I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

by Monica Guzmán

Ranting to our people, who get it, while raging at those people, who don’t. I’m done, too, going along with the idea that if we could just rid the world of “misinformation,” everything would be fine. As if mowing down weeds would keep new ones from sprouting. False stories soar because good people relate to something in them that’s true: a fear or value or concern that’s going unheard, unexplored, and unacknowledged. Every time? Yes, every time! Why do we ignore that?

When this Perception Gap study was released in 2019, it found that, on average, Democrats are off by 19 percentage points when estimating Republicans’ views, and Republicans are off by 27 percentage points when estimating Democrats’ views.

The Republicans surveyed thought that 38 percent of Democrats reject open borders, when in reality, 71 percent of Democrats do. That’s a 33 percentage point gap.

Democrats did no better. They thought just half of Republicans believed that “properly controlled immigration can be good for the country,” when actually, 85 percent of Republicans agreed with that statement. A 35 percentage point gap.

Researchers out of Stanford and Princeton found as far back as 2014 that people discriminate against members of the opposing political party “to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race.”

While Democrats and Republicans think equally little of each other, the researchers found in their 2020 study, each side thinks the other despises them about twice as much as they actually do.*

Do we calm down when we discuss tense stuff with like-minded people? Hell no! The same thing that happens to our opinions happens to our emotions. We turn up the heat. “One of the characteristic features of feuds,” Sunstein wrote, “is that members of feuding groups tend to talk only to one another, or at least listen only to one another, fueling and amplifying their outrage.”

It’s weird to do anything drastic when you can barely make out the thing that’s scaring you. So you’ll do something to resolve that: You’ll manufacture certainty. You’ll convince yourself that the shape you see beyond your ken fits the description of that sea monster everyone in your silo’s been buzzing about. And you’ll fight, flee, or rage accordingly.

Haidt marshals decades of research to show that when we make judgments about our world, we use both our reasoning mind and our intuitive mind. In his analogy, the intuitive mind is like a big, strong elephant, and the reasoning mind is like its tiny human rider. The rider may have a clear idea of where he wants to go, just as you might have a heap of logical evidence for where you ought to lean in any given judgment. But at the end of the day, you’re going to go where your elephant wants to go because, well, it’s an elephant.

As much as we’d like to believe it, the people who disagree with us are not idiots. Human intuition may not hinge on reason, but it does hinge on something more significant—a lived life. Who’s right or wrong is a separate question. But most all of our arguments, if we can articulate them, are coherent.

“We have an assumption that people choose their opinions,” he told the audience. But they don’t. “Their beliefs form naturally over the course of their lives.”

I was sitting at my kitchen table with my mom one night years ago, talking about the latest political flash point, when I first realized that my more seasoned rhetorical skills had made her tired of our debates before they’d even started. “You’re just too good at this, Mónica.” At the foot of the next big showdown, I observed her whole body just sink in surrender.

Point is: you can’t get traction with a mind you’re trying to outmaneuver or defeat.

it. “We are more intimately bound to one another by our kindred doubts,” wrote Seattle-based essayist Charles D’Ambrosio, “than our brave conclusions.”

In fact, fifteen studies across a range of political and moral issues showed that people on either side of the divide “respect moral beliefs more when they are supported by personal experiences, not facts.”

you hear a conversation spending too much time in the clouds, it’s probably time to pull on people’s experiences by pivoting to the personal. Asking “How does this affect you personally?” can be a good way to go.

After conducting research in eighty-two countries, Schwartz had the data to back up a pretty amazing claim: There aren’t an infinite number of human values out there. There are only ten: stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, benevolence, universalism, security, conformity, tradition, and self-direction.

And that’s how each of them will miss truly seeing the other: they will mistake a different ordering of values for an absence of the ones that they think matter most.

And we’re right back to that assumption that came up during Melting Mountains, the trip that brought King County liberals together with Sherman County conservatives: If you’re not motivated by this thing I consider good, you must be against it.

we have to stop assuming that people who disagree with us don’t value what we value. Instead, we have to redirect our curiosity toward a critical question: What do they value more?

But actually, every tough issue that divides and exhausts us—abortion, immigration, gun regulation, you name it—divides and exhausts us precisely because it puts some fundamentally good values into tension with one another. That tension reveals the most confounding thing of all: trade-offs.

ask for people’s concerns, and they’ll show you what they value.

here are some strategies to try in your next bridging conversation: 1.Ask for concerns (and hopes!) 2.State your concerns 3.Find values in decisions 4.Pull on values in tension 5.Follow emotion 6.Change the question 7.Listen to anger 8.Offer perspective into confounded questions 9.Pause and persist

Working to get someone’s meaning right can be one of the most direct ways to show you’re really listening, and not just faking it with nods, silence, and stillness.

If you see it, offer the opening: “I’m not sure I’m being clear here. What am I missing?”

Among the concerns a range of people have about immigration policy are worries about enforcing our laws (conformity), maintaining strong borders (collective security), and showing compassion and care for all people (universalism). A term like “undocumented immigrant” reflects the values of conformity and security but doesn’t lean as much toward universalism.

Whatever your natural setting, be just one click more transparent. Allow just a little risk to invite a little more possible reward. This could be as subtle, even, as shifting your body language. Observe yourself: Are you crossing your arms as you talk? Uncross them.

If you observe a sign that somebody might want to object but isn’t sure how, offer that observation—knowing you might be wrong—“I saw you shaking your head at that,” then pulling on the honest reaction. “What’s on your mind?”

This is not a book about relationships. It’s a book about being curious. But I guarantee that when you are more and more genuinely curious, it will strengthen all the relationships that matter to you—whether they’re with your relatives, your colleagues, your country, or yourself.