Season 2 Finale: Pluralism

Ben Klutsey, executive director of the Mercatus Center whose work to bridge political differences is showcased in the documentary Undivide Us, shares a formative story of encountering racism as a child visiting Germany—a moment of unprovoked hostility that deeply shaped his outlook. Years later, after leaving Ghana and arriving in Appleton, Wisconsin for college, he was met with unexpected warmth, an experience he describes as a healing contrast that sparked his lifelong commitment to what he calls pluralist points. For Klutsey, pluralism means more than diversity—it’s about engaging across difference with tolerance, humility, and patience. 

When We Disagree returns for season 3 in August 2025. 

Tell us your argument stories!

• Email guest and topic suggestions to us at whenwedisagree@gmail.com
• Follow us on Instagram

Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Political conversations about democracy can often take place at too high a level. People talk about freedom of expression, deliberation, the will of the governed, but what makes democracy tick isn't just high ideals.

It's whether people can actually talk and listen and argue with one another. The public sphere is a space where individuals can gather to discuss issues of shared concern, hopefully free from coercion. And they have universal access to this sphere. This all sounds good, right? But what does that look like in practice?

Well, let's bring it down to something relatable. Family arguments. Imagine a family deciding where to go on vacation. I. Everyone has opinions. Your sister wants to go to the beach. Your dad wants to go to the mountains. Your mom is [00:01:00] lobbying for a trip to a famous city. If the decision making is fair, everyone gets a say, reasons are exchanged.

Hopefully the force of the better argument wins out. Maybe your dad convinces everyone that the mountain cabin will be more relaxing and cheaper, and if your sister's voice isn't heard though, because she's constantly interrupted. That's unfair, or if the father holds the wallet. So his preference wins regardless for how good His arguments are also quite unfair.

Suddenly it's not a true deliberation, it's just the performance of one, the theater of democracy. The public's fear works best when no one is systematically excluded. And arguments are judged on their merits, and this concept, of course, doesn't just apply to family trips. Talking and hearing is the whole business of democracy.

It's how we discuss politics and culture and social issues. If only the loudest voices or the wealthiest interests get heard, the public discourse is skewed. [00:02:00] An open public sphere asks us all to take a look, not just at free expression, but freedom of access. A healthy public sphere isn't just a theoretical idea, it's a practice.

We live every day. I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest on when we disagree is Ben Klu. Say, I. Ben is the executive director of the Mercatus Center, which vance's knowledge about markets and human freedom. Ben's work to encourage free dialogue across our differences is showcased in the documentary Undivide Us.

Ben, tell us an argument story. 

Ben Klutsey: Well, this one goes way, way, way, way back. When I was about 11 years old, um, for the very first time, uh, I had landed on a different continent. I grew up in Ghana, west Africa, and so for most of my childhood, that's all I knew. But my family and I went on a vacation to Germany [00:03:00] and we went to a town called Emden.

It's in the northern part of Germany, uh, right at the, uh. Dutch German border and on the very first day we arrived, my three siblings and I, uh, saw that there was a playground across the street from where we, we stayed and we were excited because we heard these kids jumping around and screaming and, and, and just really excited and we saw all the things that kids will be excited about.

Yeah, the seesaws, the swains, and so on. So, you know, we just pull on our shoes and we ran outside. And just about six feet before the edge of the playground, the kids just stopped. You know, the kids who were jumping around and, and screaming and, and seemed excited, just stopped. And they were yelling and screaming.

They were actually crying and they were pointing at us and yelling the N word. [00:04:00] And that was quite an experience. My brother and my two sisters, we were just shocked because we'd never experienced anything like that before. Their parents was mostly, their moms came and basically whisked them away, uh, you know, as they were crying and sobbing and they just took them away, uh, as though they were trying to shield them from people like us.

Wow. And. We did not, uh, end up playing at all. We just went back because it seemed to us that it was not a friendly environment. And that's, that's something that has stayed with me a very long time. Uh, sometimes I think about it, I'm not sure what their preconceived notions of people with dark skins were.

Um. And it might have been the case that they'd never seen anyone like us before or that [00:05:00] they had heard about people like us and they were terrified of us and that they had heard of people like us were extremely awful, and that they had to stay away from us. Uh, whatever it was, I'm not sure. And oftentimes I wish I could go back.

And have a conversation with them. Yeah. And ask them why. 

Michael Lee: It sounds like you have some lingering, I mean, it's obviously an emotionally powerful experience. Mm-hmm. And some lingering confusion about what was really happening in that exchange. Right. How did you feel? Let's, let's go through it chronologically.

