2018 Review Discussion
| John Nerst: "To a contextualizer, decouplers’ ability to fence off any threatening implications looks like a lack of empathy for those threatened, while to a decoupler, the contextualizer's insistence that this isn’t possible looks like naked bias and an inability to think straight"[1]. |
A cultural divide
A particularly thorny—yet very common—way for a discussion to break down is when participants strongly disagree about the correct scope of a discussion. If neither side is willing to compromise, progress often becomes impossible.
John Nerst identifies a difference in expectations that is particularly prone to causing such issues:
What these norms entail:[2] | |
|---|---|
| Decoupling norms | People have a right to expect the truth of their claims to be considered on their own merits, with no obligation to pay heed to worries about the "broader context" or the |
This would be a more comp... (read more)