Finding Common Ground: Dueling Dialogues with Gideon Rose and Emma Ashford
Do you find yourself running away from uncomfortable conversations, or struggling to express your opinion when loud voices and strong personalities dominate the room? Have you ever wondered just what it takes to get past the discomfort of debate and find common ground?
On March 5, I-House welcomed foreign policy experts Gideon Rose and Emma Ashford for a live demonstration on how to have respectful dialogue across difference. The evening marked the first entry in the all-new Dueling Dialogues series. Moderated by I-House resident and 2025-26 Obama Scholar Victoria Kuketz, Rose and Ashford engaged in an exciting debate about the United States’ role in world politics, with real-time tips on how to keep the conversation moving even when you disagree.
In his opening remarks, President & CEO Sebastian Fries reflected on the state of civil discourse in the United States and abroad, opening with a clip of a bitterly contentious presidential debate.
“That debate was in 2020, and I’d say today civil discourse and respectful disagreement have been in decline even further since,” he said. “This has really been bothering me, because I believe at their core, societies are not better off for this behavior, they’re worse. This happens in politics, it happens in professional settings, and increasingly, it even happens among families and friends.”
Fries acknowledged that I-House places special emphasis on respectful dialogue and the ability to find common ground. With more than 700 residents representing nearly 100 countries from around the world, the capacity to push through discomfort and empathize with another person is foundational for I-House residents.
“Every day at I-House offers the opportunity to run into another resident who will most likely have a different perspective on something we believe to be our truth. And as many of you know, sometimes these conversations are not easy. They’re uncomfortable,” he said. “How do you handle these frequent differences in opinion? How do you disagree but still empathize at the core with the person across from you? This Dueling Dialogues series will offer some answers.”
The evening’s wide-ranging debate covered myriad topics including politics, foreign affairs, global conflicts, and the discourse that surrounds each. The conversation was interspersed with pointers on how to navigate disagreements and still glean productive insights from both sides.
Rose, an adjunct senior fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations and former editor for “Foreign Affairs,” referred to the basic guiding principles of debate common among foreign policy experts and academics.
“Those guilds impose certain kind of requirements for the discussions among their members, and that is that you’re going to use facts, you’re going to link facts together with arguments, your reasoning should be coherent, and it should be practical,” he said. “We may disagree, we may have arguments that spark from different principles, but since we’re both governed by that kind of discourse, we can hopefully get to positive enlightenment in both cases. Better public policy on the one hand, and closer to truth, accuracy, or insight on the other.”
Even still, it’s not always possible to reach consensus, and sometimes it’s best to simply acknowledge differences and move on. Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and columnist for “Foreign Policy,” recalled her experience on a column called “It’s Debatable,” in which she and another foreign policy expert traded opposing points of view on everything from diplomacy to national security.
“He was about as much of a hawk as I am a dove, polar opposites,” she said. “But every two weeks for about five years, we debated foreign policy issues. And usually that was perfectly fine, because even though we disagreed, he’s not a bad person, and I hope I’m not a bad person. But there were topics that got really contentious, where we would really come to loggerheads. And sometimes we would just decide not to engage on those topics that week, because we would never agree on it and it was better to focus on other issues instead.”
Rose and Ashford agreed that respectful discourse has become increasingly difficult in recent years, particularly around politics, and that online communities have become especially combative. Rose noted that he avoids social media, while Ashford sets some basic rules of engagement for online platforms.
“My general rule is I will engage with anyone who’s making an argument that is made in good faith,” she said. “If somebody is on social media trying to undermine you or calling you names, for me, that’s the time to just walk away.”
While it’s become more difficult to respectfully engage across difference, both speakers contend that it’s more important than ever to speak your mind and stand up for your beliefs, particularly on issues concerning policy.
“I do think it’s really, really important to step into the debate, even if it ends up going badly for you,” Ashford said. “There’s something to this idea that you can’t just take the ball and go home, because then you’re just saying, ‘Well, policy and outcomes are up to the worst people.’ I think you’ve got to engage as much as you can.”
Rose agreed, and took the opportunity to commend his debate opponent for stepping into the arena.
“I respect Emma hugely, even when she’s wrong,” he said with a smile. “I respect her precisely because she’s doing what an honest, intellectual public figure should do, which is fighting her corner, fighting it honorably, and fighting it well.”