a contrary opinion, or to consider compromise.

No amount of persuasion will change another’s moral foundations. Rather, we should seek enough common ground to advance our deliberative democracy. This requires a commitment to communicate across the great divides of our time; the divides of partisanship, of race and culture, of age and gender, of wealth and poverty, of liberalism and conservatism, of knowledge and ignorance. Most important, it requires a return to humility.”

Steven M. Seibert is a former state agency head and served as a Pinellas County commissioner (1992-1999). He is a mediator, lawyer and policy adviser (and president of the Asteroids Club). This article originally appeared in the Tampa Bay Times and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

In the Washington Post this week, Jonathan Haidt and Hal Movius offer up their expertise to help the President and Congress succeed at unwinding their complicated impasse while we perch teetering atop the fiscal cliff. Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner, we know you’re very busy so here’s the (aptly named) Cliff Notes version:

1. Describe progress in terms of packages rather than single axis wins or losses – that way “the base” can find a margin of success somewhere in the details.

2. Call for shared sacrifice. People are powerfully good at rising to this call (think WWII and immediately following 9/11).

3. Break impasses with contingent agreements. With dueling experts and statistics, partisan projections about the results of certain actions take wildly different directions. Solve this problem by structuring “if…then…” statements in the agreement to cover their worst fears.

4. Don’t say “compromise” too often. The base is likely to see compromise on what they view as moral issues as immoral.

5. Invoke the virtue of humility, a staple of our founding fathers.

Now, if you don’t have to personally get back to the fiscal cliff negotiations, you must now read the whole piece as it involves untying shoelaces, throwing tomatoes and some exceptionally cool founding father quotes.

In honor of the anniversary of C.S. Lewis’ birthday today: Remember in The Screwtape Letters , C.S. Lewis writes a fictitious letter by God’s enemy, a senior demon Screwtape, so references in the letter to “The Enemy” are references to God. References to “the patient” or “he” are to a man whose soul Screwtape is seeking. Read the entire clip of Letter #7 HERE.

“I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the “Cause” is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true…

“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here, Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE”

“[President Thomas Jefferson] used the table – the art of cuisine, of entertaining… those Virginia rites of hospitality that he grew up with – to move opinion in his direction. It doesn’t mean that it created a bipartisan Valhalla. But life is lived on the margins in politics and every once in a while, when you need a vote – you’re more likely to get the benefit of the doubt from someone with whom you’ve broken bread and who knows what your eyes look like and what your voice sounds like than you are from some distant remote figure.” – Jon Meachem, author of “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power”

“Mr. President,

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others…

I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does.

Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best… I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and… put his name to this instrument.”

Since the beginning of our organization six years ago, we have been in endless pursuit of the best ways to draw people together in meaningful, real and civil conversation. We’ve had great success. Our Dinner at the Square series is almost always sold out, drawing about 175 people every time. Take-out Tuesday programs, including our hyperlocal forum Our Town have been standing-room only. And Faith, Food, Friday has been a unique (and we think profound) addition to our community fabric that we’re really proud to be associated with.

But there has always been something missing – a forum that grabs a hold of intractable challenging issues that are the source of enduring divisiveness and makes real progress on the issue. That challenge has truly flummoxed us. It’s a hard thing to do without making civility a casualty of the effort. Enter The Asteroids Club, a concept I first heard of after Jon Haidt and Steve Seibert were in the same car together for six hours (imagine a brew of deep and out-of-the-box thinking that gets so electric that it’s virtually pinging off the car doors).

The Asteroids Club has all the trappings of the things we know already works: People engaging who are politically diverse but have an existing and enduring relationships, a few rules that keep the forum safe for disagreement, breaking bread together and a commitment to not taking things too seriously – to laugh whenever possible.

But it adds critical concepts that we have since learned, largely through our study of Jon’s work (oh ok, our groupie-like devotion to his work) confirmed 100% by the direct experiences with the challenges we’ve faced. The Asteroids Club speaks to the intuitive “elephant” that is the source of the vast majority of human decision-making rather than the rational “rider” who functions more like the elephant’s press secretary, offering post-hoc rationalizations rather than true objective reasoning. Almost every forum that ever existed invites riders, not elephants. The Asteroids Club makes its central theme the reciprocity that is one of the lovely aspects of basic human nature – “I’ll help you deflect your asteroid, if you help me deflect mine.” Finally, the concept clearly expresses that ultimately it is common threat more than common ground that really brings human beings together. And boy do we have real common threats.

We’re so excited about the Asteroids Club, we told Jon we’d help it come to fruition. You can find our first Asteroids Club event online here. You can even use our user-editable We the Wiki website to easily create a webpage for your own public Asteroids Club event. Find directions for creating your event page at the bottom of this page. Feel free to call us and we’ll help you set up your page inside 15 minutes! Find us at (850) 264-8785 or asteroidsclub@tothevillagesquare.org.