Matthew Taylor and mediation

This post is a collection of quotes from Matthew Taylor in an interview with Rebel Wisdom in 2021 titled Polarisation vs Democracy, Matthew Taylor. The video for this interview can be found at this link. I recommend listening to the interview. There are 2 quotes listed below chronologically.

1. "In mediation processes, one of the methods that's used often, and this is in conflict situations, armed conflict situations sometimes, is a process of getting people to agree what they disagree about. And that's really important. And the reason that's important is because the way most political debates are structured is not over trying to understand what we disagree about; it's about trying to caricature each other. And being caricatured is painful and it makes us angry and it makes us want to lash out." (17:28)

2. "So I think we need to renew our democracy... we need a similar set of institutions, of norms, of psychological insights which recognize that society cannot work unless people have a reasonable degree of shared values and particularly a reasonably strong set of shared values about how it is you go about the business of disagreeing with each other and resolving those disagreements." (24:40)