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In this powerful episode of the Derate The Hate podcast, Wilk Wilkinson sits down with landscape architect, community organizer, and writer Eric Higbee to explore the transformative power of place-based community engagement in our increasingly fragmented society.
Eric shares insights from his multifaceted work at the intersection of place-making, civic renewal, and social psychology. Through his award-winning design practice, Convene, and his respected Substack newsletter, The Answer is Community, Eric helps individuals and local governments build deeper, more empathetic relationships where they live.
✅ Why online interactions can’t replace real, local community engagement
✅ The psychology behind building empathy and reducing social anxiety
✅ How intergroup contact theory supports community healing
✅ The dual role of grassroots organizing and local government in fostering social cohesion
✅ How common cause projects can unite people across ideological divides
✅ The importance of physical spaces in creating social trust
✅ What civic participation really looks like in your own neighborhood
✅ Civic renewal starts locally—through real-world relationships and shared purpose
✅ Empathy and anxiety reduction are vital for bridging social divides
✅ Both individuals and local governments must take ownership of community well-being
✅ Place-based communities are the foundation for lasting social cohesion
Whether you’re a local leader, community-minded citizen, or simply tired of online polarization, this episode will inspire you to engage more deeply with those around you—and offer tools to get started.
Eric Higbee is a landscape architect, community organizer, writer, researcher, and teacher residing at the intersection of place-making and community building. He regularly publishes his writings and research on civic engagement, social cohesion, and place-based communities in his Substack newsletter, “The Answer is Community”. Eric also teaches courses on community engagement as an Affiliate Faculty member at the University of Washington Department of Landscape Architecture. His award-winning landscape architecture practice, Convene, works with diverse communities throughout the Pacific Northwest on community design and planning projects.
What have you done today to make your life a better life? What have you done today to make the world a better place? The world is a better place if we are better people. That begins with each of us as individuals. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Make each and every day the day that you want it to be!
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00;00;05;26 - 00;00;27;21
Wilk
Welcome back, my friends, to the Derate the Hate podcast. I am your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar stage. Calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog. And those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. Each week I'm sharing stories from my path and using the power of conversation and collaboration with my many great guests.
00;00;27;23 - 00;00;51;29
Wilk
Together, we chart a course toward understanding, bridging divides and fostering a community where wisdom prevails over discord. Friends, it really is about bettering the world. One attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can derate the hate. The only good thing about a bad attitude is we have the ability as individuals to change it.
00;00;52;02 - 00;01;14;26
Wilk
For me, it starts with gratitude and personal accountability. I am so incredibly grateful that you have taken the time to join me for another powerful episode. Please remember to subscribe and share the podcast with your network of friends. If you would like to support the show, check out the Support Us page on the Derate the Hate website. With that, my friends, let's get to it.
00;01;14;26 - 00;01;32;28
Wilk
This week, I'm excited to bring you another conversation with someone who knows the importance of stepping outside of our echo chambers, and how that leads to building genuine and meaningful connections. And the fantastic thing he's not just talking about it, but living it and helping others do the same.
00;01;33;01 - 00;01;46;17
Wilk
Eric Higbee is a landscape architect, a community organizer, a writer, a researcher and a teacher. Yeah, he wears a lot of hats, but all of them center around one core idea community matters.
00;01;46;17 - 00;01;48;05
Wilk
Eric's work is grounded in
00;01;48;05 - 00;02;01;11
Wilk
something called place based community engagement, which is just a fancy way of saying he helps people connect in real life, in the places they actually live.
00;02;01;13 - 00;02;33;18
Wilk
He's the mind behind the Substack newsletter. The Answer is community, where he writes about civic renewal, social cohesion and what it really takes to build communities that thrive, not just survive. In our conversation, Erik and I dig into the importance of moving beyond online interactions and engaging with people right next door. We talk about how reducing anxiety and fostering empathy are key to bringing together folks from different walks of life.
00;02;33;20 - 00;02;56;14
Wilk
We also touch on the responsibilities of local government and how grassroots effort, when done right, can bridge divides. That politics alone cannot fix. Friends, this is a conversation full of heart, full of wisdom, and full of practical insight. So let's get to it with my new friend, Eric Higby. Here we go.
00;02;56;16 - 00;03;01;29
Wilk
Eric Higbee, thank you so much for joining me on the Direct the Hate podcast. It is good to see you today.
