Liz Joyner: Want to foster civility in Tallahassee? Join a club.

We live in consequential times when we know that everything is changing. It can be unsettling. But as our political disagreements increasingly poison civic life — and color our personal relationships — most of us feel powerless to change things.

It has been frustrating to witness this accelerating division at scale in America while running an organization devoted to building trust between people who don’t look or think alike here in Tallahassee. We can see it doesn’t have to be this way.

While there are powerful forces stacked against us, we have agency to change the status quo. At The Village Square, we consistently find that our differences aren’t unbridgeable when we can know each other as the complex human beings that we are, instead of the two-dimensional political abstractions that divisive politicians want to make us into.

Our colleague Debilyn Molineaux, co-founder of Bridge Alliance, calls politicians and media figures who win power and make money by making us hate and fear each other “conflict profiteers.” These bad actors who feed off division are dependent on the fact that, increasingly, we don’t know each other anymore. That means they can describe our fellow citizens as dangerous, and we no longer have enough contradictory information to know they’re wrong. As a result, we feel threatened and then we escalate our own behavior to protect ourselves — thus appearing more threatening too. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Here is the most important thing to understand about this tragic American do-loop: Our built-in human proclivity for distrusting “the other” (that kept us safe when we wandered the plains, points out a former Village Square guest UNC Chapel Hill’s Kurt Gray) is ultimately the fuel that drives this cycle. So far from being powerless, we can change this if we — even as we disagree — simply refuse to hate each other. Conflict profiteers have no game if we don’t provide the market demand.

We aim to create a market demand for politicians to rise, as we rise.

In addition to continuing to host our usual large civic gatherings, this year we’re following the sage wisdom of the iconic social scientist Robert D. Putnam — we’re building social capital by getting to know our neighbors in small groups of every imaginable description. We’ve got podcast clubs, book clubs, dinner groups, walking clubs and, well, we’ve even got Civic Stitch ‘n Bitch. In the 12 months that we’ve hosted groups to date, we’re growing connections that have changed our lives.

The sad irony of our situation is that the belonging and acceptance we need as humans is also what America needs to become healthier, but in all the muck, we’re having a hard time seeing this. In Putnam’s most recent book “The Upswing,” with co-author Shaylyn Romney Garrett, this precise argument is made with impressive historical heft. After we spent time with Putnam and Garrett this fall, we’re clearer than ever that there is no shortcut to becoming more connected to each other — and no one in Washington can make that happen. It’s on us.

We’re kicking off our 2024 group-a-palooza at The Challenger Center on Friday, January 26th with a second screening of “Join or Die: a film about why you should join a club — and why the fate of America depends on it.” This inspiring and entertaining film isn’t in theaters. After the film, we’ll invite you to join a club or start a club about something that matters to you.

Of all the cities from sea to shining sea, we believe Tallahassee is where we can show the rest of them how it’s done.

Liz Joyner is the founder of The Village Square, a nonprofit organization devoted to building civic trust between people who don’t look or think alike in American hometowns. Learn more online at tlh.villagesquare.us. 

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Liz Joyner: Want to foster civility in Tallahassee? Join a club.