Public involvement and progress

We've all seen the effects of citizen involvement, uninvolvement and devolvement in various public settings.  Here is a report from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation on the 2008 conference on  dialogue and deliberation.  (link:  http://www.thataway.org/?p=2387)  It seems to contain a lot of optimism about how we can bridge communication gaps through traditional approaches of increasing public education by way of getting the word out there early and often...

I like to believe that there's optimism for how public discourse moves forward, but I have to wonder, given the intense inculcation of cultural beliefs and biases that various populations receive from the cradle forward, whether trying to impose a veneer of civility at as late a stage as public participation in public policy making will actually change how groups interact.  If we can't maintain civil discourse on something that many more people agree is needed in some form or another (health care reform and I refer to the spate of racially charged epithets strewn about recently) then how can we possible hope to progress on issues where there is no baseline agreement?