00;03;02;02 - 00;03;04;09
Eric Higbee
It's good to be here. Thanks so much, Vogue.
00;03;04;11 - 00;03;34;29
Wilk
It is good to have you here. After, after after a couple rescheduling things because of health and travel and and all the things that seem to get in the way these days, it it is finally great to to connect. I'm so glad to have you, Eric. You talk in, in the work that you do about a topic that is very dear to me, something that but I've been working on a lot lately is something I've been thinking about and talking about a lot lately.
00;03;35;02 - 00;04;05;18
Wilk
And that is the concept of community engagement, the concept of civic renewal, and how those two things, two things relate how important they are. And and that's why I've asked you here today, Eric, because this is something that not enough people are talking about. But it is a it is a topic, of which that the importance cannot be overstated, in my opinion, and that the, the fracturing of what's happening today, this.
00;04;05;18 - 00;04;36;11
Wilk
So, you know, I think you've referred to it as social fragmentation. So what I want to start our conversation, Eric, is, you know, you being somebody who who teaches classes regularly on community engagement. What does that actually mean to you? What is community engagement and how is that as I've seen you right before, community engagement is the cornerstone of civic renewal.
00;04;36;13 - 00;04;41;25
Wilk
So let's let's start our conversation there. And yeah, that's all right. We're going.
00;04;41;28 - 00;05;02;24
Eric Higbee
Let's do it. So what is community engagement. That's a that's a big one because it can mean a lot of different things. I think it's important because I mean in my view, community engagement essentially what I write about is how how we work with communities, how communities come together, gather to shape their world. Right? So design and planning and policy, it's really that sort of a the frontline of democracy, right?
00;05;02;25 - 00;05;19;23
Eric Higbee
I mean, this is where we're coming together to make decisions about our future. And it happens. And things like local governments, when you do a plan or a group getting together to, to, reclaim an abandoned space and turn into a park, right. And then a whole community process. So, so there's a lot of ways you can do community engagement.
00;05;19;23 - 00;05;39;19
Eric Higbee
It happens all the time. I mean, I don't know, there's there's no official count on it, but there's probably hundreds if not thousands of community engagement process is happening across the country at any given moment. And my angle is that a lot of the most of those, I would say ninety some percent of those don't really maximize or take advantage of the opportunity there for for civic renewal.
00;05;39;22 - 00;05;56;19
Eric Higbee
Right? It's really easy to community engagements just to solicit input to inform a project. You can you can hold an open house, you can table at events. And there's no real opportune need created for people to meet each other, to talk to each other, to build a sense of community, a shared vision for the future.
00;05;56;19 - 00;06;06;18
Eric Higbee
And so for me, there's there's community engagement as sort of practiced, which for the large part is, is benign and can be harmful sometimes, especially when you get into what's called sort of checkbox community engagement.
00;06;06;21 - 00;06;15;24
Eric Higbee
But I think it's also really amazing opportunity. And we can talk about those opportunities, to bring people together around the shared vision around on where they live. And I think that's,
00;06;15;24 - 00;06;28;17
Eric Higbee
what I've been trying to kind of uncork and figure out, how do we how do we do more of that and not and leverage this moment in time as an opportunity to really spur that change within community engagement, practice?
00;06;28;19 - 00;06;44;03
Wilk
Yeah, I, I think that is the million dollar question, Eric, is, is how do we do that? What does that look like? Because I think I think civic renewal is, is one of the most important things that, that we need to be focusing on today.
00;06;44;03 - 00;06;50;06
Wilk
You know, simply because so many things have have become fractured in recent years.
00;06;50;09 - 00;07;15;23
Wilk
A lot of the things that we used to do as communities fell apart, you know, and it was even falling apart before the pandemic. But the pandemic exacerbated that, that problem. And then I think a lot of a lot of people started. I think in some ways they became comfortable with the idea of our community engagement. That was all online, and it's just this thing.
00;07;16;00 - 00;07;58;06
Wilk
But but online engagement is not community engagement. It I mean, it's something and it's better than nothing, but it is certainly not what we need to do. And I love the idea of of coming together and discussing and working through our shared vision for what the future needs to be. I mean, we can all look at politics today, not not necessarily make this into a political discussion, but we can look at politics today and say, okay, these are the people that are supposed to be representing us and what they are doing is certainly not representing us in a way that we are going to come to a shared vision of what our future is supposed
00;07;58;06 - 00;08;31;20
Wilk
to look like. We as individuals, in my opinion, Eric, need to make that our job again as we the people, we need to know what we want for a future, and we need to know what our neighbors want for a future. And then we as individual citizens in this country, need to actually come together and then demand of those who are chosen to represent us to to demand better from what they are doing.
