1st Edition
Radically Civil Saving Democracy One Conversation at a Time
If you feel like the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, you’re not alone. If you often feel there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re also not alone. Along with this increasing anger, fear, and frustration, much confusion still prevails on the appropriate communication practices for responding to difficult situations and improving our lives. Communication experts Robert Danisch and William Keith explain why and how we can practice radical civility in this practical guide to everyday “political” communication.
This guide begins with examples of radical civility to show the potential of this kind of communication to change minds and bridge differences. The authors then unpack the three foundational principles of radical civility as useful theoretical tools for thinking throughout interactions with others in civic spaces. This is then followed by a three-step process for practicing radical civility drawing on research into active listening and its importance for creating connections, validating other views, and opening up possibilities for future conversation. The guide concludes with evidence-based communication practices and prescriptive recommendations for how to do each and show examples of each in action.
Radically Civil: Saving Democracy One Conversation at a Time is a much-needed communication-based antidote to polarization, preparing students, researchers, and community leaders to be responsible participants in today’s society.
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. The Problem and the Promise
2. The Principles
3. The Process
4. The Practices
5. The Payoff
References
Index
Biography
Robert Danisch is Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of three monographs and a popular book on communication practices and the host of the communication skills podcast “Now We’re Talking.” His work has appeared in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Social Epistemology, Public Understanding of Science, and Southern Communication Journal. He teaches courses in Communication Ethics, Speech Writing, Persuasion, Small Group Communication, and Public Communication.
William Keith is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of the award-winning Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement and coauthor of two highly regarded textbooks, The Essential Guide to Rhetoric and Public Speaking: Choices and Responsibility. His current research focuses on the role of rhetoric and communication in public deliberation, with a focus on the intellectual and pedagogical history of the speech communication field.
"Building on their important book Beyond Civility, Danisch and Keith have once again given us a resource for understanding civility in today’s politics. Here, they point the reader to principles informing processes and real practices. When many are inclined to turn away from the other, Danisch and Keith offer a guide to foster relationships at a time when democracy needs radical retrieval of the idea that we must confront difference and find a way — together."
Timothy J. Shaffer, University of Delaware, USA; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Chair of Civil Discourse
"This is a book brimming with good news: there is an effective medicine for the disease of polarization. Danisch and Keith call this medicine "radical civility" and offer the reader grounded principles, processes, practices, and payoffs designed to bridge the divides plaguing our civilization. Citizens who cherish democracy will welcome the book’s clear prose, striking illustrations, and the "radical" argument that it is possible, through the principles and practice of conversation they set forth, to contain, if not cure, polarization. Danisch and Keith’s Radically Civil: How to Save Democracy One Conversation at a Time is the field of communication’s equivalent to Roger Fisher’s Getting to Yes."
David A. Frank, University of Oregon, USA
