Civic Issues: reflection on another group’s deliberation

For this week’s civic issue blog, I would like to reflect on my experience at another class’s deliberation. The topic of the deliberation was the legalization of marijuana.

The group presenting the issue first started by giving an overview of the topic, and asked the audience general questions about the stance. This was a good way for the audience to begin thinking about the issue. Since attendance was so large, the audience was split into three groups and the leaders for each approach cycled through each group. I really appreciated this structure because it allowed much more intimate discussion and better organization. Additionally, there were still around 12 people in each group so there were still a large number of opinions to be had.

When the first approach leaders came to our group, they went over the basis of their approach and proceeded to ask questions. I thought that this method was very mechanical based off of how they framed the approach. Instead of creating a general concept for the approach, they prescribed specific characteristics for it. I thought that this really seemed to hinder discussion because it almost seemed as though the presenter’s minds were made up. Of course what they had to say was accurate and valuable, it just felt as though there was little room for negotiation, or more critically, deliberation. Despite of this, the group did have lots of worthwhile deliberation. However, it usually happened when we departed from what the presenters framed. I felt as though our deliberation achieved constructive dialogue because we had a more open framing that allowed the audience to input their own opinions and perspectives more easily.

One benefit of the presenter’s method was that they were truly prepared and knowledgeable about their topic. Besides knowing many specific facts, they were able to provide the audience with almost all of the relevant information to understand the approach.  Also, they spoke well and had many question lined up so there was little awkward silence. The only divergence from this was when a moderator asked a question with an obvious answer, or a question that didn’t really ask for any opinion and had little room for interpretation.

 

There was a man around the age of 50 who participated in discussion in the same group as I. He was an obvious supporter of marijuana because of the opinions he shared. I thought he was particularly interesting because he kind of listened to what the questions were, and then answered something completely different, whatever he wanted to talk about. This presented the leaders a challenge of harnessing his contributions without making him a nuisance to the deliberation. On a personal note, I didn’t like his contributions because he spoke like he was an expert, but he was inaccurate on several important facts.

When it came to the conclusion, the leaders conversed briefly, and then presented their reflections and final thoughts on the discussion. One thing they did was present what they said was the general consensus of the group, and asked if anyone still disagreed. My hand went up, along with one other individual in the room. I found this to be very interesting. I did not find any of the previous dialogue to be persuading by any sense, so I came to think of why so many people agreed in the end. My proposal is that if people were asked the same question in the beginning of the event, the same number of hands would have gone up. I attribute this to the fact that most college aged students are socially liberal, as are many people involved with education. Additionally, many of the people who showed up to the deliberation were probably advocated for the legalization of marijuana. I did not feel slighted because I had a unique opinion among the group, but rather I felt slighted because they almost completely ignored any aspect of a conservative opinion. I think they could have had a much better discussion if they had done this, instead of just agreeing with themselves the entire time.

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