Dinner Table Dynamics: "Setting the Table"

What is Ethics Bowl? "It's kind of like debate . . . but its nicer." 😂  Four years after competing in the national Ethics Bowl together, Santa Fe College alumnae Lucy Frank is in grad school at Florida State University and Taylor Adams is studying veterinarian medicine at the University of Florida. Both of them continue to use skills they learned in Ethics Bowl every day of their lives. In an increasingly polarized world, you might find yourself dreading the holidays and the unsavory dinner table dynamics that can accompany them. Consider setting the table this year with some of Lucy and Taylor's ground rules for civil discourse. 

The Center for Applied Ethics & Humanities at Santa Fe College (SF) promotes the values of honesty, integrity, and civility, as well as individual, social, and global responsibility. It fosters appreciation for ethical reasoning and encourages and supports active engagement with ethics and humanities in our communities – in thought and action, (((In Word And Deed))). This podcast, a product of the center, features SF faculty, students and alumni engaging in dialogue around critical ethical issues. The first season, "Dinner Table Dynamics," features current and former members of SF’s nationally ranked Ethics Bowl team and fellows in the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership. They encourage listeners to practice civil discourse as they head home for the holidays, and into extended family discussions. Learn more at sfcollege.edu/ethics. Share your thoughts (and actions) with @santafecollege using #InWordAndDeed.

Transcript

Lucy Frank 0:00

Today we're gonna be talking about setting the table talking about some rules of engagement for tough conversations and how to deal with those. But I mean, first, we could start off a little bit, introduce ourselves, tell you why we're the ones talking to you what gives us the right to be talking about this. But it's me and Taylor here with you guys today. Taylor.

Taylor Adams 0:22

Hi, I'm Taylor Adams. I was on the Ethics Bowl team with Lucy back in 2017. Way long ago, it was 2017/2018 run. We won the intercollegiate Ethics Bowl for the two-year colleges back in 2017. It was around December, was a really fun time, it was me and Lucy and two other people, three other people on our Ethics Bowl team. And we actually came in first place and that qualified us for the National Ethics Bowl in 2018, which we also attended. Both of those took place in Chicago, we had a lot of fun. Lucy and I went and saw Hamilton as a little side trip for team bonding. And yeah, well, we, we were we had a lot of great experiences on that team. We got to meet a lot of different people who are also interested in ethics. And, and yeah, that's a little bit about me. Anyway, I'm currently a student at UF, for veterinary medicine. That's where Ethics Bowl kind of led me afterwards. Lucy, you want to talk a little bit about yourself, please?

Lucy Frank 1:24

Yeah, so you can probably tell that me and Taylor and Ethics Bowl go way back. We're still with it after four years still working on it. Right now, I'm a grad student at FSU, working on my degree in Library Science and Information Sciences, and things are going straight. But you might be wondering why we're still sticking with this. It's been four years, why can't we let this go? Why are we still talking about these things about these points about these issues. But that's what we're here to talk to you guys about today.

Taylor Adams 1:54

Yeah, and really Ethics Bowl. It's, you know, a specific thing that we did, it was a specific team that we did, but the skills and everything that we learned doing Ethics Bowl, learning how to work up ethical dilemma cases, and working with team members and stuff that that really stuck with us. That's why we're still here, we're still very much involved. We, we really stuck with it with Ann simply because it's, you know, it's helped us become who we are, at least for me, anyway, get to use it pretty much in my everyday life, whether it's talking about difficult subjects, talking to potential clients, things like that.

Lucy Frank 2:35

So, when we when we talk about Ethics Bowl and people ask us what that is something me and Taylor have talked about is what we bring up is usually that it's like debate, but it's nicer. And you can agree about things. And I have a little bit of experience with this in the past, because when I was in high school, my freshman year of high school, I was on the debate team. And I can tell you, it's kind of the same, but it's also very different. And I like Ethics Bowl a lot more. And one of the reasons for this is that debate is very combative, it's very argumentative, it can be very antagonistic. It's not necessarily supposed to be that way. But it's a lot easier for it to get to be that way in debate than it is an Ethics Bowl. And that's one of the things I love most about Ethics Bowl is the collegiate sense of it, and the mutual respect that both parties go into. And the fact that you guys can agree on something, it's not necessarily an argument, it's not necessarily a disagreement about anything.