00;08;31;23 - 00;08;46;04
Wilk
So, so talk to me about what you think the individual's role is there and how how you see that working out in our communities as individuals.
00;08;46;04 - 00;09;08;26
Eric Higbee
That's an interesting question. You know, because I think, you know, community engagement happens from two different directions. It happens from the top down and from the bottom up. Right. So top down is usually, you know, government planner or an urban planner or something is brought in the kind of the steward, some sort of decision making. And then the bottom up ends in being more of a like a community organization or community group trying to make a difference in the place where they live.
00;09;08;28 - 00;09;20;11
Eric Higbee
For me, the key. So there's individual decisions we make. Yes, there's a million things we can we can do. There's there's actually kind of broad spectrum. I mean, we just even starting by like talking to a stranger, you know, because even that rarely happens, right?
00;09;20;11 - 00;09;25;03
Eric Higbee
Right. Any earbuds out and chat with your neighbor? There's tons of individual stuff like that.
00;09;25;05 - 00;09;45;02
Eric Higbee
For me, I think that my acupuncture point is really on the those who are stewarding or convening a some sort of process where we're coming together. And I think, you know, your earlier question is like, you know, how do we how do we do this? Right? And so there's there's a whole set of one, there's a kind of a reframing and a retooling about how we approach this work in order to get there.
00;09;45;02 - 00;09;59;10
Eric Higbee
So we need to conceive of it in the right way, because most people don't conceive of convening and gathering necessarily with this kind of community building, civic renewal idea in mind. It's project based. It's like, oh, we just need ideas to so we need to listen to the community, but we don't necessarily need them to talk to each other.
00;09;59;10 - 00;10;14;06
Eric Higbee
We just need to we need to get that stuff. It's extractive, but I think we just there's a whole set of tips and tricks and things that we can do. And with kind of two main outcomes. One is to really encourage the interaction that's happening between people of different groups within any play space community.
00;10;14;06 - 00;10;19;14
Eric Higbee
And then to really kind of develop those connections in those relationships through that work and we can borrow a lot.
00;10;19;14 - 00;10;49;01
Eric Higbee
And I don't know if we want to get into this, but a lot of my writing is it's focus on really infusing what we do from social psychology and looking at how how that profession is looking at different groups, different identity groups and groups, and how groups and how people bridge those differences and formerly shared identities. And if we can start to infuse our work with those kind of insights, then community engagement can become a tool for civic renewal and not just an extractive process to inform a design, planning or policy decision.
00;10;49;03 - 00;10;52;02
Wilk
Yeah. Let's yeah, let's get into a little bit
00;10;52;02 - 00;11;11;25
Wilk
of that, a little bit of that. But first I want to talk. Well you, I heard you say the phrase and I've seen it before and I, I for me because I'm not sure I understand it, but also obviously for the listeners, you said the phrase place based community, place based community life.
00;11;11;27 - 00;11;15;27
Wilk
What is place based community life here?
00;11;15;29 - 00;11;34;06
Eric Higbee
Right. So the word community is just awful, right? Like it means a million different things. It's vague, it's overused, you can apply it and so many different ways. And we have any individual has many, many different communities. Right. There's different circles of communities. There's so many different ways we can define it. For me, I you know, I use this term place based.
00;11;34;06 - 00;11;57;15
Eric Higbee
I kind of it's a little clumsy, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment to talk about sort of communities that shared geography. So sort of the traditional way we, we view community because our, our societies were organized for a long time around people who live near each other and have shared interests. And it's sort of the story of America is really around those communities.
00;11;57;17 - 00;12;15;03
Eric Higbee
There's communities of place, place based communities, whatever you want to do it. And so I'm really careful to to say that just because community, you can have an online community, you can have a public interest community, you can have also, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to be rooted in the place where we live. And that's important because there's something really powerful from that.
00;12;15;03 - 00;12;31;19
Eric Higbee
From an agency standpoint about, you know, coming in like feeling like I'm going to I can make a difference. The types of connections and relationships we can build long, long term. I think we are essentially evolutionary wired to find the belonging and the connection with others who we share a physicality with.
