'How Can You Think That' book club tackles political divides

Whether it's uniting the right, taxing carbon emissions or raising the minimum wage, these values stem from political opinions and a new Calgary book club wants to explore the deeper motivation behind those values by asking directly "How can you think that?"

Speaking to Daybreak Alberta this week, organizers say politics has more to do with social groupings than the issues themselves.

"We tend to become entrenched and passionate regarding our political views," said Julie Sedivy, a linguistics & psychology professor at the University of Calgary and one of the book club creators.

Sedivy says she felt frustrated after numerous unproductive political conversations, so she wanted to create a space where people can find genuine understanding.

Birds of a feather

In the first meeting, the group will discuss the moral palates between liberals and conservatives. Sedivy says belonging to a certain side has increasingly become more important than the substance of the argument.

"If you really look at the positions these [political] parties take, sometimes they're bundles of contradictions. Because people affiliate so strongly with those groups or teams they kind of gloss over some of the contradictions."

She says politics has more to do with a sense of identity.

"The groups we belong to and the values we espouse really spring from instincts we have from what's fundamentally right or fundamentally wrong."

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Persuasion evasion

However, Sedivy says the book club will not be about making people change their perspective.

"If you approach a discussion with the agenda of persuading the other person, you are probably going to have limited success."

Instead, she hopes book club members will seek a better understanding of "the other side."

The first book to be discussed is The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.

The club will meet at Shelf Life Books on Saturday mornings until October 28.

With files from Daybreak Alberta