“Should we not try to be more humanistic with each other?” Kirk Schneider, a renowned psychologist, author and leading voice of depolarization asked the Brookdale audience that gathered for the kickoff event of Civility Week Feb. 16, The Polarized Mind, Life-Enhancing Anxiety, and the Experiential Democracy Dialogue.
Author of “Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World,” Schneider writes that polarization has led to people failing to address their own personal and constructive anxiety that can lead to a more ethical and creative world. During his Civility Week workshop, he used a structured participatory exercise designed to cultivate “openness and mutual understanding,” empathy and civility.
Schneider helps communities learn how to have an open conversation from two different perspectives in a peaceful manner. “We have so much polarization because we fail to address personal and inconclusive anxiety,” he said. In his book, Schneider talks about the challenge of having a “fixation on one point of view to the exclusion of all competing points of view.” For instance, the author said some students may have the inner monologue that “professors are the enemy… which creates anxiety.”
Schneider introduced two Brookdale graduates to model an open-minded discussion on a difficult topic.
Dominic Sama is a member of the Long Branch Board of Education, and Montez Schwartz is the graduate trustee on the BCC Board of Trustees. Their discussion centered on the American monetary system and the anxieties they have felt.
Montez shared that money was tight in his family while growing up, while Sama said his family’s income was high and his family was always economically stable.
The two discussed their different views on the American economy and how their experiences have been very different. They argued with one another over perspective but remained civil throughout. Schneider eventually entered the conversation and asked the graduates to now consider the topic from the other person’s point of view. How would they feel if they walked in one another’s shoes?
After witnessing this debate, attendees were given the opportunity to try this out with a complete stranger and pick a difficult topic that was given on the board.
As the event began to wrap up Schneider said he was happy to help students understand that life enhancing anxiety is a real, impactful event that connects with one’s polarized mind. He urged students to continue to speak out and ask questions on what they feel as he said this is needed to help soothe their minds and bodies.
“We must make the best out of what is radically different,” he said.