00;12;31;19 - 00;12;34;13
Eric Higbee
And I think there's a ton of opportunity there that we miss.
00;12;34;13 - 00;12;37;16
Eric Higbee
And so that's, that's how I define play space community.
00;12;37;18 - 00;13;06;03
Wilk
Perfect. Okay. Oh, and that makes a lot of sense, because you're right that, community can be defined as so many different things, I guess. I love the idea of, of place based community as a geographical thing, because that's one of the things that I've been talking and thinking about so much lately, Eric, is is getting involved in our local geographical communities, with our neighbors, again, with people who live within our communities.
00;13;06;03 - 00;13;28;17
Wilk
Again, because I think that is one area that that is has sorely been neglected in this, you know, with the with the onset of the internet ecosystem that we all spend so much time in now, I think a lot of us have lost sight of our domain, our local domain. What we can do locally to solve a lot of our problems.
00;13;28;17 - 00;13;51;12
Wilk
That's why I talk about subsidiarity, right? How do we control or how do we solve our common problems at the most local of levels together, rather than expect somebody from afar to take care of it for us, or whether we expect, you know, we got so many people today who believe that, you know, maybe the federal government is the cause of all their problems or the gov.
00;13;51;13 - 00;14;17;04
Wilk
Federal government is going to be the solution of all their problems. Well, I got news for everybody. The federal government is neither the cause nor the solution for all or even most of your problems. We need to get back to that concept. So place based community, working within our communities with our neighbors to solve our common problems at the most local of levels, and not expecting somebody on far to be our savior.
00;14;17;06 - 00;14;36;26
Wilk
I think that's hugely important. So let's get to some of those tips and then we can get into the psychology of it. Maybe. Let's get to some of those tips and tricks that you have, Eric, for, for working through some of these things that I think are probably just way too often neglected.
00;14;36;29 - 00;14;54;12
Eric Higbee
Right. Well, actually, I'm gonna I'm going to just flip it a little bit in order to talk about this. Tips and tricks, we need to talk about the social psychology for for a moment first. And so yeah, so there's a really interesting vein of social psychology called intergroup contact theory. That's really about how we bridge our different identity groups.
00;14;54;12 - 00;15;15;08
Eric Higbee
And what are those conditions that allow us to really see each other as fellow humans and essentially go from us and them to we. Right. That's sort of like default, even on a local level. Like even though we share my share, a geography or a place where we live, people are still divided and unconnected. So the social psychologist is that history of intergroup contact theory has gone through a whole evolution.
00;15;15;08 - 00;15;31;08
Eric Higbee
Over 7080 years of practice was first formulated in the 1950s. And there's a longer story there we don't have time for. But the key thing is that what we're really trying to do, if we want to create the conditions for people to kind of bridge their differences and come together and to build a new sense of shared identity, we need to really focus on two things.
00;15;31;08 - 00;15;33;08
Eric Higbee
One is reducing anxiety.
00;15;33;08 - 00;15;48;04
Eric Higbee
And the second one is creating opportunities for empathy and perspective taking. And those are sort of like when you're when you like, pop open the hood and really get into the engine of like the like human nature and how we relate to each other. I mean, those are really the two core mechanisms that at work.
00;15;48;06 - 00;16;06;28
Eric Higbee
And so when it comes time to do a community engagement process or getting a whole bunch of people in a room together, let's say for a community meeting, even though there's many different ways we can we can do this. We really need to start to tweak, you know, all the decisions we make around those two things, like how do we how do we make people comfortable, how do we lower anxiety, and how do we create opportunities for people to share?
00;16;06;28 - 00;16;25;08
Eric Higbee
I mean, empathy is kind of a stronger emotional word. The perspective taking is a little bit more transactional about how do we create those opportunities for people to share and listen to each other and even create moments of sort of collective empathy and see their ideas and the people in the room with them as sort of fellow travelers with fellow interests and the place where we live.
00;16;25;08 - 00;16;35;15
Eric Higbee
So there's a lot to unpack there. But I think that's kind of like the core core idea that we can we can borrow from social psychology as we start to approach, approach how we structure events.
00;16;35;15 - 00;16;58;09
Wilk
Absolutely. So well, and that's hugely important. I mean, because in the work that I do with this podcast and with the organization Braver Angels and and other organizations that I work with, one of the great challenges is to get people to actually engage with people of unlike mindsets. Right. People are so,
00;16;58;09 - 00;17;01;27
Wilk
like, maybe it is an anxiety ridden right.
