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How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

Peter Boghossian (Goodreads Author),

James A. Lindsay (Goodreads Author)

4.15 · Rating details · 131 ratings · 22 reviews

"This is a self-help book on how to argue effectively, conciliate, and gently persuade. The authors admit to getting it wrong in their own past conversations. One by one, I recognize the same mistakes in me. The world would be a better place if everyone read this book." -- Richard Dawkins, author of Science in the Soul and Outgrowing God

In our current political climate, it ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published September 17th 2019 by Da Capo Lifelong Books

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Sep 28, 2019 Mehrsa rated it liked it

There are some really helpful hints in here but most of them are pretty obvious to anyone that has empathy or a little bit of emotional EQ. Don’t shoot people down, don’t assume your opponents are evil, don’t be an asshole. But I had some issues with this one: first of all, the book is pretty biased. The authors try not to be, but most of their examples are about how to convince liberals that they are wrong and how to convince religious folks that they are irrational. Which would not be a ...more

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Sep 20, 2019 Harald Groven rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: debunking, education, e-books, philosophy, politics, psychology, religion

A useful and much needed manual on how to discuss with someone who disagrees with you. Most advice are fairly socratic and common sensical. Most of the recommendations discuss all the things you shouldn't say, because they will heat up the discussion and is counterproductive. Eg.
— "Think of shaming someone as being like a live hand grenade (...) “There is no such thing as a diplomatic hand grenade.” Hand grenades damage or blow up bridges; they don’t build them."

One of Boghossian and Lindsay's ...more

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Nov 17, 2019 Alex Railean rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, behaviour, ethics, philosophy, relationships, religion, self-improvement, social-dynamics, social-engineering

This was a very practical and very helpful book. As in the case of "A manual for creating atheists", I noticed some negative patterns in my ways of building an argument. Now I am a better person and I strongly recommend this book to anyone who often engages in discussions about controversial subjects.

If you want to get the most out of this book, take notes as you go through it. Mine are here: http://railean.net/index.php/how-to-h...

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Oct 14, 2019 Lord_Humungus rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: anyone with the slightest interest in controversial topics

Shelves: diplomacy, e-copy, self-improvement

A superb book about how to have socratic dialogues with other people.

Good points:
-There is no fluff. The book is brief and readable; and at the same time one of those books you'll keep rereading. Such is the quality of the advice.
-It is quite well ordered, from easy techniques to difficult ones.
-Probably the authors know what they are writing about: they have a lot of experience.

Bad points?:

-The book is about conversing with a willing partner face to face. It doesn't deal with written ...more

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Oct 24, 2019 Pete rated it really liked it

How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide (2019) by Peter Boghossian and James A Lindsay is an interesting guide on how to discuss politics, religions and other general issues in a better way.

The authors write about how to have good conversations about non-personal topics. The list of seven fundamentals of good conversations is valuable, the discuss goals, partnerships, rapport, listening, shooting the messenger (which is don't deliver your truth), intentions and the value of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide (2019) by Peter Boghossian and James A Lindsay is an interesting guide on how to discuss politics, religions and other general issues in a better way.

The authors write about how to have good conversations about non-personal topics. The list of seven fundamentals of good conversations is valuable, the discuss goals, partnerships, rapport, listening, shooting the messenger (which is don't deliver your truth), intentions and the value of walking away when things get heated.

They then talk about how to change minds by asking questions, defining terms, acknowledging extremists on your own side, not ventinig on social media, being careful to avoid blame, focusing on how people come to their conclusions and the value of learning and looking at mistakes people often make.

Predictably the book both mentions and quotes Socratic dialogues while leaving out the question of whether these dialogues were in fact real or written later with a sort of straw man used to show how clever Socrates was.

There are then chapters on how to improve your 'interventions', contentious conversations and how to engage the 'close minded' and on master level techniques for convincing people.

