When I first read those words, they seemed to me clearly true.  Now I have thought about them a little, and I am not so sure.

When I think about the range of respectable opinions, my mind reverts to my first conscious experience of it.  I was in elementary school, standing in the lunch line.  I could see what was being served and I said I was looking forward to eating it.  Those were not the words I used, but they convey the meaning.  I was immediately set upon by members of my class for saying such a thing.  It turned out that complaining about the food in the school lunchroom was what we did and that saying other—especially opposite—things would lead to exclusion.

I solved that problem instantly.  I never again said that I liked the food they were serving in the school lunchroom.

Yasha Mounk says that today’s range of acceptable opinion is narrower than that of any historical epoch since Victorian times.  In Victorian times, he says, the range of opinion was kept narrow because of the unavailability of other views.  You repeated and sometimes debated the views you heard in your stratum of society because those are the only ones you heard.  Today, Mounk says, strong arguments against nearly any view you can imagine are available to “any human with an internet connection.”

“John Stuart Mill famously argued,” says Mounk, “that it is crucial to hold our beliefs as living truths rather than dead dogmas, something that would only be possible if we were exposed to a genuine diversity of views.”  That sounds right to me.  There is, without question, a genuine diversity of views, but we are not exposed to them.  We have grouped ourselves into very agreeable groups and the truths we share are in danger of becoming, as Mill says, “dead dogmas.”

The settings I, myself have chosen, are running this risk. So when I speculate about what can be done about this issue—which I acknowledge is a serious one—get personal quickly.  What to do?

First, establish yourself as a serious participant in the conversation.  It is easy and pointless to throw stones at the reigning consensus.  It is a good deal more valuable to grant that the position now held by the group is based on real values; if you do that, you can raise the question of whether those values are being achieved.  If all goes well, you have now achieved a “Yes, but…” conversation.

This won’t help the hangers on who are, as in my example above, complaining about the cafeteria food because it is “what one does.”  They are dead coals, once a part of the fire, but exhausted.  But others, who might look as lifeless, might be brought back into flame by blowing on them a little.  These “not quite dead” coals still care about the values that underlie the current consensus and they are open to the idea that those values are not being achieved by doing and saying what the group does and says.

Having achieved the “Yes, but…” conversation, you need to have something to propose.  Value A is still the underlying value of this group, but the conversation we are having (A.1) does not move it into serious consideration or to action, if action is appropriate.  I propose that we move on to another conversation (A.2) which is based on the same values but that offers more promise of achieving results.

Several good things might happen if you follow this strategy.  One is that the group is persuaded that A.2 is better and begins to move in that direction.  Another is that the old conversation, which I have described as tethered to A.1, is subjected to the opposition of group members.  People who once nodded along, assenting to the ruling consensus, can now see that they have a choice. 

They always had the choice of throwing stones at the group and its values.  Provided that these are only little stones, this choice will be tolerated and ignored.  If they are stones that attack the group consensus but offer no alternative, the stone thrower will be invited to move elsewhere.  But now they have the choice of engaging in real conversation; conversation that affirms the underlying value, but that raises new ways of understanding it or offers new ways of making it contemporary.

This is what “Yes, but…” does to the conversation if it can be achieved.  I don’t want to be misunderstood; this is not an easy transition.  As Mill says, “living truths” are the goal to be sought.  He neglected to say that “dead dogmas,” the alternative he offered, can be a source of great consolation and it might be that consolation is what the group is really after.

But I think it is worth considering.