00;17;01;29 - 00;17;28;10
Wilk
But with, with the idea of stepping outside of their comfort zone, stepping outside their, their, their own silos and engaging somebody who is going to challenge their thought process or challenge the opinions that they have or or the strongly held ideologies that they have. So, Eric, when it comes to the psychology of this, what is
00;17;28;10 - 00;17;56;18
Wilk
I guess, I mean, what from your experience, what what are these, these ways to to tame that anxiety or lower that anxiety level for an individual who, who maybe just is not comfortable stepping outside of their silo or maybe is not comfortable allowing or being vulnerable enough to step into a group that might be
00;17;56;18 - 00;17;58;29
Wilk
of a different ideology than
00;17;58;29 - 00;18;21;19
Wilk
them and a different race than them, a different whatever the US versus them is. You know, breaking down that wall of anxiety is, is a hugely important part to getting to the we as opposed to the US versus them. Right. What do you what do you know? I mean, what do you what are your thoughts on that. Where do we start to break down that anxiety.
00;18;21;21 - 00;18;37;06
Eric Higbee
Yeah, I think the first one is it's kind of a funny phrasing, but I like to call it a bait and switch. And the challenge is a lot of times if you're working with your local community and you have this goal and this aspiration we're talking about, right, like brave Strangers does amazing work mean I'm a huge fan?
00;18;37;08 - 00;19;01;07
Eric Higbee
But if you're like, oh, we're going to have a we're going to have a depolarization meeting or a community meeting or whatever, or try to attempt this work. It's really hard to get people to show up. Right. It's hard. Yeah. And so we had the my fortunate you. So I work as a landscape architect in practice. So a lot of my work focuses on like like small parks and plazas and other kind of public sort of spaces where people could be doing policy, they could be doing all sorts of different things.
00;19;01;09 - 00;19;21;27
Eric Higbee
But the idea is that you lure them in with something different in the sense that say, hey, we have a park renovation going down, going on down the street. We got a half $1 million to do it. Why don't you come help us figure out how to spend that money? Right. And so all of a sudden, you have all these people from the neighborhood or wherever coming together to share their ideas about what they want and their and their community and where they live.
00;19;22;00 - 00;19;35;22
Eric Higbee
And along the way, they may not realize it. You know, you're not talking about it, but, you know, they start to get to know each other and they share their perspectives, and they have a sense of like, oh, these people live my neighborhood. And I got to meet them and know them. And so that's why I kind of use the term bait and switch.
00;19;35;22 - 00;19;58;19
Eric Higbee
It's kind of a funny one, but I think a lot of times you need a different route. You need to come at it sideways because people aren't ready to do that, aren't willing, they're not going to show up. But you find that other thing that's at stake and that's going to motivate them, either something they're excited about or they're afraid about, and then use that as the vehicle to have the conversations where they're and you make those conversations, you know, you serve food, you get a chance to see.
00;19;58;19 - 00;20;15;14
Eric Higbee
Everyone wears nametags, people get to know each other, and they start sharing their views about why they live here and what they want to see. And you do that over the course of several community events or meetings or work parties, and next thing you know, you've stitched everyone back together. And those things trends. I've seen it. I've worked in rural communities.
00;20;15;14 - 00;20;29;20
Eric Higbee
I've worked in really diverse urban communities. Like that stuff transcends politics and cultural boundaries. If you're if you share that, that's coming back to play space communities. When you share that geography and you're like, no, I, I care what's happening in my neighborhood. And you go
00;20;29;20 - 00;20;33;23
Eric Higbee
into that people, people bridge real fast.
00;20;33;26 - 00;21;06;19
Wilk
Common cause projects that everybody's going to benefit from everybody. And despite ideology, can can enjoy and take part in. Yeah. Common cause projects. Definitely a huge, huge, huge part of that for sure. Yeah. For sure. So then in your experience here, what has been, you know, some of the biggest roadblocks to, to these things, I mean let's step outside of maybe even step outside a little bit, you know, broader than our, our own communities.
00;21;06;21 - 00;21;39;07
Wilk
But getting people to comfortable enough with each other, let's say they don't have a common cause project. But, you know, we we still need to figure out a way to, to get people to engage in, in these, in this thing. Because obviously our community I mean, I'm like I said, I am huge. I'm a huge proponent of getting people together in our local communities.
