Depolarizing Within
What is a Depolarizing Within Workshop?
The Depolarizing Within Workshop is designed to foster skills to help you lessen the effects of polarization when you encounter them in your political conversations.
Note that by “polarization,” we are not referring to healthy disagreements over issues or philosophy. We are talking about how we regard and talk about large groups of ordinary people on the other side of the political aisle.
There are two versions of the Depolarizing Within workshops. Our Standard version is a group session that is approximately 3 hours long, and our Hybrid version that requires participants to complete a 40 minute interactive online course before taking part in a group session that runs approximately 2 hours long.
Who Can Attend?
Anyone interested in examining their own inner polarization and learning strategies to disagree without condemning or ridiculing others.
Depolarizing Within is ideal for organizations like communities of worship, social clubs or educational institutions who want to reduce or avoid the divisiveness of political polarization.
Goals
To teach participants:
- How to be more aware of their own “inner polarizer”
- How to be critical without demonizing, dismissing or stereotyping large swaths of the population
- Strategies for intervening constructively in social conversations with like-minded peers when these conversations veer into contempt and ridicule for people who hold other political views.