While it's valuable and interesting it's also profoundly lacking in humility. The idea that your own ideas might in fact be wrong is little explored. The phrase 'physician - health thyself' comes to mind. Also the fact that Boghossian and Lindsay both have PhDs and presumably move in circles where most of these friends take these topics seriously while many of us move in less illustrious circles where people live their lives and are far more interested in sport or entertainment than political questions is little discussed. Many, perhaps most of us, have various beliefs we've picked up from our parents and friends and actually don't read any, or many books about what we believe should perhaps be given more attention. It's also valuable to realise that people you can have as good friends are free to believe things that you think to be quite nuts and you're better off like that isn't really considered.

How to Have Impossible Conversations is a good, earnest and serious book. It's worth thinking through a lot of what is discussed but it's a pity the authors were not a bit more self-aware about it all. Nonetheless, if applied with a little care the techniques all seem worth a go. ...more

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Nov 01, 2019 Justin Norman rated it really liked it

I'm a bit torn about how to feel about this book. It focuses on a topic that I think is one of the most important issues in America at the moment: how to talk to people across political divides. The majority of it would seem to be great advice, but I was disappointed to discover that the book did not cover much on communicating through social media. This came as a surprise because I found out about both authors' writing through social media.

The book states that because no techniques have been ...more

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Nov 25, 2019 Fred rated it it was amazing

YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!
I don't care who you are.
What you believe.
What you don't believe.
What you . . . whatever.

You must read this book.

I'm formally college-trained in Logic and Rhetoric, have years of debate under my belt, and have worked in advertising as a copywriter, but I have never gained as much practical experience in civil discourse, discussion, debate, and persuasion as I did by reading this book.

I say in all seriousness, that if everyone I knew read this book our society would ...more

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Oct 08, 2019 RodOlson added it · review of another edition

A MUST READ

What a fantastic, actually it’s the best self-help/insightful and very easy to understand.

how much of a better person I could be if I put into practice these fundamentals!

That’s the books challenge... practice, practice, practice and more practice... and one will learn how to master and become a better— in almost every conceivable way, ie: more patriotic, increases how to improve loyalty, to increase empathy... the overall experience of the sanctity of life!

Did I say I recommend this ...more

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Oct 08, 2019 Jamie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

A useful guide for how to influence people, have more civil and productive conversations, and how to be more humble and intellectually honest yourself. I would recommend revisiting this book periodically, even rereading every now and then (I plan to). We can all use a reminder that there is a better way to be. In today's political environment, this is a book that can potentially make a real difference if enough people read it (or listen) to it. 4.5/5

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Nov 20, 2019 Jasper Burns rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business, leadership, life, psychology

I've had the pleasure of having many contentious conversations over the past couple of years. This book dissects many of the problems and cognitive distortions present in these types of arguments and poses solutions to all of them.

All of the best techniques I've accidentally stumbled upon over the years (Rappaport's Rules, understanding falsifiability, etc) are here, plus more. I particularly enjoyed its focus on epistemology: understanding why someone holds a belief gives more leeway to ...more

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Nov 03, 2019 Daniel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2019, climate-change, philosophy, politics, skepticism

The book gives an interesting round-up of conversational techniques to bridge deep divides in beliefs. It cites a lot of other books that I have read, or plan to read; therefore, some of the concepts in the book were already at least somewhat familiar to me. However, integrating all of them well enough to allow oneself to converse productively in real time with every random wingnut who comes one's way will take some work. I will probably have to re-read the book at least once and read the The book gives an interesting round-up of conversational techniques to bridge deep divides in beliefs. It cites a lot of other books that I have read, or plan to read; therefore, some of the concepts in the book were already at least somewhat familiar to me. However, integrating all of them well enough to allow oneself to converse productively in real time with every random wingnut who comes one's way will take some work. I will probably have to re-read the book at least once and read the earlier cited books on which it is largely based. Maybe then I'll be able to crank the euphemism treadmill and start thinking of the wingnuts as "partners" (as the book consistently and amusingly refers to them).