Mm-hmm. Um, you've talked a little bit about not wanting to play at this empty uninviting playground after these children were whisked away after mm-hmm. Saying what they said. Right. How did you feel in the moments, both in the immediate moment and then in the days that passed? 

Ben Klutsey: It was just the sense that, um, we were not [00:06:00] completely welcome.

Right. That. Uh, you, you, um, you, you gotta be sure you don't, uh, you, you gotta be careful, uh, at every turn, every step of the way because the people here may not all really want you here. Um, and that was, uh, a disconcerting feeling. 

Michael Lee: Did you speak back, you or your siblings? 

Ben Klutsey: My aunt who was with us at the time, she spoke fluent German.

And so she exchanged some words with the parents and there was some yelling involved, but I didn't understand any of it. It was all in German, 

huh? I 

Ben Klutsey: didn't, I didn't, I didn't understand any of it, but she seemed, my aunt seemed upset that, uh, that that had happened and, right. Uh, yeah. 

Michael Lee: And you could, you could interpret.

Through the tones, I presume, even though it [00:07:00] was in German that Right. Something was going on. Right, right, right. And they said the word in English, is that right? 

Ben Klutsey: The, it was, yeah, it was a word. It was in eng. I mean, I, I know the word right. Um, but I haven't, uh, I need to do some research on whether that's, that's the same thing in German.

Or it means something else in German, but whatever it meant, it just seemed hostile. 

Michael Lee: It has an international hostility currency. Right. Even if it's it's Ghanaians in a Northern German playground whenever this was. Yeah. Everybody was on the level about what we were talking about. Yeah. Uh, and as you, as you go.

Let's talk about whether you had experienced this kind of, as you put it, unwelcomeness or hostility before or since, because you were, you were in Ghana at the time, traveling to Germany, experiencing hostility, um, unexpected it sounds like, are now and have been [00:08:00] in the states for quite some time. Mm-hmm.

Any corollaries in life whatsoever? 

Ben Klutsey: No. So you fast forward, um, about seven years later and I come to college in the us. That was, you know, the next time I am in a different continent and, you know, I land in Appleton, Wisconsin, I often say that was my introduction to America. 

Michael Lee: There's no better place. Yeah.

Ben Klutsey: And I did not know what to expect. I, I really did not know what to expect given what I had seen in Germany. And I'd watched movies like Roots. Um, I, I, I had a sense of the. Struggles with civil rights in the us. Um, so I really was uncertain, but I have to say, Appleton, Wisconsin was the most welcoming place.

Uh, I, um, I, I, I, you know, [00:09:00] towards the end of my senior year when I was about to graduate, I remember getting very emotional. About leaving college because it, it was an amazing bubble. Um, just people treating me with such kindness, uh, from campus to sort of, uh, the, the, the town folks who would, you know, say hi to you on the streets and have a conversation with you.

And it was a quite a, uh, an experience. And, and, and since then, I've really never experienced anything like I experienced in Germany ever before. I. 

Michael Lee: And the experience in Germany obviously lives large in your, your memory and your emotional experience of it, but it didn't totally color your expectations of what life would be like on the ground when you got to the states.

Certainly in there, but not, you weren't bracing thinking, okay, this is gonna happen again. 

Ben Klutsey: Right. I wasn't, I mean, I, I really just kept an open mind. Um, and [00:10:00] I was. Uh, you know, open to being proven, you know, one way or the other. Uh, and it's, it's, yeah, it's been quite an interesting experience. I mean, I, as you know, uh, recently before I became executive director of the Mercatus Center, I ran our program on civil, on pluralism and civil exchange.

And I think that my interest in pluralism probably began there. Trying to understand how we can live together and coexist amidst deep divides and, and differences. 

Michael Lee: Would you define pluralism for us briefly? 

Ben Klutsey: Sure. Um, I think pluralism has, there are two ways of thinking about pluralism. One is just the fact of difference, the fact of diversity, uh, in a place.

Mm-hmm. 

Ben Klutsey: But it goes a little bit beyond that, which means, uh, which is about integration and engagement with that difference. So a truly pluralistic society is one [00:11:00] where I think diverse people from different backgrounds are actually interacting and engage with. All kinds of, uh, you know, in practices and conversations to sort of enrich that, that diverse experience.

Um, and so you could have a very diverse society that is not fully pluralistic because they're not truly engaging with each other. 

Michael Lee: If that makes sense. Extreme example of that would be apartheid South Africa diverse society. Certainly not engaging in Exactly, 

Ben Klutsey: exactly. Exactly. 

Michael Lee: And, and just to to link this conceptually back to your experience as a young guy in, in Germany, it sounds, at least if I'm understanding this definition correctly, that in the moment.