Taylor Adams 3:31

Yeah, use it loosely use my favorite line. And everyone asks me what is Ethics Bowl because you know, it's not a common term, we hear a lot. I always describe it as it's kind of like debate, but it's nicer. And there's a little bit you can agree on things because in debate, it's usually you take one of two opposing sides usually. And an Ethics Bowl, the golden rule of kind of that civil discourse, which is our, like our kind of highlight that we use to describe Ethics Bowl conversation, is civil discourse. And the key to that, like kind of the golden rule of that is you're seeking to understand the other person's position and kind of understand why they think that certain way and you're not really there to win the argument. So, while we, you know, we do rack up points and Ethics Bowl and there is a winner and we, you know, we have won ethics competitions. The real winning isn't in, like persuading anyone or arguing over something and winning more people to your site, it's more of a who presented their case, treated the other people with more respect or not more respect, but just you know, treated the other team with respect. Thought about counter arguments, things like that, which we'll go specifically over and a little bit like the actual rules of engagement. That sort of sets Ethics Bowl apart from just an argument or a debate or things like that.

Lucy Frank 4:53

But it's also about exploring these ideas together and Ethics Bowl, you encounter a lot of thorny situations, a lot of very mucky things to be thinking about and figuring out how to deal with them. They're these Ethics Bowl cases are taken from real life instances. And in many times, we're trying to actually figure out what should be done in specific cases. and in this situation, sometimes you can agree with your opponent per se. You're looking for the best solution together, you're looking for the best position together, and just trying to explore these ideas and these positions together. So, a few years back, one of the first cases that we talked about actually concerned the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, and lots of people are familiar with this series. It's chronicling the reasons why a teenage girl decided to commit suicide. And what went into this case was the idea was this show, you know, glorifying suicide, it

was extremely popular, should that show that portrayal of suicide and the potential glorification of that be something that's available to so many viewers?

Taylor Adams 6:09

Right? And on the flip side of that it was, is it glorifying suicide? Or is it opening up a conversation that needs to happen? So, all of these teenagers forget the statistics specifically, but the rate of suicide in teenagers is obviously pretty high. And at that point, they wanted to see Well, what were the benefits? Are there benefits to this show? Or was it just something that was glorifying suicide and saying that that was something that was okay. And that was really the basis of the ethical dilemma part of that case.

Lucy Frank 6:45

But some of the things we talked about with this were like, freedom of speech, information accessibility, we also brought up a point where I believe one of the judges asked us if this show had actually prompted any specific cases to counteract, you know, suicide, to improve suicide awareness and promote resources, preventing that. And we actually did have a specific case where a group of high schoolers I believe in Washington State, develop their own program called 13 Reasons Why Not that they featured on their high school announcements every morning, where they would interview a student who had experienced thoughts of suicide in the past and had them share their reasons why they had decided not to

Taylor Adams 7:35

Right. And that was really important, too, because that was a lot of our part of our case was the workup behind our reasoning was, we thought that it was a beneficial show to be having, because it did spark that conversation that maybe more goes on behind the scenes than you think in a child's life. And especially when you're in that young, vulnerable age. You know, maybe you feel like you're the only one. But you know, watching that, knowing that you're not the only one experiencing bullying or experiencing abuse or anything like that, really could be helpful. And making someone realize this isn't my only option. So that was really good. And we did end up dis or the other team ended up having a different opinion than us on that case. But we had a really great conversation about it. And we had some questions and things for them. But they ended up really liking they didn't know about the Washington State thing that was a statistic we pulled up or a fact that we pulled up. And they really ended up liking that, if I'm remembering correctly, and we had a great conversation about it. And the judges seem to agree as well.

Lucy Frank 8:48

But having a discussion about a show on Netflix like 13 Reasons Why is a very real topic of conversation that could come up at a dinner table, or when you're talking to your friends, you're talking to your family. And you might not necessarily encounter some of the same opinions that you might have, you

would encounter some different views on this. Just looking at it as sort of a generational thing. In previous generations, people haven't been so open about having discussions such as, on topics such as mental illness, which, excuse me, on topics such as mental illness, which is one of the things that the show 13 Reasons Why tackles head on in a portrayal of depression.