A rather large but wholly unsurprising let-down of the book was its pessimistic take on social media. The nature of most online interactions tends to nullify most of the techniques and principles in the book. So it doesn't directly address what is becoming the conversational environment where lots of people seem to be having most of their conversations. Perhaps the first person to crack that especially tough nut can write another book. However, perhaps I could offer a glimmer of hope: social media discussion groups let you find people who are already expressing doubts and questions about beliefs, enabling productive and substantive conversations to start immediately. What you lose in the ability to engage with idealogues online you might make up with the ability to find people who are ready to learn or teach something. Not to brag or anything, but I've actually managed to make a few people I've met online aware of the importance of reading lots of books. Perhaps everyone knows on some level that books are important in some sense, but we don't get a strong cultural message about just how important book-reading is for everyone.

An underlying problem with most "impossible conversations" is ignorance of facts, which the book refers to as the "unread library effect." The real heavy lifting of fact learning comes from reading books. Therefore, the ultimate solution to differences of belief resulting from failure to read books would seem to be somehow persuading people to read books - but the book itself does not seem to mention this as a possible strategy, nor even as the end goal of the conversation strategy it lays out for bridging the differences that result from not reading books. The book doesn't even articulate and answer the elephant-in-the-room-question of why it doesn't mention this obvious response to the unread library effect (namely, get people to read the library). I found this omission distracting, making the book harder than necessary to follow. Perhaps there is some reason why getting our conversation "partners" to read the unread library is a non-starter; but if so, please tell us rather than leave us to wonder why you don't.

Humans invented books because books can impart more facts than many hours of tedious conversation. If you can spend ten hours persuading someone to read some books, that's more efficient than spending hundreds of hours spoon-feeding the books' contents to them.

Somewhat annoyingly, the authors repeatedly urge you to avoid introducing facts into a conversation - and then tend to backtrack with examples that nevertheless introduce some sort of facts. Perhaps the facts are introduced in the form of Socratic questions, but that's still introducing facts, just with the right packaging to sneak past someone's irrational fact-filters. Unless we are talking about purely fictional entities like Harry Potter or Star Trek, what else is there to talk about other than facts? Facts about the world, facts about beliefs, facts about our motives and feelings, facts about the consequences of beliefs and actions, etc. For example, the authors mention the firearms debate in passing - a debate which hinges entirely on facts, such as: how many people are killed by guns in various countries of the world; the effect of private gun ownership on gun violence, as well as on the avoidance of violence; and facts the authors failed to mention such as how gun owners actually use their guns (as enjoyable amusements at sociable shooting ranges the vast majority of the time, rather than for actually shooting bad guys, something that can't be too frequent as we have over 200 million guns and perhaps only a few million bad guys, the vast majority of whom are not getting shot by good guys with guns).

Talking with gun rights advocates in the USA might lead one to believe they have never heard of the nation of Japan, which has virtually eliminated shooting deaths by eliminating most private gun ownership and mandating very strict requirements for gun owners. Not introducing facts into the discussion, such as the fact that a nation called "Japan" exists and seems to be doing fine without many privately owned guns, would seem to be throwing away the best tool for coaxing gun rights advocates to question their unquestioned assumptions and epistemologies. The fact of Japan shows that eliminating gun deaths is at least possible; therefore, anyone who resists the Japan-style solution must necessarily accept responsibility for helping to cause the gun death epidemic that currently plagues the USA. The argument that outlawing guns cannot work is only true if Japan is fictional, or so utterly unlike the USA that its policies cannot work here. Yes, no doubt we need to explore the moral values of conservatives in our conversations, but at some point actual progress in the gun debate will require acknowledging the existence of Japan. That allows the discussion to progress beyond a simple denial that gun control could ever work to the more substantive question of how many school children, festival goers, worshippers, and so on we are comfortable sacrificing every year so a community of largely white men can enjoy their weekends by shooting holes in paper targets. Maybe there is some number of school children we should be sacrificing in service of some greater social good - I'm willing to consider any relevant evidence. But to have a real conversation we have to acknowledge that we do have the power to save those school children if we want to.