They were these, these Germans on the playground were confronted with diversity, with visual diversity. These people look different than we do. And then secondarily, we don't wanna engage and so we scream and then are whisked away. So it's both exactly. A denial of and an engagement refusal to engage.

Ben Klutsey: [00:12:00] Exactly. Exactly. And it wasn't as though we had said anything. It wasn't as though we had. Anything. Mm-hmm. I mean, we just walked towards the playground. You just were so, um, it's hard to, to kind of justify that, you know, it might have been something that we had done or set. You know, 

Michael Lee: there's, there's so much of a sense of when we look at our lives, especially with a little bit of age, and look back and say, you know, do you make sense of your life as a straight line?

Or are you telling yourself a kind of fiction that this all made sense or it was all kind of random and the, I'm I'm saying that just to build up to this question, which is can you, can you draw a straight line between this really stand out, powerful event in Germany and, and you dedicating your life to pluralism?

Ben Klutsey: I think it can, I, I, I think so [00:13:00] because I've asked my siblings about this experience 'cause they were all there, but for some reason I seem to remember it more strongly than they do. Um, they, they remember it, you know, they, but it's, it's more vague. I, I guess in your, in your memories. Uh, and, and for me, it's.

It's still, it's still very, very strongly there. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. So, and, and if I'm, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but it also sounds a little bit like when you got to college from Ghana in Appleton, Wisconsin, that you were pretty predisposed towards kind of a pluralistic engagement with folks in Appleton.

In other words, your idea was, yes, I've seen roots. Yes. This thing happened on the playground in Germany and. You know, I'm excited to meet new people. And you, you called it an amazing bubble. 

Ben Klutsey: Yeah. Yeah, because I, I, I, I say bubble because I understand that the United [00:14:00] States is a really, really big country, and that my experience, um, you know, it doesn't, it might be different from other people's experiences, you know.

Michael Lee: What do you see as the biggest threats to pluralism today? Both interpersonally, politically, economically, what, what concerns you? 

Ben Klutsey: Oftentimes when people ask me about what concerns me, I often say apathy. 

Mm. 

Ben Klutsey: Um, I,

we could take things for granted, and I don't want us to take things for granted. I want us to really ask ourselves a number of questions about. How much better this could be, how much better, uh, a truly pluralistic society could be. And I think America does well. We're not perfect. I think, you know, to, to, we, we, um, you know, oftentimes [00:15:00] people, people call Americans, uh, you know, sort of call America the melting pot.

Um, and I think that that is true. Although that's being challenged, right? I mean, we, we, we have lots of challenges to, um, uh, this country that is full of immigrants. Um, but, you know, as Yasha Monk will say, for the very first time, we're seeing a large, growing, multiethnic, multiracial democracies, which the world has not really experienced, um, historically, and this is happening across, you know, Europe, uh, and, and the United States.

And so we are being, um, nudged to truly engage. Uh, I think so. I don't want us to be apathetic about the fact of difference. I want us to be thoughtful about how we engage the differences. That's number one. 

Mm-hmm. 

Ben Klutsey: Number two, the threat will be, um, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of John and Ozu who wrote the book called, uh, [00:16:00] confident Pluralism, and John says that there are two important features about pluralism.

The first is inclusion, that as a society becomes more and more morally enlightened, we begin to include more people who have been marginalized from society. And that's a good thing. 

Mm-hmm. 

Ben Klutsey: But there's another feature of pluralism that is about dissent and disagreement and, uh, we have things like the freedom of assembly, the right to protest, and all these things that allow us to dissent and disagree from.

Orthodoxies, current practices, what have you. And from time to time you'll notice that inclusion and dissent are in tension. And uh, truly, I think plural society is one that is able to sustain these tensions over longer periods of time. And it's not easy. It's difficult, but I think we have to try. And so, um, that's one thing I, I worry about, just not, not being able to grapple with the [00:17:00] tensions that pluralism, uh, comes with.

I. 

Michael Lee: Well said, and, and just to, to kind of go right at one of those tensions and take it from a, a German playground to a kind of population level. You noted from this book, confident Pluralism that it really includes two values that can be seen as being in conflict, right. Inclusion, which sounds a bit to me, like the philosophical concept of the expanding circle.

The more morally enlightened we become, the more we care about. This group of people and that group of people and find their moral agency of, of children, of prisoners, and then all the way to animals and, and objects and all of these sorts of things. Exactly. And then also dissent that reasonable minds are gonna disagree.