Taylor Adams 9:34

Yeah, and I think that it's another important topic to bring up too, mental illness as it relates to perhaps bullying or things like that or abuse. Those are typically topics that you know, it's not a pleasant thing to discuss. It's not your dinner table discussion typically is when you think about you know, your modal family gathering around a dinner table, but it should be, you shouldn't really be afraid to have discussions like that. And I feel like having that kind of civil discourse kind of thing where you're having that mutual agreement not to get angry with one another not to, really try to understand the other person to be listened to, because, you know, as someone who's gone through something like that, as well, again, say that I wouldn't bring up issues of bullying to my parents, because I was like, they're never going to understand, they're not going to listen, they're not going to believe me. And then I would finally get to that point when I was older, when I would discuss with them and let them know what was going on. Because at that point, I'd matured enough to know, hey, they're going to listen, when I talk to them about this, they're going to understand where I'm coming from, that they expressed regret that I hadn't talked to them sooner about it. So, kind of having that a kind of mutual agreement with your family, like, hey, if you have something that you want to bring up, and you want to talk about, I promise I will listen to you, I promise, I will, you know, try to understand where you're coming from. And if I don't, I'll ask you more about it, or I'll talk to you and let you keep talking to me until I'm understanding where you're coming from. And I think that's part of having a really healthy relationship with your family. Because now I, I talked to my parents every night, pretty much still even in college, and I pretty much tell them, whatever, you know, and I'll let them know, “Hey, I felt a little weird today, I didn't, you know, feel in a good headspace.”

And, you know, they'll talk to me about my pets or my other family members and kind of cheer me up. So just leaving that door open to having healthy discussions and knowing that you have come to this mutual, we're going to understand one another, when we're talking, we're not going to try to talk over you or try to make our points, you know, more important than yours. And just kind of having that discussion is really good. Yeah. And while you can have the same kind of come to the same agreement on a topic, you can come about it different ways. So, there's tons of ethical theory, whether it be like utilitarian versus the, like more abstract kantian, kind of using a lot of terms, but more like greater good versus individual rights, things like that those can kind of conflict sometimes. But they are different ways to come about the same agreed topic. So, while your team may have gone on one side of unethical case, one way, the other team may have taken a different ethical background to their case, but come to the same conclusion that we think X is ethical because and that's really the great thing about Ethics Bowl is it's really fostering a further discussion, because your team may not have thought about it in that way. And then getting to hear somebody else's view on that or another team's view on that same topic really just feels like an expansion of knowledge, which, personally, I love learning things. That's why I'm still in college, eight years that will be in college after this. But you know, it's really that thirst for knowledge is really, it's really a really good thing about Ethics Bowl.

Lucy Frank 13:14

But we also wanted to talk about how some of these Ethics Bowl ideas are applicable just in your everyday life, just in general, there are not necessarily just going to be things that you use when you're presenting cases. And so, we're going to talk to you today about setting some ground rules and just some of the basic Ethics Bowl ideas that are very applicable when you're just having everyday conversations.

Taylor Adams 13:36

Yeah, and I, I personally use Ethics Bowl every day. I can, I can say it's helped me a lot become better at public speaking. And it's helped me become more confident my position on things and you know, not really being scared of having a different opinion than someone else. Because that was very much something I used to be afraid of. And that's why I never did debate like Lucy. Lucy, I know agrees with me on this a little bit she she's also not very confrontational person, we, neither of us are. But you know, whether you're confrontational or not, it's really about respecting another person's humanity, basically, not treating them like an object to get past which we'll go into. So, I guess we can jump in to kind of those rules of engagement for our civil discourse. So kind of the do's and don'ts during not just an Ethics Bowl case, but if you're bringing up any sort of topic with somebody that may get a little bit heated or has that controversial aspect to it that you know, is kind of, you know, brings up that argumentative feeling, and some people like there's very heated topics, you know, especially right now vaccinations, abortion, mask wearing, just to name a few specifics, that immediately you think about talking about that with somebody and you're like, oh, but if we don't agree it might get a little bit you know, a little bit heated. So, kind of the do's and don'ts. For those rules of engagement, so the number one thing, in our opinion is to be treating someone with respect. And that is where a lot of your points come from an Ethics Bowl, and kind of where that bleeds over into your everyday aspect is, you're mainly out there to be treating someone with respect. And if you're not doing that, you're not having civil discourse. And that should be your number one goal in any conversation is just to respect that other individual respect their rights, respect their opinions, whether you agree with them or not. You know, it's, it's still, you know, treating that person with due respect.

