Break the Rules and have a Conversation
Talk with each other? No point doing that.
So says Steve Bannon. In a conversation last summer with David Brooks of the New York Times, the “War Room” podcast host was confronted with Hannah Arendt’s famous point that loneliness feeds authoritarianism. Brooks suggested that Bannon and his troops might be fostering such loneliness by not conversing with the other side of the cultural/political divide.
“What do you mean, not conversing with?” Bannon shot back. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
There very much is something to talk about. A lot. It’s just that those who trade on enmity for profit and political gain don’t want us having conversations. They don’t want us talking because of what we might learn—because that might cause us to unclench our fists a little and thus make it harder to maintain the war footing on which the conflict-sowers depend for votes and donations and audience metrics.
It’s amazing to witness the change in the temperature when people respond to provocations not with criticism and counterarguments but with questions and curiosity.
Let’s defy the Bannons of the world and have conversations with the political “others” we’re supposed to loathe. Let it begin with me, and you.
Affective Polarization
The disturbing roots of the nation’s political crisis are laid bare in a report published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. On the bright side, the study shows that Americans are less polarized on issues of substance—policy, ideology, etc.—than they realize. It’s in the area of emotional or “affective” polarization where the divisions run especially deep.
“Americans harbor strong dislike for members of the other party,” writes Rachel Kleinfeld, a Carnegie senior fellow who authored the report. She elaborates:
Many studies have considered what could reduce these feelings of dislike for the other party. They have found that affective polarization appears to be driven largely by an individual’s misbeliefs about the policy beliefs of the other party, a sense that members of the other party dislike members of their party … and misunderstandings about the demographic composition of the other party (for example, believing that Republicans are old, wealthy, evangelical Christians, while Democrats are young, unionized minorities, when the median demographic characteristics of both parties are actually quite similar). Correcting these misperceptions can help reduce affective polarization.
Here’s an invitation to any brave Republicans who happen to see this article. Email me or connect with me on Facebook, and let’s have a conversation. I’ve had lots of interactions like this, and they have rarely failed to lower the tensions.
Have I racked up any political conversions or been subject to one myself? No. But that’s not the point of these transgressive conversations. All I want is to get to know the other person better, and them me. I hope they leave the interaction having a harder time clinging to the idea that all liberals are condescending jerks. I am open to being pleasantly surprised by them.
Monsters in our Minds
An overly modest goal? Maybe. But as the Carnegie study shows, our country is strained to the breaking point not by the substance of our conflicts so much as the way we regard our political opponents. Hokey though it sounds, getting to know one another will go a long way toward dispelling the false notions that fuel our hostility.
What makes our national enmity such an infuriating tragedy is that it’s based on calculated exaggerations and deliberately distorted information, not to mention outright lies. Our idea about our adversaries is much more repellant than the reality. To my mind, this toxic misunderstanding is the predictable consequence of decade after decade of political actors using fear- and anger-based appeals to achieve their goals.
I get it. Warning your current and would-be followers about the evil intentions of the other side is a surefire winner if you’re coaxing donations and motivating people to vote. Make us angry. Make us afraid. Convince us the other side hates us and wants to destroy the country.
Even if my party’s candidate leaves much to be desired, I’ll vote for them for the simple reason that the other side must be stopped. It works. As it ruins our ability to do democracy.
When human beings are fed the poison day after day, year after year, is it any wonder their political foes become monsters in their minds? And that they become more willing to abandon democratic ways and means for the sake of short-term political power?
Seeing the Humanity in Everyone
Jesus had it right, the way he interacted with the woman at the well (John 4:4–42), how he outfoxed the men set on stoning the “adulteress” and snaring him in their binary, in response to which Jesus laid down one of his lines for the ages: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone (John 8:7).” Consider these our summons to have empathetic interactions with those we’re supposed to shun, to be less quick to condemn others without owning up to our own flaws.
Mindful of this gospel insight, it’s urgent that we allow ourselves to see the humanity in everyone and give them the chance to see it in us. Especially those who, because of politics, are distorted in our minds—flattened into two-dimensional figures unworthy of understanding, sympathy, respect, or our simple curiosity. If there is ever going to be improvement in the political climate, we must find a way to build understanding, tolerance, and a modicum of trust.
I am fortunate to have non-likeminded people in my extended family with whom I interact on a regular basis. They don’t shove their Trump support in my face the way some of my Facebook acquaintances do, and I don’t shove my Trump opposition in theirs. Despite our different educational backgrounds and occupations, we never lack for conversation topics: kids, jobs, sports, movies, trips we’ve taken, and the like.
It’s not lost on me that opponents of cross-border conversation want my non-liberal family members to treat me with contempt. They certainly have a lot to work with if they need justification. I fit the urban liberal stereotype to a T, working for Yale as I do, writing columns for the “lamestream” media, having no clue how to fix a plumbing problem or install new flooring in the living room.
The Virtue of Curiosity
Those who don’t enjoy such “built-in” opportunities for cross-border conversations are not doomed to permanent residence in the cocoon, fortunately.
Groups like Braver Angels, American Public Square, the One America Movement, and 3Practice Circles create spaces for productive interactions between liberals and conservatives, helping them learn about one another and work together toward shared objectives and common ground in their communities and country.
Curiosity is at the heart of 3PracticeCircles, co-founded by an ex-evangelical and self-identified follower of Jesus named Jim Henderson. A volunteer starts each session by articulating a divisive proposition and then fields questions. Here’s the catch and cardinal rule: Every response must begin with the little phrase: “I’d be curious to know …”
It’s amazing to witness the change in the temperature when people respond to provocations not with criticism and counterarguments but with questions and curiosity. To explain curiosity’s transforming power, the Seattle-based Henderson refers to an oft-cited quotation from author David Augsburger: “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.”
Whether the setting is a structured conversation like the 3PracticeCircles or you’re just out there talking with your neighbors, it’s not easy staying cool and curious when someone is insisting that “illegals” are voting by the millions in Democrat-run cities, that abortion is murder, or that the climate crisis is a hoax.
Democracy isn’t easy, either. If we’re going to salvage it, we have no choice but to get to know each other better, en route to growing our ability to live together in this sprawling, wildly diverse, crazy country we all call home.
Tom Krattenmaker is an author and columnist specializing in religion and values in public life and is director of communications at YDS.