00;21;39;09 - 00;22;10;02
Wilk
But but again, we live in a country right now. It's about 340 million people. We we have a number of different things going on. You talked about earlier in the conversation. You talked about there's a top down component. There's a bottom up component. Eventually these things are going to meet in the middle. I personally, in the work that I'm doing, love the grassroots aspect of, community engagement and civic renewal.
00;22;10;04 - 00;22;36;18
Wilk
But let's say there are things that are maybe too big for the standard community to deal with. So we've got to branch out a little bit more. We've got to think a little bit more of on a macro level, and then start to engage with whether it be our our leaders at the state level or even or even further.
00;22;36;23 - 00;22;40;20
Wilk
What advice do you have for the listeners on that front?
00;22;40;22 - 00;22;54;17
Eric Higbee
Right. So one, you know, it's I mean, a core board, if you're thinking about bottom, bottom up, a core building block is really getting organized in the associations, right? You look, you look at the what is a healthy community and what is,
00;22;54;17 - 00;23;02;25
Eric Higbee
you know, it's filled with folks who are organized and vehicles for all that individual energy to kind of to carry through that, through that work.
00;23;02;25 - 00;23;11;27
Eric Higbee
And so, that's been, you know, decimated a lot these days. It's really hard to get folks to even turn out and show up for things where we're working against,
00;23;11;27 - 00;23;21;29
Eric Higbee
Netflix and DoorDash and Facebook and all sorts of these things, the incentives that keep people isolated and in their houses and separated. I really, I really strong.
00;23;21;29 - 00;23;48;25
Eric Higbee
Right. So what's going to motivate people to show up and get out and get involved. So that kind of local group organizing those associations, those clubs, all that are really, really core part of that local play space community that can get reinvigorated. And there's some really great work happening out there right now. I think from the other side, I think there's a part of this work where, like local governments in particular, need to sort of step into this space and re-envision how they, their relationships to communities and how they work with them.
00;23;48;27 - 00;24;14;16
Eric Higbee
I think governments are often in the business of sort of providing services and thinking about the the needs of communities and meeting those communities. And I think and there's some really good work happening around this to community. Local governments need to really see, like have to like put as part of their mission, like fire flag, like we have some responsibility to make sure that our communities are cohesive, that we're work, that we're doing work that's that's keeping people connected and building communities.
00;24;14;16 - 00;24;28;07
Eric Higbee
Because it used to be we could assume that those that that that just happened, right. We had all these associations and relationships and, and the places where we lived were the centers of our social lives is not anymore. Right. So then who should stewards that work? Right. So
00;24;28;07 - 00;24;32;22
Eric Higbee
there's many great bottom up efforts to do that. And I think it needs to come from the other direction too.
00;24;32;22 - 00;24;39;08
Eric Higbee
I think local governments need to see as part of their their mission and their scope of work, some stewardship of the well-being, the,
00;24;39;08 - 00;24;52;24
Eric Higbee
the, the social fabric of the community as part of their purview and not just providing services and meeting needs and being just solely responsive to the to the complaints. So that's that's part of the work to.
00;24;52;26 - 00;25;19;19
Wilk
Yeah, absolutely. I agree, I mean, so being the kind of person that I am, I the government providing services is it should be a smaller part of what they do. I think the bigger part of what they should be doing is showing that social cohesion. I really like the idea, Eric, of of that bottom up part. What challenges do we face as a community?
00;25;19;26 - 00;25;55;09
Wilk
What what walls are separating us? What puts our community into these us versus them categories? And then if they are, if there are these things, you know, what can we do? You know, what can we do in partnership with each other? What can we do? I mean, I think the first part it and any I, I guess taking this to like a business thought process, you know, I've, you know, been in business for several years and, and when I look at processes or I look at the things in business that stand in the way of a, of a particular goal, first we got to define what our goal is.
00;25;55;12 - 00;26;24;06
Wilk
I mean, do we want to live in a cohesive and and a community that's working well together, or do we we want to be a community who when we go to the grocery store, we don't hold the door for somebody. We don't wave and say hi. We no longer spend any time interacting with each other. Do we want to be in a in an environment where we don't just interact?