Lucy Frank 15:36

Yeah, it's important to see people as people and not just as the opinions or arguments that they have, it becomes really easy to focus on the differing opinions that difference and what you are arguing for or against, but behind every opinion that you may or may not agree with, there is a person with very real feelings and has had different experiences and a different background than you do. And the goal should be to seek to understand not just to tear them down.

Taylor Adams 16:07

Yeah. And like Lucy said, that's kind of like the tagline is, you want to separate that problem or issue or conflict from the person. So, you don't want to see that person and be like, “Oh, just because they don't agree with me, they don't like me,” things like that, that's not a great attitude to have.

And that's really going to lead to that more heated aspect of arguments or not arguments, but discussions. So really being able to separate, “Oh, we have different opinions about this, but hey, we can still go out and have fun together, we may not agree on your stance on politics, or religion or anything like that, but you can still get together have a good time.”

And that's really great, because it's really bringing us into a more diverse, centered background. And then the next one is to kind of line off of that a little bit, is to be an active listener. So, if you're always thinking about how you're going to counter what somebody else is saying, or you're thinking about your points only and what you want to bring up in a conversation, you're not being an active listener. So, you really want to listen to the other person, you want to understand what they're saying. And you want to really take a minute, to just listen to them and just hear what they're saying, try to kind of, you know, think about where they're coming from, and just hear them out, don't talk over them, don't just constantly, like, have questions and things like that, and don't give them a chance to fully explain, you really just want to give them their time to explain their position. And why they think that way.

Lucy Frank 17:38

We've all had those times when we are listening to somebody talk and talk and talk about something that maybe we have really strong feelings about, maybe we're not a super big fan of what they're saying. And so, while they are speaking, we are already coming up with how they are wrong, and why we are right, and planning for how we're going to counteract each point that they brought up. But if that is your approach, you haven't been listening to what they've been saying, you are not an active listener in that situation,

Taylor Adams 18:09

right. And you know, we've all been there. My family personally is very big on that one. So, I've always tried to take a step back and be like, okay, they're not listening, they're just trying to bring up their own points and things. So, we can we get there, we all been there. So just trying to do better than that, and just really listen to what that other person is saying is, is super good. And that's your good step to have in civil discourse. Because if you're not understanding them, then you're kind of missing the point. And then that kind of also leads into don't make personal attacks on people. So that's really going to get an argument heated real fast. And then you're also not separating the problem from the person. So just because you feel like your points not getting across to somebody don't start attacking them, maybe they aren't being an active listener to you doesn't mean you should call them out and you know, really make pointed attacks at them, because then that's going to really get that heated, then close down the conversation. And then your point is moot at that point. So

Lucy Frank 19:10

Yes, and it's important to know that with these rules, we're not saying that disagreement is impossible. Not having disagreement is impossible, you are going to disagree with many, many, many people over the course of your life. But disagreement should always be respectful. And in no context, is it acceptable to directly attack the person behind the opinion. As we've said, as we said, at the very beginning, the number one rule is to be respectful of the person behind the opinion.

Taylor Adams 19:45

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the big thing about civil discourse is, really highlighting the point that you don't have to agree that's part of human nature, we're not going to agree on everything. If we did that, there wouldn't be any sort of diversity of thought at all. And then we really want that diversity of thought because it sponsors more ideas and more thoughts on the same subjects. But you really don't want to take it down to saying, "Oh, well you don't agree with me, then I'm not gonna listen to your side of the opinion", and things like that, which is kind of bringing us to another key thing in the Ethics Bowl competition that also goes over into real life is thinking about possible counterpoints to your side of the problem, or the issue or whatever it may be.

