What good is seeing and understanding "the other side?"

Take a moment to think about an issue that is particularly divisive.

There’s no shortage of them, right?

I mean, it could be masks and vaccines. It could be the state of policing in the United States. It could be abortion or politics or religion or the environment or the economy.

Do you have a topic in mind?

Good.

Now, I want you to consider your position on the issue. What is it you believe, and why? And how did you come to that belief?

Again, I’ll wait…

OK, last step. I want you to think about someone who is on the “other side” of that issue. Think about what their position is and how they came to believe what they believe.

But there's a caveat here.

I want you to think about what that person who believes opposite of you believes without accusations, assumptions, and stereotypes.

Can you do it?

It's really hard to do because as Tania Israel said on episode 59 of The Follow-Up Question, we often hold a more extreme view of people who think differently than us than is actually the reality of their view.

We paint an image in our head to make ourselves feel better — that they’re evil and that they can’t seem to comprehend what is right. We often see those with whom we disagree in the most extreme terms.

It makes us feel better. It creates a tribe to which we can attach our identity. It allows us to remove ourselves and set ourselves apart and feel right.

However, consider for a moment a different direction: if you understand the other side better and can articulate their point of view, it actually makes your argument stronger.

Better understanding the real reasons people who think differently than you believe what they believe allows you to create a a way to effectively communicate what it is you believe in ways that the other side or someone who believes differently from you can comprehend.

Because when you speak to somebody in terms and ways that they understand and that they care about rather than always speaking in terms of what you care about and what is important to you, then you can begin to find overlapping areas where perhaps you agree.

Justine Lee, the executive director of an organization called Living Room Conversations, said on episode 74 of the podcast that she likes to practice what she calls “radical empathy.” It’s where you think about something you deeply oppose, and then you state that belief as if it were your own. It’s wildly uncomfortable, yet a powerful way to understand another human being.

But I want to assuage the potential fear that understanding equals agreement, because it definitely doesn't.

If you remember back to episode 47 of The Follow-Up Question, I spoke with Columbia University professor Peter Coleman. Peter wrote the book, "The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization," and Peter told me in that episode that when we go into conversations and agree to have difficult, nuanced, uncomfortable dialogue with each other — not debate as if we're trying to bludgeon the other side to win the argument — and try to understand what each other thinks and feels and believes, studies show that the participants actually come out of those conversations more firmly held to their own beliefs than when they went in.

The difference is they no longer see the other side as an enemy to be crushed, as an opinion void of any and all truth, and as a threat to their very existence.