“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
what PEOPLE SAY
We are an eclectic group of people from different backgrounds and with different belief systems who have been coming together in Austin, TX for over a year to break bread and have interesting discussions over yummy meals! We sometimes joke that we only agree on three things: The Importance of Free Speech, The Importance of Civility in Dialogue, and The Importance of Cumin.
We are made up of Clinton voters, Trump voters, non-voters, third party voters, Evangelicals, Atheists, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, Centrists and everyone in between. All are welcome, as long as you are coming to engage in good faith with people who may disagree with you, in the interest of understanding one another better.
“The Civility Dinners I’ve attended are intellectual feasts. It’s rare to find intellectual conversation in the first place — and more rare to find intellectual conversation with staying power, because once the topic turns to politics or religion, the hostess is usually obliged to calm things down.
Civility dinners are different. We’ve discussed bare-knuckle politics for hours, and everybody remained respectful. (That’s proper, because the root word of political is “polite.”) We’ve also discussed religion for hours — including atheism — with equal equanimity. We’ve also explored opposite positions about hard-hitting Ethical questions — and maintained civility. That’s what it’s about.
How often does anybody make a complete intellectual connection, either at work, with friends or with family? Only the 1% of the 1%. For the rest of us 1% types, there’s the Civility Dinners.
Thanks, Keri, for the idea and for the coordination of these.
All best,”