By John Benson
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a ringing in our collective heads that won’t go away. It’s not last night’s Christmas Ale (well, not all of it) but instead a hangover from the recent election: A cacophonic squawk that has seemingly caused a ubiquitous tinnitus in America. If the straight-talking Dr. Phil offered a remedy, it would probably be something along the lines of “shut up and talk.”
For some folks this notion may be hard to fathom, but at one point in this country people with divergent opinions could meet together to discuss the issues with decorum, aplomb and respect for each other. The fact that such a point has to be made illustrates just how broken our current social and political model has become.
Here’s an example using The Beatles or The Stones. For baby boomers, this important argument was a conversation starter that both sides could relate. Yes, John was a visionary but Keith was dangerous. Today, the sides are squabbling over who is more talented, Jason Aldean or Machine Gun Kelly. There is no common ground and neither side wants to hear or understand the other.
Two local, mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-this-anymore folks are Jonathan Rodriguez-Lucas and Andrew Samtoy, who staged a social experiment of sorts — called the Cleveland Salon — this past summer at Ingenuity Festival.
The Cleveland Salon is a forward-thinking idea for folks to calmly meet in person, discuss the issues of the day and leave, well, informed. The second such event takes place at 7 p.m. Thu 11/29 at Mahall’s 20 Lanes, 13224 Madison Ave., Lakewood, Ohio.
Cool Cleveland talked to engineer-by-day, respectful-opinion-holder-by-night Jonathan Rodriguez-Lucas, a 2002 University School graduate, about this unique concept and its future.
Cool Cleveland: First of all, how did you start The Cleveland Salon?
Jonathan Rodriguez-Lucas: For the entire weekend at Ingenuity Fest we had 25 or 30 hour-long discussions. The idea being rather than just have somebody come and lecture you for an hour about a topic and their opinions, actually have people – us in general – talk about how this affects us and our opinions so you can get differing opinions in the same room. So, the discussion leader will kick it off for 10 or 15 minutes about it and then we open it up to everybody there to throw in and add their opinions on it. Hopefully the idea is increasing civic awareness.
That’s quite the naïve view. Don’t you know when us Americans get together these days we like to turn gatherings into shouting contests?
They can be, yes. We actually didn’t have a whole lot of that problem at Ingenuity Fest. We’re going on from there. We’re trying to keep it civil, trying to prevent people from getting too worked up. Try to have a lot less finger pointing. If you and I are having a discussion, and we’re disagreeing with each other, as long as it’s staying civil, that’s fine. But when it starts to get finger pointing and yelling back and forth, it’s not constructive.
So what topics did the first Cleveland Salon cover?
There were a lot of topics, as small as public transportation and how to improve it to alternative sexualities and what to do with Burke Lakefront and how to fix education in Cleveland. It was all over the place, really. That was partly because this is what we could line up but now we’re expanding on what we were discussing at Ingenuity Fest. And this next event should be along the same lines.
The first will be about the role of media in society. Maude Campbell will be the discussion leader. She’ll open with 10 or 15 minutes about her experiences being a reporter in Cleveland, and then turn it over to the group there and get their feedback on how does media affect them and what are their opinions. That should be about an hour. After a brief intermission, we’ll come back and go into the role of government, which is a bit of a broader topic. We don’t have a specific discussion leader on that but hopefully we can pick a few key points to focus on.
On the surface the lone hurdle facing The Cleveland Salon is painting the event more than just a, say, NPR love fest where everyone arrives driving a Prius.
Right. We’re trying to avoid that.
Finally, The Cleveland Salon appears to be flying in the face of our technological world that demands instant Tweets and constant updating. More so, the notion of people meeting together in the same room to talk in a civil fashion rarely exists today. Invariably, this is a 20th century concept. How dare you!
That there is the entire point. This doesn’t happen nowadays because anyone can get on the Internet and spout whatever they want. So here’s a group of people who are going to ask you questions about it. Let’s see what you have to say.
For more information, visit http://TheClevelandSalon.com.
Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio. When he’s not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria. John also occasionally writes for CoolCleveland.com.