When we are caught up in our own convictions, other people’s stories—which is to say, other people—cease to matter to us. This happens on the scale of history (a specific person’s story is always irrelevant to zealots, unless it serves the ends of the group), but it also happens to each of us as individuals. If you doubt it, listen to yourself the next time you argue with a family member. Leaving behind our more thoughtful and generous selves, we become smug, or patronizing, or scornful, or downright bellicose. And that’s when we are fighting with people we love.
