Citizen Spartanburg had the pleasure of having Linda Powers Bilanchone, Wofford professor, Spartanburg Sewer Commissioner, former Spartanburg City Councilwoman as well as many other community endeavors, as our speaker at our First Monday May meeting. Her topic was Civil Discourse.
Bilanchone stressed the importance of finding common ground. What can we all come together on to support? In a democracy, we must first be understanding in order to establish common ground. We must all understand that we come from different places. That each of us see the world in different ways based on where we come from in life. We must listen and then we must think—sympathetically and empathetically in order to learn about each other’s experiences and points of view.
In order to achieve common ground we must create an environment of freedom, safety, openness and a place where people feel valued as a human being if we expect to have our own viewpoints heard.
She shared a mnemonic device to aid in remembering the approach to civil discourse: EUREKA.
E—empathy—begin by showing empathy for your listener’s position;
U—understanding—express your understanding about why you believe the listener might have adopted the position that he or she holds;
R—respect—demonstrate your respect for the listener as a person whose perspective is different from your own and for the position that he or she holds;
E—endorsement—endorse as much of your listener’s position as you can while remaining true to your own position.
K—Kommon Ground (poetic license)—identify common ground you can develop that is shared by your position and your listener’s position;
A—assertion—finally, assert your own position in language that will enable your listener to understand your perspective and respect it at the very least, and at most, see the possibilities of a combined position, if there are such possibilities.
This device is aimed at helping each of us create the safe environment for civil discourse referenced above.
When talking to elected officials, Bilanchone suggested, asking who do you want to communicate with and why? What is the outcome you are looking for—what are you trying to achieve?
A letter to the editor is one way to communicate. Bilanchone recommended stepping back and considering who it is you want to communicate with? You can only write so many ‘letters to the editor’ and you may not want to communicate to the world or need to. You might need to keep your point small. The last thing you want to do is call someone out incorrectly or embarrass someone because that will not help your cause in the long run.
You can telephone elected officials but this leaves no record and it leaves you open to saying more than you wanted to or saying something you might later regret. You can also schedule a personal visit but she recommends only using this for high level type issues. You can also make a personal appearance in front of a Council or delegation as a whole but the impact is not as effective as you may want it to be.
Bilanchone’s personal choice of communication is email. She said your message should be focused and as short as possible. It should contain one idea per message. No musing, no venting. Create a concise, fair, realistic message. Open it with an engaging sentence and advocate for a specific action. Keep in mind, elected officials are hearing from lots of constituents and often they read info to determine if it is a “for” or “against” a particular issue so spending lots of time on a long, drawn out message isn’t always effective.
Bilanchone gave the group copies of her book, “Civil Discourse: A Personal Ethic For Public Life.” We have extras copies and if you’d like to learn more about what she had to share we will get you a copy.
Finding common ground and having understanding are just two ways we can make a difference in our community.
Many thanks to Linda Bilanchone for sharing with our group! Let us know if you’d like a copy of her book!