00;26;24;09 - 00;26;59;29
Wilk
And if we do, then what are we going to do to fix that problem? Unfortunately, I think there's far too many people out there nowadays that that want to work against that. They want they use these these I call it fog, right? The fear, outrage and grievance model to to keep us separated instead of building a cohesive. We they're too focused on for whatever reason, you know, exacerbating that us versus them mentality that us versus them mentality is is is the is the ugliest thing.
00;26;59;29 - 00;27;25;25
Wilk
I mean, I guess that's why I talk so much about, you know, polarization or toxic polarization, you know, and then depolarization and what we can do as individuals to work together to, to, you know, first figure out what our common problems are and then figure out what the strengths are, what our strengths are as a community. You know, just like I said, in business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, what is standing in the way of that cohesion?
00;27;25;28 - 00;27;42;23
Eric Higbee
I mean, yeah, it's totally true. I think part of what's happening is, is these national identities, these political identities have really percolated down to the local level and the way that they didn't before. Right. So people have sort of group themselves and align themselves and sort of collapsed where people have kind of what they call social identity complexity.
00;27;42;23 - 00;27;59;15
Eric Higbee
There now you're right, or you're blue and that's it. And the behavior that's got modeled and national level is kind of seeping down into the local level where they used to didn't really exist in the in the same way that they used to. And like I mentioned earlier, we're also, you know, we're in our social media bubbles, we're watching Netflix, all this sort of stuff.
00;27;59;15 - 00;28;17;04
Eric Higbee
And so when it comes down to like individual decisions, I think anything that we're doing to like, pierce that bubble in those silos in the caves and keep coming back to like just chatting with a stranger or getting organized or anything that we do is like one step in the right direction. And then with the next step being sort of getting organized,
00;28;17;04 - 00;28;22;12
Eric Higbee
but it's, it's kind of a tough we're in a, we're in a tough spot like, I don't, you know, I don't know,
00;28;22;12 - 00;28;26;21
Eric Higbee
but I think that the only route is really from the local level and from the bottom up.
00;28;26;21 - 00;28;37;27
Eric Higbee
I just don't see anything changing top down any of this. Right. It's the only route for civic renewal is through people. This kind of like seedbed of democracy with where we live
00;28;37;27 - 00;28;48;24
Eric Higbee
and having those conversations and figuring out how to talk and building a sense of tolerance and inclusion and like meeting someone who's different than you or we, we just lose that muscle memory when we're in our when our bubble so much.
00;28;48;24 - 00;29;02;16
Eric Higbee
And even if they're not someone on the other side of the political spectrum, like even in the place where you live, like just talking to someone who has a different life experience is enough to start to like, crack open those those kind of walls that get built up when our
00;29;02;16 - 00;29;07;13
Eric Higbee
when the only information we're getting is from our form of social media or the national level.
00;29;07;13 - 00;29;25;02
Eric Higbee
And these people, there's these fog folks that you're talking about, right. That's all you're getting. That's that's your world, right? And then you go and you chat with someone who's real, with a different opinion, with a different opinion. You're like, oh, they're really nice. And they're one of us, and they live next door. And we could do something together and I can borrow they,
00;29;25;02 - 00;29;28;05
Eric Higbee
they're going to help me fix my engine next week, you know, because they know how to do something.
00;29;28;05 - 00;29;33;24
Eric Higbee
Right. So, right. It's only at that local level can we, you know, politics represent us, right? So,
00;29;33;24 - 00;29;40;27
Eric Higbee
only when we start from the bottom is as the the upper level got to change in a way that's going to, be a positive force.
00;29;40;29 - 00;30;01;16
Wilk
No, that's absolutely right. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, you know, bottom up grassroots work and organization and, and figuring out the challenges we have within our own communities, having conversations that are outside of our own echo chambers. You know, you mentioned social media there, Eric and I. This is just a funny little maybe an anecdotal test case.
00;30;01;16 - 00;30;19;22
Wilk
I don't think it's anecdotal. I think it's it's pretty much standard, but but me and and and a person that probably doesn't align with me politically. We were sitting and having lunch the other day and we, you know, he said, let's just look at each other, look at the feed on each other's, phone, like Facebook feed. Right?
00;30;19;22 - 00;30;58;20
Wilk
Just to see the kind of things that are in my feed compared to the things that are in your feed. Right. And and it's funny because there, there is a, there is a business model for keeping us inside of our own bubbles or inside of our own echo chambers, and it's so, so that to me, if there's one huge thing that that we can convey in this, in this message that we're putting out there today, Eric and I, you know, I do this quite often in, in my messaging.
