Another astounding thought from @david_perell's recent article: that the Overton Window, ie "the range of acceptable opinions in society", has collapsed. perell.com/blog/what-the-…
The shattered Overton Window and finding common ground
9 tweets · March 2019 · 1 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
Now that I'm thinking about this, I would characterize it as something much messier than just collapse. The Overton Window is obviously many-dimensional. It probably used to have some range in all dimensions. The point is, there was just ONE Overton Window.
I would bet that over the last while, the main political party positions roughly formed each end of the Overton Window. Any opinion between left & right was acceptable. Now each group holds the other in such contempt that there are very few opinions that are broadly acceptable.
(Each group has its own Overton Window, I guess, although these are also nebulous and multitudinous. A moderate has a different but overlapping Overton Window with a more extremely-opinionated person in the same general area.)
I am literally polling my mind for things I think all Americans would agree with and mostly I'm just getting facts, not opinions. & even then, not all facts. 😶 Maybe meta-opinions like "political tensions in America sure are high these days" or "this next election is important"
And even then, probably many people would disagree with such statements if uttered by a political opponent, because it might be a trap to try to convince you of something you know you don't believe. (This *does* happen, but any conversation in which people fear this is FUBAR.)
That's somewhat alarming because as @AdamKahane explains from decades of working with major conflicts, one key step for creatively moving forward is getting people-in-conflict to experience agreement that the situation needs to change.
My sense is that the *agreement* part really is important there. It's not enough that everyone thinks it—they need to actually be able to recognize that at least on that meta-level, there's some common ground. That means a shared purpose, which allows collaboration.
What does it make sense to do in a world with a shattered Overton Window? I wish I knew the answer. Alas, all I can hope for in this moment is that I've framed a slightly better question. and now I'm thinking of @NoraBateson's recent tweet: