Even if you talked about politics with your friends and family over Thanksgiving, you might not have changed your mind. But don’t be discouraged. Consider talking to them again once the holiday season rolls around.
As a scholar of political dialogue, I have spent the past decade studying conversations between people who disagree about politics. What I’ve found is that people rarely change their minds about political issues as a direct result of these discussions. However, they often feel better about people who disagree with them.
But how that conversation goes is important. Conflict and debate are not as productive as exploration and honest curiosity.
conversations that make a difference
People tend to let down their defenses when they feel that others are genuinely interested in their ideas and are asking questions calmly and respectfully. They try to reflect the sincerity they feel rather than become argumentative in response to aggressive questions.
In addition to asking why they voted the way they did, what do they fear, what do they want, what do they believe will produce a good society, and importantly, what are these fears, hopes? , you can also ask about personal experiences that created the emotion. belief.
This curiosity-based approach has important implications for both listeners and speakers. I realized that the listener might come to understand how the speaker can think of the speaker as a decent human being, even though it seems like a bad choice to the listener. . The speaker becomes more approachable, and it often becomes clear that their intentions are good and ethically sound. Listeners can begin to understand how that person’s vote might make sense under different circumstances and ethical beliefs.
The speakers also appear to have had positive experiences.
When college students were followed up several years after participating in conversational sessions that modeled curiosity-based listening, what they remembered best was who they were talking to. Students recalled that their peers, whom they expected to attack them, instead asked honest and respectful questions and listened intently to the answers. They remembered that they felt comfortable in that person’s presence and liked it.
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Benefits for democracy
This type of interaction between Americans of different political positions could have several important benefits for democracy.
First, these conversations can help us avoid the worst dangers of hatred and fear. I think that having some understanding of other people’s reasons for voting, and understanding their common sense, may reduce people’s support for conspiracy theories about election results that are based on the premise that no one can actually support the opposing candidate. I’m looking forward to it. Such an understanding may also reduce support for policies that dehumanize and disenfranchise the other side, and for politicians who incite violence. In short, I believe these conversations can alleviate the feeling that the other person is so evil and stupid that you must stop them at all costs.
Second, these conversations can help us advance the full promise of democracy. In an ideal democracy, people not only fight for their freedom, but also seek to understand the concerns of their fellow citizens. Without knowing what other people’s lives are like and understanding the experiences, interests, and beliefs that drive us, we cannot build a society that helps everyone thrive.
Finally, we found that in rare cases when people change their minds about politics, it’s not because different points of view are discussed. Instead, when someone is asked honest and thoughtful questions, they sometimes start asking themselves those questions. And sometimes, over the years, we arrive at different answers.
For example, one college student said that in a follow-up interview several years after participating in a dialogue session, he was asked, “If you say you believe this, why did you vote the way you did?”
“It wasn’t an aggressive question,” she recalls. “They really wanted to know.”
As a result, she confessed, “I’ve been asking myself this question ever since.”
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shared connection
Dialogue alone cannot maintain a healthy democracy. Citizen actions, not words, protect our democratic institutions, our own rights, and the rights of others.
But open and curious conversations between people with differing opinions remind us that we are all human together, we share a world, and in the United States we share a country worth protecting. I continue to use ideas and practices that remind me of this.
This holiday season, let us all commit to continuing to engage with those with whom we disagree the most with respect and dignity.
