So-called “affective polarization” (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015)—deep antagonism between outgroup members—is a pressing contemporary issue. Affectively polarized individuals are often incapable of cooperating, engaging in minimally constructive or respectful ways, as well as learning from and responding appropriately to one another’s differences (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2018). Against this backdrop, politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for finding common ground. In his inaugural speech, President Biden called for Americans to “put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again.” “To make progress,” Biden claimed, “we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.” Even notoriously divisive former President Trump’s first State of the Union Address emphasized the importance of finding commonalities across political differences: “Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.” Philosophers have also begun to consider the importance of finding common ground. Hannon (2020), for instance, claims that “we must change our basic attitudes towards each other in order to find the common ground on which collective flourishing depends” (597-598). Similarly, Madva (2020) cites the importance of adopting a “common-ground mindset” when interacting with outgroup members as a means of counteracting tendencies to negatively fixate on group-related differences. And elsewhere I have argued that empathy is especially well-suited to the task of helping us find common ground across polarized divides (Read, 2021).
Yet, despite its potential benefits in a wide range of cases, efforts to find common ground are not completely innocuous, and individuals who try to find common ground across polarized divides may incur serious risks. These include the risks of: (1) masking important differences between oneself and a polarized opponent, thereby inhibiting efforts to respond appropriately to such differences; (2) submitting oneself to undue (physical, cognitive, and emotional) harms; and (3) exacerbating intergroup hostility and antagonism when finding common ground across one group divide negatively highlights differences across another. Insofar as these risks are real, they provide strong pro-tanto reasons against finding common ground across polarized divides.
Consider first (1) the risk of masking important differences between oneself and a polarized opponent. In some cases, highlighting commonalities may obscure important differences and various unjust disparities that accompany these. An example of this is when coalition building across racial divides for the sake of addressing some common goal obscures important injustices associated with the racial differences amongst members of the group and thereby inhibits the group’s responsiveness to those injustices. In fact, ongoing work in the cognitive sciences suggests that overemphasizing a common identity between marginalized and dominantly situated group members can contribute to decreased motivation to promote social change, especially on the part of the marginalized, but not in cases where subgroup identities are also preserved (Dovidio, et al., 2016; Glasford & Dovidio, 2011). Given the risk of obscuring important differences between group members, it may therefore be crucial to find common ground that promotes bonds between outgroups while at the same time preserving important subgroup identities—for instance, by emphasizing a common national identity that is partly constituted by a shared valuing of diversity and multiculturalism.
Consider next (2) the risk of submitting oneself to undue (physical, cognitive, and emotional) harms. Simply put, some cases involving certain polarized opponents may be too dangerous to warrant efforts to find common ground. For example, it may be too physically and emotionally unsafe and taxing for many (especially marginalized group members) to approach the members of certain other groups—e.g., violent hate groups—with the aim of finding common ground with them. In fact, in some cases, marginalized group members’ efforts to find common ground with a dominantly situated individual may even devolve into so-called epistemic exploitation—characterized by “unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor” on the part of minority-group members (Berenstain, 2016: 569)—when they become tasked with educating their dominantly situated counterpart regarding their oppression.
Consider finally (3) the risk of exacerbating intergroup hostility and antagonism when finding common ground across one group divide negatively highlights differences across another. As Arendt (1970) poignantly notes, many of the strong emotions and attitudes that accompany group membership and partisanship, including those associated with solidarity, including compassion, empathy, love, etc., undermine the prospects for constructive discourse between free and equal individuals—a key feature of any healthy political community. More recent findings suggest that this can happen with empathy in particular when increased empathy for political ingroup members exacerbates affective polarization for political outgroup members (Simas, Clifford, & Kirkland, 2020). In some cases, newly found common ground with an opponent might therefore come at the cost of some other group or outgroup member, as in cases where two or more opposed groups unite against some common (at least perceived) enemy. Such cases of scapegoating—with which history is unfortunately rife—will not only exacerbate the problem of interest but also create new (perhaps even bigger) ones.
Of course, these risks do not negate the value of finding common ground altogether. In fact, finding common ground of different kinds may play a crucial role in mitigating the harms caused by toxic relations between polarized opponents in a variety of different ways. For example, finding common ground that is pertinent to the point of disagreement or conflict may help opponents reach a resolution by uncovering points of agreement or shared concern. And when common ground that is directly pertinent to the point of disagreement cannot be found, finding common ground regarding something else—e.g., another shared value, concern, or experience—that is also of sufficiently significant personal importance to both parties may have positive consequences, including promoting cooperation toward other shared goals, as well as helping to forge and sustain morally significant positive relationships (Gilligan, 1993; Pettit, 2015; Walker, 1989; Wong, 2009). In fact, efforts to find such common ground can even demonstrate a particularly robust form of care, as well as respect in the form of “willingness to learn” from the other—important parts of bell hooks’ (2018) ethic of love. Similarly, finding common ground will also often be required for acting in ways that avoid causing further damage to the relationship with one’s opponent—crucial for acting on a moral principle of accommodation (Gutmann & Thompson, 1990; Wong, 1992).
There may even be some benefit to finding common ground in cases where one continues to disagree with an opponent. For instance, making the effort to find common ground with an opponent might put one in a better position to change their mind regarding the point of disagreement, or at least to appeal to them as someone who shares some of the same concerns. One might also come to have a clearer sense of what is important about one’s own view, how to present the view in ways that are more convincing to a wider range of people, which sorts of beliefs, practices, or values conflict with one’s view and which don’t, etc.
All of this suggests that efforts to find common ground merit serious and careful consideration—perhaps much more so than previously thought. After all, as I’ve suggested, there are strong pro-tanto reasons for and against making this effort, reasons that must be weighed carefully against one another on a case-by-case basis. For instance, it may be that in one case speaking up for what one believes to be right, or refusing to accommodate certain practices, is more important—i.e., provides a weightier pro-tanto reason—than the various goods that finding common ground with an opponent can yield, while in another case the benefits of finding common ground far outweigh the risks.
Given the seriousness of both the potential benefits and risks, efforts to determine whether, when, and how to find common ground are likely to be well worth the trouble. (For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see: Read (2022).)
Hannah Read
Hannah Read is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Wake Forest. She completed her PhD in Philosophy at Duke, her MA in Philosophy at Tufts, and her BA in Philosophy and Literary Studies at the New School.
