Alone, Suburban & Sorted: Part 6, A Purple State of Mind

In this post I want to start moving from the analyses in The Big Sort to the final book in this series, The Great Good Place.

The object of this series thus far has been to highlight trends in America over the last 30 years that have profoundly affected our common life. Specifically, I want to highlight one major facet of contemporary life in America: We rarely encounter difference in any meaningful way. For two reasons noted thus far. First, we are alone. Our civic disengagement, particularly our lack of bridging connections, gives us fewer opportunities to encounter people who are different from us. Second, we are sorted. The migration patterns of Americans over the last 30 years have sorted us into communities of like-mindedness. Thus, even if I do mix with people in my community they are likely to be people very much like myself. People who share my voting preferences, my religious beliefs, and my skin color. Again, we fail to encounter difference in these homogeneous communities.

My concern with these trends is that we rarely get to practice the skills of welcome, debate, listening, inclusion and hospitality. We begin to find difference shocking, deviant, weird and effortful to live with. Worse, as the research on group polarization showed us, separated from difference we grow more extreme in our views, demonizing difference rather than listening and learning to make room for strangers.

As it happens, a wonderful example of the kind of conversation America needs arrived on our campus this week. A few days ago ACU hosted filmmaker Craig Detweiler and author John Marks on campus as Craig and Mark, across a variety of forums, shared their documentary film A Purple State of Mind. Craig and Mark were college roommates 25 years ago at Davidson College. It was Craig's first year in the Christian faith and Mark's last.

In A Purple State of Mind these former college roommates reconnect over the course of four dialogues, each filmed in a different city. Craig is a Christian and Mark is an agnostic. And across the four conversations these two college friends try to find common ground, searching for a place of purple between the red/blue divide running through America. The conversations are poignant, funny, honest and difficult. Through it all these two friends, each with very different worldviews, model honest conversation and the hard work of listening to difference.

Here are the first nine minutes of A Purple State of Mind:



The power of A Purple State of Mind is how it models what is needed in America today: The practices of honest conversation, principled but civil disagreement and the hard work of listening.

But I left watching A Purple State of Mind with some questions. First, where, exactly, are we to find these conversations? In our disengaged and sorted world these conversations are difficult to find. Second, Craig and Mark were friends and their friendship and common history helped them persist when the conversation got very difficult and confrontational. In short, purple conversations require a backdrop of relationality and trust. Two strangers could not do what Craig and Mark did. Thus, we are left with the familiar question: In a disengaged and sorted society where am I both to encounter difference and build relationship with difference? The answer, as I'll discuss next week, revolves around the issue of place.

Next Post: The Third Place