Righteous Minds Meetup: Can We Live and Let Live?

In our highly polarized America of 2025, one approach to reducing tensions might be to encourage people, organizations, and governments to take a more “live and let live” approach to differences. If we can agree to disagree, maybe we can avoid some of the nastiness that often goes with polarization.

We’ll start by trying to define what, exactly, we mean by “live and let live” and “agree to disagree.” Will these mean different things in different contexts?

We’ll look at some historical and current situations in which a “live and let live” approach might have saved many lives and communities – for example, the religious wars in Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

We’ll then consider evidence that people don’t really want to live with diversity. We choose to live in communities and institutions distinguished by their isolation from people who are different from us, and we work very hard to remove the “constant clashing of opinions” from our daily lives. So we don’t want to have to put up with voices from the other side if they’re in our face, but maybe if they (or we) just go someplace else we might be able to live and let live.

We’ll discuss whether we can “live and let live” in our own family and with our own friends, even when they have different political views from us. How’s that going for you?

Next, we’ll think about whether we might extend “live and let live”/”agree to disagree” to our communities – workplaces, schools? Other groups to which we belong? Neighbors?

Then we’ll consider “live and let live” at higher levels – our state; our nation; internationally. Could it work? Why or why not? Are there some limits to live and let live? How might this work in different kinds of societies? What would be some of the advantages and disadvantages?

I hope you’ll join us for this intriguing topic. I really want to hear your thoughts.

As you think about “live and let live” before the meetup, here are some resources to consider:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/evolution-the-self/201905/live-and-let-live-so-easy-say-so-hard-do

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2-good-bad-ugly-lets-agree-disagree-shiao-yin-kuik

https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhistory/chapter/chapter-7-religious-wars/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Wars-of-Religion

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/04/21/by-2050-india-to-have-worlds-largest-populations-of-hindus-and-muslims/

https://www.cfr.org/article/sunni-shia-divide

Please let us know if you have any other suggestions for read-aheads.

Thanks. See you soon!

Bill