You really want to be thinking as you're kind of formulating your opinions or formulating your kind of case workup, as we would call it, your reasoning behind your opinion on something so like, I think this because X, well, then you want to think about, well, if someone were to disagree with me, what might that might, what might that look like? What might that be about? So, what are potential points, in my opinion, or my background, that would sponsor someone to think a different way? And that can be a little bit hard, but it's a good thing to kind of have that forethought of, this is what we could disagree upon. or this could be a different way to think about the same issue. So, we could just look at, like a common good kind of scenario where, well, it's going to benefit more people if we do this, than this or someone could think well, what about those individual people who aren't getting helped by this? Lucy.

Lucy Frank 21:40

Yes, as Taylor brought up before, if you challenge yourself and you open yourself up to hearing different opinions and counter points to your own personal opinions, that is going to help you and all the people around you grow and change and become better people.

Taylor Adams 21:57

Yeah, and, you know, showing that you've put some thought into, "Well, I know, my opinion isn't the only opinion," is really taking a good step toward understanding the other person, because if you're thinking, "Oh, well, I'm right, there's no other counter to this," you know, that's shutting off the conversation before it even happens.

So, you really want to have that forethought of, you know, this, someone could disagree with me, and that's okay. And this is what they could say about that. And this is what I would say in response. So really kind of, if you have those prepared ahead of time, then while if they were to just come up and disagree

with you, then you're not, then you can be an active listener, and you're not thinking about those questions, because you've already thought about them ahead of time.

So that's something that's really helped me specifically to in my life, is thinking, "Well, I think this," I know, for example, my grandmother and I disagree on vaccination status.

That's fine. She's vaccinated now. But, you know, I know that she has strong negative opinions toward vaccination. So, I kind of think about that, but I still want to go in with that kind of idea of I think this, she's gonna disagree with me, but that's okay. I'm just gonna tell her that's why I think that, you know, I, you know, vaccines are good. And then she can come in and say that vaccines are bad, and it's fine. We disagree. We're still family. But you know, we have that conversation and I just seek to provide her with more information that maybe you know, she didn't know, and then that's, that's me having contributed something. And that's what I feel proud of is if I've given her something she didn't know ahead of time. I'm good with that.

Lucy Frank 23:42

Another important point to remember when having these difficult discussions, is to be aware of your own mental and emotional state, aware of your own mental and emotional health. When having these discussions, just getting emotional is not necessarily a bad thing. It's perfectly understandable to have feelings when you're discussing such thorny, messy issues. But it is important to monitor your own state of mind and emotional well-being and know when, enough is enough, when to take yourself out of a conversation that just is not healthy for you to be in.

Taylor Adams 24:21

Yeah, and if you are talking to that person and you start to see that the conversation is not really going anywhere, or it's starting to get heated starting to not be civil anymore. That's when you can just take a step back, both of you can take a break, take a breath, kind of, you know, come back to that point, whether it be you know, in a few minutes or a few days, it's totally fine. And that's the that's the same point we've been trying to get across as well is that you're not truly having a civil conversation if you're trying to win an argument. So, since there's no winner, there's no there's no fault with walking away and it's better to preserve your respect for that person, preserve your respect for yourself, than to get heated and get personal. So just knowing when to take that step back is super important to civil discourse.

Lucy Frank 25:11

And this is true of really any difficult conversation, not even necessarily one that's about a thorny ethical issue. Personally, I've experienced this more than a few times, I have younger siblings, me and my sister, we get into fights sometimes, on occasion, there'll be pretty bad fights. And it will, it will be about something like she'll have left her clothes on the floor. And I will think that I will have gone into this conversation being you know, so high and mighty up on my high horse, you need to just put your clothes

away, that's all that needs to be done, right? It's not a big deal. And I'll think that I'm being so kind and generous by like putting this this point forward. But she does not see it that way. And we'll be going back and forth, and it will just dissolve, and it will get very heated. And we both just need to step away. And the end, is having a clean floor devoid of dirty clothes really worth wrecking the relationship I have with this person? Probably not. So, in those cases, what really is important is just to step away and know when to take some time for yourself.

Taylor Adams 26:25

Yeah, absolutely. I, I don't have any siblings, but I've certainly been there with my dad specifically. Some of the things he says just get on my nerves sometimes. And it's not even that he's, you know, making is not meaning to get on my nerves. It's just I'm either focused on something, reading a book or something, he'll start talking to me. And I'll be like, okay, Dad, can you wait until I'm, you know, done reading this thing for school, whatever, and he won't, he'll keep talking to me. I'm like, Alright, stop for now. But it's, it's fine, because we end up getting past it. And he'll just, obviously, it doesn't make me change my opinion about my dad at all. So just knowing that it's just, you know, we have opinions on things, but it's fine.

