Ep. 44: Mike Lee on Civility, Rhetoric, and Disagreeing Better

Lura Forcum and Lauren Hall interview Mike Lee, director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston and host of When We Disagree, about how to improve disagreement through both debate and dialogue. Lee argues dialogue requires letting go of winning to humanize conflict and preserve long-term relationships, while debate uses evidence and stress-testing to clarify issues and strengthen arguments; done well, each supports the other. Hall shares a pandemic-era student government conflict involving Slack disputes, Blue Lives Matter symbolism, privacy, and free speech, which revealed the need for dialogue alongside principled adjudication. They discuss conflict avoidance on campuses, perspective-taking and mentalizing, structured on-ramps and accessible topics to make disagreement less threatening, and whether media can scale healthier models via parasocial contact. Lee ends with optimism about people’s hunger for connection and the return of sunshine in Charleston.Thanks for reading We Made This Political Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.00:00 Dialogue vs Debate00:41 Podcast Introductions02:20 Civility Initiative Explained03:30 Why the Distinction Matters05:56 Campus Conflict Case Study10:09 Forbearance and Relationships11:26 Do Students Want to Win15:13 Debate Kids and Parenting18:56 Active Listening Can Weaponize23:52 Conflict Avoidance on Campus27:26 Three Ways to Spark Debate31:35 Curiosity Shift Drill33:33 Debate as Perspective Taking36:46 Mentalization Against Tribalism40:28 Can Good Debate Scale43:43 Adam Smith and Sympathy47:58 Parasocial Contact Through Media52:12 Teaching Dialogue in Class54:32 Adversarial Collaboration Model58:51 Hopeful Closing and PlugsResourcesYou can find Mike’s books here: Creating ConservatismWe Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wemadethispolitical.substack.com