00;30;58;20 - 00;31;18;06
Wilk
But if there's one thing that I can say is, yeah, get out there and have conversations with people that are outside of your own bubble, outside of your own echo chamber, because yes, you are going to realize they are just another human being like you. They are. They are somebody who wants, you know, a roof over their head when they go to bed at night.
00;31;18;06 - 00;31;49;28
Wilk
They want a warm bed to sleep, and they want food for their belly. They want good education for their kids. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't make them a monster. It doesn't make them evil. They very well might be wrong, but if you go into a conversation with the intention of learning a true intention of curiosity and having a conversation with somebody that you don't know, with the intention to really listen and understand who they are, you are going to find out that that is another beautiful human being.
00;31;50;05 - 00;32;05;08
Wilk
They very well could be wrong on most thing. And let's make no mistake, there's going to be some bad people out there, but the vast majority of the people, just because they believe differently than you are, doesn't mean that they're bad or evil. They're just different.
00;32;05;11 - 00;32;13;16
Eric Higbee
Yeah, I just I just want to bring it back to community engagement. Right. So here we are, people. Are you getting 50 and 100 people in a room at a time for community events? Right? You're like
00;32;13;16 - 00;32;32;12
Eric Higbee
and then there is an incredible opportunity to scale that work up. So I mean, you've been ask about individual conversations, but like everywhere across the country, there are hundreds if not thousands of processes happening where people are getting together to decide, help inform and make decisions around planning, policy, you name it.
00;32;32;12 - 00;32;55;16
Eric Higbee
And so, like, why are we taking advantage of those opportunities to do the things that we're talking about, individual level. And there's so much potential in there. That's and that's what I'm trying to say for me. Am I work, am I writing or what I do is trying to like, how do we those who are stewarding those processes, whether it's bottom up or top down, if you're getting 50 or 100 people in the room like you better, given what's happening in our society right now, you've got to be dripping dry.
00;32;55;16 - 00;33;17;28
Eric Higbee
Every potential to have people get to know each other, share their feelings, or emphasize share their perspectives and do that and do that work. And at that point, we may have, you know, I think that's how we kind of scale up when we start to really build momentum, because I think sometimes this whole like, individual level model has some limits to it, you know, and it's important work.
00;33;17;28 - 00;33;31;12
Eric Higbee
Right? Like everyone needs to do it right. But everyone needs to start with themselves. Be the change you want to see. But there are some levers of some structures out there that I think that we can, that we can leverage a little bit to really scale up the work. And for me, that's really about community engagement.
00;33;31;14 - 00;33;49;08
Wilk
Absolutely. And I love that you brought up be the change that you want to see in the world. Be that example for the people that are around you. Eric Higbee, where can more where can people find out more about you, more about the work that you do? I know you have a Substack. You've got, you know, on LinkedIn, where can where can people get Ahold of,
00;33;49;08 - 00;33;51;29
Wilk
Eric Higbee to to learn more about your work?
00;33;52;02 - 00;34;11;20
Eric Higbee
Yeah. The best place is my Substack. The answer is that community on there. I writes I once or twice a month, I read about these issues and have conversations. Occasionally I do a little bit of a little bit of podcasting myself. So yeah, find me there and subscribe and leave me comments and likes and we can talk.
00;34;11;23 - 00;34;22;10
Wilk
Very cool. Eric Higbee, thank you so much. The website again is the answer is community and I appreciate your time today. Eric, thank you for joining me on the eight day podcast.
00;34;22;13 - 00;34;23;27
Eric Higbee
Thanks, Wilk. Thanks for everything you do.
00;34;23;27 - 00;34;43;04
Wilk
Friends, if there's anything in this episode that provided exceptional value to you, please make sure to hit that share button. Share it with your friends, share it far and wide. And of course, if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe right from our website so you can get the Direct The Eight podcast sent to your email inbox every week.
00;34;43;07 - 00;34;59;06
Wilk
So this is Wilk wrapping up for the week saying, get out there. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything that you've got. And remember, it's up to you to make each and every day the day that you want it to be. If there is something that you would like to share with me, you can catch me on most social media platforms.
00;34;59;12 - 00;35;07;22
Wilk
Or you can email me directly. Wilk at Wilk’s World dot com, and with that, my friends, I am going to back on out of here and we will catch you next week. Take care.
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