One lesson from the book I've already acted on is to avoid "parallel talk" - that's where we hear someone say something about themself and respond by saying something about ourself. This is said to be damaging to rapport, which sounds plausible - after all, who could expect a "partner" to be as interested in us as we are in them?

The book was already long enough, but it has only a few example dialogues. Humans are known to learn first from examples, and from them to generalize to principles. Instead the book presents long lists of principles, which we are to then integrate into our own mental schemas from which to draw effortlessly as we recognize the needs arising in real-time conversations. Learning this stuff might become easier if we had artificially intelligent computers to simulate conversations with human idealogues, or to observe our real conversations, and then to tell us exactly where we went wrong, which will likely be in every sentence. Of course by the time computers get that smart, humans will start becoming obsolete. And if this book makes one thing clear, it's that humans are less rational and less cognitively competent than even the pessimists and cynics among us (waves hand) ever imagined - which means when computers finally do get smart in some real sense, they'll probably knock over the bulk of humans with ease. Because computers probably won't have any emotional, tribal, or moral handicaps that blind them to objective facts. Computers will have fully read the unread library and leave us, the slow and doddering meat sacks, in the evolutionary dust. And we won't be able to beat them since they will fully master all the manipulative arts mentioned in the book, such as feigning interest in hearing us talk about our boring selves, while gently coaxing us to serve them and enjoy it. ...more

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Oct 28, 2019 Selino Valdes rated it liked it · review of another edition

I love the general approach to communication promoted by this book. Much of the advice is behavior that most us have successfully figured out on our own. The socially adept my find the subject unnecessary while those of us on the socially challenged side can appreciate explanation. I can easily see this as course material at most high schools or colleges.

This book has lots of techniques that will require practice over time. For that reason I imagine that I’ll be referencing the text many times ...more

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Nov 13, 2019 Ant rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this book. It’s very nicely written and laid out, with each chapter introducing more complex techniques. I think what made this fun was that it made me think about the way I converse; often differently with different people. It gave a name to things that we all do naturally when in conversation, explained why and when they work and how to use them more effectively.
I was a little put off by some reviews that said the initial techniques were super obvious. On reading the book I ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Sebastián Ortega added it

Shelves: essay

In a world in which talking about anything else but the weather can trigger bitter quarrels we need the techniques brought from different psychology branches, hostage negotiations and cult exiting that the authors of these book pack as a set of skills organized by level of sophistication.

You might need something like this if you care about the crazy things that people believe and that later on have dire consequences in the real world. The book helps you to open the minds of your conversation ...more

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Nov 28, 2019 Robert rated it it was amazing

A great book on having better conversations, I wish everyone in America had the time to sit down and read this. For example I have friends on both ends of the political spectrum and I care for them very much and we are able to all talk to one another without all the anger and hatred that is so common in this current environment.

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Dec 01, 2019 Robert Patterson rated it really liked it

Essentially a reminder to practice emphatic listening. Listen more, talk less. Ask questions. Don't lecture or parallel talk. Know when to retreat.

Similar parallels to "How to Win Friends and Influence People" but modernizes for some contexts in discussing polarizing topics.

I really need to learn to listen more...

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Nov 03, 2019 Johnny rated it really liked it

awesome book. i got peeved because, while the authors are pretty good at providing examples that cover both sides of any given issue, they give numerous examples that assume that people with doubts about the virtues of vaccines are wrong and crazy.

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Nov 07, 2019 Jennifer Hansen added it

Read this book if you can't figure out how to talk to people with different political opinions than you have without getting mad.

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Oct 28, 2019 Ron Joniak rated it it was amazing

Excellent guidebook on navigating difficult conversations. Brings the user back to a central position where he/she can always gain something from even the toughest conversations.

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Nov 14, 2019 Tore rated it really liked it

Shelves: cognitivescience, communication, to-buy

I need to buy a physical copy of this book.

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Nov 27, 2019 Lance Schonberg rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-reading-list, philosophy

I ignored the authors' advice and read it straight through. Now, it's time to pick the tactics and devices that I think will help me in ongoing or future conversations. Some note taking is in order.

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