Ted Talk Three W11 P2

How Common Threats can Make Common (Political) Ground - Johnathan Haidt
While the main thesis of this Ted Talk was that total government overhaul was the best way to start change, many of the points the speaker made are applicable to the topic at hand. People’s brains like continuity. It’s upsetting to the brain if a person acts differently than they think, and the actions of a person are more likely to change than the mindset. Getting a person to completely change their mindset is difficult, but seemingly necessary to make change. However, here, the goal is actually to come to a middle point where both sides of an issue are able to have problems solved while only sacrificing a bit to get it done. While this not only gets things done, it also encourages people to come together and ward off a common threat, even if they aren’t fighting for the exact same thing. Most issues don’t come from a single source, and so fighting off only one source isn’t going to be effective in the long run. By warding off different origins of the main issue while also gaining a wider range of support is the primary goal.

Reaching a wide audience with issues that usually only appeal to one side of the political spectrum is difficult, but this showed that there are ways to gain a larger support than just going all out to appeal to one side and gain their support. While also using the tactics for asking for help and promoting a positive outcome, we are able to motivate a large group of people to act and make a change.