Lucy Frank 27:14

So, I, my living situation right now I live with about 10 roommates, but seems like a lot. It's a pretty big house, though. But all of my roommates come from different backgrounds have had different experiences. And that translates to everybody has a very different way of living there. And this can lead to some conflict. And sometimes the conflict is about just ridiculous little things like what kind of bread we want to buy in the week's groceries. There have been there have been vocal fights about things like this about the groceries. But the thing is, everybody who lives in this house is a super stressed out, super on edge, college student. Everybody has stress is going on. Everybody has things outside of the house that factor in to their emotional reactions to things that may just seem super tiny. Like, do we want to buy multigrain or white bread in the groceries this week. And in the moment when you are having a shouting match about bread, or about whether or not to keep the maple syrup in the pantry or the fridge, it's really easy to just continue with that shouting match. Say that I am right. This is how I've always done things. This is the right way to do things. And just see the other person as attacking you attacking your position saying that the way that you've done things to your whole life is just wrong. But in situations like this, like does it matter if you keep the maple syrup in the fridge or the pantry?

Taylor Adams 28:51

No.

Lucy Frank 28:51

No. And regardless of whether you keep the maple syrup in the pantry or the fridge, you are going to be living with these people for at least a little while longer. But in my house, one of the healthy things that we have going on is we meet regularly we meet about once a month, all together as a house. And we talk about these sorts of things. We talk about concerns that we've had over the past few months changes that we would like to see, or things that we we've done in the past that will maybe it's not working so well anymore. And during this meeting, you know there's 11 people trying to talk at once trying to get their opinions out in the open. But the established rule system for having these discussions is you know, no interrupting, one person at a time. Don't attack the other person's opinion. We're all just trying to get to a place where we can, you know, live together in peace successfully and continue to be successful as college students. That is the end goal here and we're really all working together towards that as a team.

Taylor Adams 29:59

Yeah, I really Like that, I sort of wish I'd had that with my roommates. And I wish I had been the person to lay down those ground rules of kind of meeting up, you know, talking, airing out our differences or airing out what we've disagreed upon. Because I did have a situation with my roommates where I kept wanting to talk to them about, hey, we should talk about this, we keep having fights about the dishwasher, or the washing machine, no one's cleaning the lint filter in the dryer, like that safety hazard. And you know, and they came from a place where their parents would do all that and be like, hey, it's nothing against you, that's fine. Like, we just need to talk about it, we need to set some like, you know, some rules. Not to be childish at all, but they never wanted to meet with me kept letting those differences build up. And it came to a boiling point where we did get into shouting matches and I had to step back and go, "Wait, I don't do shouting matches, this isn't me, can we like take this down? Can we talk about this, take a breath, come back to it?”

And unfortunately, that didn't happen, and ended up like ruining a friendship over it. So, there's kind of things that like, I wish that hadn't happened. Maybe if you know, someone I thought about, you know, setting some more ground rules, setting more of a civil conversation with that. Just, you know, I feel like we just didn't come to terms with it fast enough, or didn't set those ground rules hard enough. And then, you know, that's nothing you want your friendships to end over. So, kind of putting that, you know, in front of, you know, any conversations that you think are going to be kind of difficult, whether it's about maple syrup, or the dryer or something more, you know, important so to say, it nothing's worth losing friendships or relationships over, if you can just talk about it civilly and come to terms with disagreements, even if they're small.

Lucy 31:57

All of these principles that we've talked about all of these ideas, they can be applied, whether you're talking to someone you've known your whole life, like a sibling, or they're going to be applied when you're talking to a random stranger on the street. But we'll just emphasize again, that it's above all important to focus on the person as a person and not as the opinion. So, in the next few episodes, some of our fellow members and some current members of Santa Fe's Ethics Bowl team will be

about setting boundaries, finding common ground, the dynamics that affect our willingness to participate in conversation, anger and escalation and de-escalation. And those times when civil discourse just is not possible and it's best to walk away. We hope you'll stay tuned.