Why You Should Talk Politics at the Dinner Table.
A while back, I wrote an op-ed for the Western Journal about the necessity to discuss politics and religion around the dinner table. I believe it’s become more pertinent today than ever before.
As friends and family gather around the Thanksgiving dinner table this week, I want to urge you to boldly discuss the two subjects that have culturally been deemed off-limits: politics and religion.
In our increasingly divided and politically polarized nation, we have lost our ability to practice patience and tolerance toward opposing viewpoints and forgotten how to articulate our values in compelling and persuasive ways. We’ve been conditioned to believe that cancel culture is the answer for the opposition, rather than spirited debate, which allows the best ideas to thrive.
We’re encouraged to “call out our racist family members” this Thanksgiving, as a UVA student recently wrote in the student newspaper. We’re called to avoid travel and interaction with our families all together due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most notably, we’re called to avoid the potentially offensive topics of politics and religion all together around the dinner table. This is a mistake.
In my previous op-ed, I wrote:
“Today, I present to you a challenge which could be a simple solution toward saving the civility in our society.
The next time you sit down at the dinner table, start up a socially forbidden conversation about politics or religion. I would argue that it only stretches our muscles for being stronger in the broader environment for tolerance, learning, and understanding of our views and those we encounter.
You never know how our country may change as our appetite for tolerant dialogue increases.”
Join me this Thanksgiving in embracing this challenge and changing our nation & world for the better. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
