Fighting for Civility in Public Dialogue and Debate

The quality of public discourse is abysmal these days. Many elected representatives, who ought to embody open-mindedness and rational thinking, just shout or issue ultimatums. The Illinois Humanities Council is scheduling a series of events designed to get people of all shades of opinions talking and reasoning together.

The (Un)Common Good series will re-imagine new ways to discuss issues across ideologies, to model civil debate and dialogue between people who come down on different sides of an issue, and to share information that strives to be unbiased, fact-based, and even-handed… Both ethics and literature, for example, can help us understand why choices about health care reform are so difficult to make.

via The (Un)Common Good | Illinois Humanities Council.

Their first event will be held in Chicago on Jan. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Union League Club of Chicago (ULCC), 65 W. Jackson Blvd. The line-up includes some interesting speakers, and it is free and open to the public. Registration is required and can be made online, by e-mailing events@prairie.org, or by calling 312.422.5580.

• Danielle Allen, Ph.D. – UPS Foundation Professor, Institute for Advanced Study; author – Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education and Why Plato Wrote
• Wayne E. Baker, Ph.D. – University of Michigan, Robert P.Thome Professor of Management and Organizations; Professor of Sociology; Professor of Organizational Studies, LSA & Faculty Associate, Institute for Social Research; author – America’s Crisis of Values: Reality and Perception
• Bill Bishop – Co-author, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart; co-editor The Daily Yonder, a web-based publication covering rural America.
• Brendan Nyhan, Ph.D. – Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan; former Co-Editor of Spinsanity
• Pete Peterson – Executive Director, Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership, School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
• Ralph Cintron, Ph.D. – Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago (moderator)

***The Union League Club of Chicago (ULCC) maintains a “business casual” dress code — i.e. no jeans/denim. A collared shirt and slacks/skirt are required of all guests.***