The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson, and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

How to have a civil discussion about divisive issues.

I made the decision long ago to slash my media intake, and I've never looked back.

It's not that I abstain entirely, since my chosen professional and family obligations meant I never had a ton of time for it to begin with, I simply became much more selective.

In particular, I had no patience for the irate drama-inducing screaming matches that had begun to take over the airwaves. For years now,

people have bemoaned the coarsening of public discourse, and with it general behavior, and experts have

been analyzing its cause.

Jonathan Hyde, in his book The Righteous Mind, is a clear example.

How did we come to a place of perpetual mouth foaming?

While I won't delve into that particular swamp, I will take up the flip side of that coin today,

which has been on my mind lately, maybe on many people's

minds. What primal principles can help us remember how to have a civil discussion about divisive

issues? Sure, vitriol isn't a new phenomenon. Human history is riddled with grave examples of

hateful speech and its consequences. Still, it's interesting

to hear fuming behavior described as caveman or uncivilized. Is this a fair way to look at it?

Were Grog and his kin really rock-throwing brutes? Or would they likely show up as moderns

in their adherence to relative order and harmony?

In other words, how much is civility really dependent upon civilization? What would Grogh really do

in the midst of dissension? From what we can ascertain, there was likely more interband flux

than there was intra-band fighting. If you weren't happy with how things

were going in one group, you had the choice of moving to another. But if the problem was your own

hot-headedness, you'd likely be called to account at some point. When daily survival was at stake,

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