And great minds don't always think alike is the phrase. Yep. Yep. And so with those ideas of how do we include those? Who are exclusive. In other words, liberalism with a small L can be threatened by illiberalism. But if we're dedicated to inclusion, how do we bring the folks in whose [00:18:00] fundamental ideas are exclusive, if not eliminationist?

And then second, how do we, how do we tolerate descent like that? What you experience on the playground that seeks to also eliminate and deny. 

Ben Klutsey: That's a, that's a great question and a hard one. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Ben Klutsey: Um, so the first thing I'd say is that, you know, when we run our plurals lab events, we have these events called the Plurals Lab uhhuh, who bring students from across backgrounds of differences.

Together, we kind of walk through a set of principles, which I think are relevant principles for us to think about. Uh, in our everyday lives, uh, especially when we're dealing with the, you know, question of pluralism. The first is respect. And the idea is that we are one another's, dignified equals, uh, a democracy society of self-governing equals, and you know, you have as much right to be here [00:19:00] as I do.

And so if we're gonna share space, we're gonna learn to have to learn to respect one another. And the second principle is authenticity. And that to, you know, if we truly respect one another, we have to come to the table. We have to engage with authenticity. We're not masking our views or pretending to be something we're not, but we are being as real as possible.

And then finally, curiosity that we have to be able to ask questions. And you know, someone's views might be. Extremely antithetical to yours. They can be exclusionary, but there is some value in asking questions. And it reminds me of Darryl Davis. Mm-hmm. Uh, an amazing jazz musician, African American, uh, jazz musician who has talked to.

Many, many, many, many members of the Ku Klux Klan who have eventually roed mm-hmm. Because he engaged them with curiosity. Now, not everyone can be Darryl Davis, but I think that what I'm, [00:20:00] there are lessons from Darryl Davis is experience that I think is, is worth, um, internalizing that if we engage with respect, with authenticity and with curiosity, um, we, it, it will take us a long way.

I'll also highlight three. Three things that John and Ozzy would call civic aspirations. The first is toleration, you know, comes from the Latin word, Tora, which means to endure. So there is a certain kind of enduring that has to happen. You know, when we live in a live, in a very, very diverse society, it's inevitable.

Um, the second is humility. The idea that you may not be able to convince someone of your views. Uh, and that's, that's okay, you know, and, and then finally, patience. That a lot of this stuff just takes a long time, you know, and it, it's, it's uncomfortable, right? It, it can be challenging, it can be painful, but with time, I think I.

We [00:21:00] do get better at this. Um, and I think we oftentimes forget that the patient's bit because we, you know, some of us with a, with a more, um, activist, uh, you know, personalities and activist ethos want to change now. Uh, but I think that long-lasting change, uh, also takes a while to, to, to happen. 

Michael Lee: Well said, and I really appreciate you distilling those principles as well as telling the story of Darrell Davis.

One of the things that Davis mentions, and he's certainly a powerful influence on the work that I do in this podcast as well as we encounter difference and talk about reasonable disagreement and what are the limits of persuasion. One of the things he says that stands out to me a lot is that if folks aren't engaged in the process as you've defined it, of respect, authenticity, curiosity, endurance, humility, patience, et cetera.

That there's really not any bridges to be built there if there's no mutual commitment there. And he also says that ignorance can be cured, you know, but, but malice and stupidity cannot. [00:22:00] Right. There is a kind of limit there. Um, yeah. And, and fanning out at a population level. Um, what do you think about.

Illiberal restrictions that are meant to promote inclusion. For instance, going back to the Germany example, bans on public flying of, uh, Nazi flags of displays of swastikas, of policing the public's sphere from potentially poisonous discriminatory symbols. 

Ben Klutsey: Mm. That's a great question. I mean, I'm, I am a, uh, I don't know that I'll call myself a free speech, uh, abso ab solutionist, but.

I, I am, I'm very much per free speech, but I also recognize that societies have to make this, these decisions on their own, given the struggles that they have experienced. 

Mm-hmm. 

Ben Klutsey: And, and so I. It, it, it's all [00:23:00] context specific. And you know, Germany has gone through some incredibly devastating periods throughout their history.

That Right. I can understand, you know, why they would decide to do those types of things. I, so I, I, I think that we can't, we can't, um. Make these, uh, uh, restrictions across the board or declarations across the board. It'll have to be a country specific. Right. I respect that. 

Michael Lee: And in a, in a general sense, you'd support the, the answer to free speech is often more free speech and that there can be artistic, social, and contextual judgements made as we apply that principle.

Ben Klutsey: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Michael Lee: Ben Klu, say, thanks so much for being on when we disagree. 

Ben Klutsey: Thanks Michael. Really appreciate it. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse KZ and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us [00:24:00] at When We disagree@gmail.com.