Results

To date there have been ten implementations of Meetings of Opposites.

  • In 2012: a one-day event with an encounter between Pat Michaels, former UVa faculty member, and Dr. Frederick Joyce, a presenter for the Climate Reality Project, for an audience of students in the Upward Bound program at UVa. Here is the original general Proposal for Meetings of Opposites with a report on that first Meeting: MoO Proposal and Report
  • After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017: several meetings of various kinds under the umbrella of Gov360, a local non-profit dedicated to voter participation and the renewal of civic discourse.
  • In winter 2017: a course for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute entitled “Civics in Charlottesville: Meetings of Opposites.”
  • In winter 2018: another course for OLLI, “Civics in Charlottesville: From Us-Against-Them to We-For-Each-Other.”
  • For Charlottesville UnityDays, in 2019: a one-evening workshop: “Where Do Stereotypes Come From?”
  • In spring 2020: an OLLI course, “Walking Uphill Together,” cut short after three sessions by the coronavirus, but moved online to use the platform of Living Room Conversations.
  • In fall 2021, we restarted the OLLI course and completed six sessions in person.
  • In June 2023: a three-session Where Do Stereotypes Come From?
  • June 29-30, 2023: appearance on Brother Jeff’s podcast, Denver: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.fard/videos/2433950950107015
  • At the Braver Angels convention in Gettysburg, July 2023: two special introductory sessions. From one of the participants:
    • “I suspect that you’re really disclosing the limitations of Western culture, with its focus on individuals mastering external reality. With those exercises you led us through at the BA convention, we were trying to become social, partly simply by talking about it. In that sense we did create a new world.”

Meetings have occurred with general audiences and with pairs of Opposites. They require only a room with projection capability and access to the outside or to a corner of a gymnasium.

Henry McHenry will bring Meetings of Opposites, configured to suit local needs, anywhere in North America. He will never accept compensation.