Mónica Guzmán, writer, “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times”: A pair causes. One, I occur to be the loving liberal daughter of conservative mother and father. And although we have now yelled at one another at full quantity about our various politics just about since we grew to become American residents in 2000, if not even earlier than, we nonetheless handle to maintain the sort of relationship the place we are able to ask one another a number of questions concerning the variations between our beliefs. So the distinction between my expertise with my mother and father and the expertise of the nation — each on the chicken’s eye-view degree, and on the particular person degree with a number of households, a number of friendships, a number of relationships — made me assume that I’ve obtained to do one thing.
VP: You write that “what’s underrepresented in your communities will be underrepresented in your life and overrepresented in your imagination.” What do you imply by that?
MG: The sort of political polarization that issues right here is named “affective polarization,” which is when individuals mistrust one another due to how they really feel about one another, not due to precise disagreements. If you don’t have conversations the place you might be talking with — and never nearly — anyone who thinks in a different way from you, you’re going to be extra weak to misperceptions and to an elevated sense of concern that individuals on the opposite aspect are very harmful. We have research displaying that every aspect thinks the opposite despises them twice as a lot as they really do. There’s additionally analysis that reveals that whenever you ask somebody on one aspect to guess on the concepts of the opposite, they’ll assume that they’re extra excessive than they really are. If you don’t have somebody in your life that you’re speaking with, it’s possible you’ll not really see the truth of people that disagree with you.
VP: So what can we do about that?
MG: To me, the prescription is to start to push again in your individual life. If you ask yet another query in a dialog earlier than leaping in along with your opinion, for those who determine to have interaction in a kind of difficult conversations the place you in any other case wouldn’t, you usually tend to study one thing that you could be not have identified, one thing that provides perspective to your view of the opposite aspect. And that may even scale back a few of your concern.
VP: Can you give an instance the place this labored?
MG: Just final week, I heard from a lady who’s extra liberal, sharing a story about a dialog she had with a youthful man who’s extra conservative, a good friend of her daughter’s. She stated that they lastly obtained to the purpose the place that they had sufficient belief to speak about abortion.She may be very, very pro-choice. And he was very, very pro-life. And as a results of the dialog, every had what I name a “I never thought of it that way” second — moments of illumination about one other perspective that enriched their very own.
In the case of the conservative younger man, she advised him, “Your friend — my daughter — wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the two abortions that I had before. I wouldn’t have had her when I was ready and she wouldn’t be the person that you know and love.” He had by no means considered it that approach and he stated that was actually putting for him. And then later, after the dialog, she was reflecting to herself, and realized counterintuitively, that she wished her daughter to finish up with a man like this younger conservative man. Why? Because it was so clear to her how a lot he valued life, and that he might see the accountability that comes with getting a lady pregnant, possibly by chance.
VP: You speak about asking the query, “Can I believe it?” versus “Must I believe it?” Could you unpack that?
MG: That’s based mostly on some nice social psychology by Jonathan Haidt and others. When we’re confronted with information that already conforms to our beforehand held beliefs, we are going to have a look at that information and ask the query, Can I imagine it? Yeah, I can. But once we are confronted with information that challenges our pre-existing beliefs, we’ll go, Must I imagine it? In that case, all we have to discover is one factor to justify throwing out the complete perspective.
As I used to be scripting this e-book, I used to be making an attempt to be extraordinarily aware of these two questions. The wonderful thing about studying news or studying considerate articles is you’re having a dialog with your self. You could make that a extra curious dialog, too. So after I learn an article with a perspective that I instantly reject, I’ll myself to go: Ask, Can I imagine it? Just attempt. And identical to that, I have a look at that perspective extra generously. It won’t change my thoughts. But it does assist me actually, actually perceive that perspective. And then I study extra.
VP: You put a lot of emphasis on curiosity. What are the largest obstacles to it?
MG: The arch villain of curiosity is certainty. If you assume , you received’t assume to ask. Certainty eliminates the gaps between what we all know and what we wish to know. This occurs a lot round our political divide — we’re sure we “know” about these people who find themselves completely different from us.
The different barrier is concern. When somebody’s aiming a gun at you, you’re not going to be like, “What’s that?” You’re gonna wish to run away. You can’t surprise about one thing you assume is out to get you, so the extra afraid you might be of different individuals, the extra that your survival intuition is gonna kick in. Exaggerated fears that we have now about one another kill curiosity, simply kill it lifeless.
VP: If we’re curious, and if we come to grasp what motivates the individuals we disagree with, however we proceed to disagree with them — does that enhance the state of affairs? Or does it simply make us equally polarized, however maybe a little extra understanding of the opposition?
MG: Getting interested in one another, actually listening and staying open minded, and maybe discovering some causes that permit issues to make sense in our minds that beforehand didn’t — all of that lowers the risk degree, lowers the concern. That in and of itself is an enchancment.
VP: What can be an instance of understanding with out settlement?
MG: I speak within the e-book concerning the night time of the 2016 election after I known as my mother. She was very completely satisfied. And I used to be very sad. In my head, the factor that felt undeniably true is that our democracy had damaged, as a result of Trump had received. And so I known as my mother, and she or he tried to carry again her enthusiasm and hearken to her daughter. She actually heard me out. And then she began speaking about Mexico, and the way, for many of her life, the identical occasion received each election in Mexico. It was one-party management. They have been sham elections, and everybody knew, and there was nothing you might do. So she’s telling me, “You think democracy is broken? Monica, I think it worked.” Everyone within the mainstream news was saying her aspect was going to lose. Why even hassle voting? It’s going to be a trouncing. And then Trump received. And she stated she felt like her vote mattered, in a actually refreshing approach. Democracy labored. Did I agree together with her that democracy was utterly nice? No, I didn’t. But did I perceive? Yeah, I did.
VP: The assumption of the e-book is that it’s good for society to have these conversations. And but there are a lot of people that would say no, we shouldn’t be having conversations with unhealthy individuals. We ought to simply shun these individuals and shun these opinions and make them outcasts. What is your response to that?
MG: For some individuals, it will possibly really feel like extraordinary emotional labor to have a dialog throughout the divide. There are individuals who really feel they’re being harmed by different individuals’s concepts, who’re afraid even to go to sure elements of the nation, due to the concern of what individuals would possibly do to them. What in the event that they don’t need to dwell with that a lot concern? What if that degree of concern and nervousness isn’t justified by what individuals really imagine? And what if the one technique to discover out is to simply start to strategy these individuals? What if little by little, you notice that you just dwell in a much less scary world? How rather more inventive might you be? How rather more succesful might you be?
I’ll let you know about somebody near me. She doesn’t vaccinate her little one, doesn’t vaccinate herself, believes that the Covid vaccine may be very harmful. She is frightened about individuals who’ve taken the Covid vaccine. I imagine she’s fairly fallacious. And she believes I’m fairly fallacious. But I like her and I’m not going to burn the bridge. And I additionally take into consideration this: Let’s say that afterward she decides, “I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about this vaccine thing. Who can I talk to about this? I’ll talk to Monica, she hears me out.” If I burn that bridge together with her, that can by no means occur. If I don’t, it would. And she’s pondering to herself, “Well, you know, if Monica ever wakes up and realizes the vast conspiracy, she may give me a call.” I’m OK with that.
This column doesn’t essentially mirror the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its homeowners.
Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow on the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and the writer, most not too long ago, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”