Yesterday, various people responded to a post I made, where I mentioned that I’ve persuaded conservatives to change their positions; they asked how I did it. It’s complicated, but I’ll try to answer.
If you have no interest in this topic, please just go on to the next post. I don’t think anyone has any obligation to try to reach across the aisle — especially people who are under direct and serious threat. This post doesn’t have to be for you.
I usually allow for a fair bit of free discourse on my page, but I’m noting now that I intend to keep this conversation on the question:
• How do we have productive political conversations with people who disagree with us?
I am going to delete anything derailing or irrelevant to that question. And per usual on my page, anything resembling personal attacks (of me, or any other commenters) will get you one warning, and if repeated, you’ll be blocked.
It’s a teaching day, so I can’t stay on this 24-7. Please don’t make my life harder by descending into flamewar that I’m going to have to clean up later. I am a queer, brown, immigrant woman with an adjunct position, working in higher ed, parenting mixed-race neuro-diverse kids — my life is hard enough. Thank you. If it gets bad, I’ll close comments when I have the chance.
For those who are interested, read on.
I’m not an expert in this area — there are people who have spent years, decades of their lives on this issue. I haven’t even read their books. Amanda Chablani, I know you’ve done some reading in this area; suggestions welcome. And if anyone else reading has good recommendations for books, essays, podcasts, TED talks, whatever, please feel free to drop those in comments. If you have the energy to summarize arguments and/or strategies, even better.
All I can offer is what I’ve found myself doing. I’ve had some success persuading people — not necessarily to change parties, or change their self-representation as conservatives or libertarians, but to change their position on one specific issue. That’s it.
Some of those people, we’ve had conversations over months or years, and they’ve changed their position on multiple issues. A few of them I know have shifted position, from conservative to liberal, or from libertarian to liberal.
I can’t take credit for that — that would be the effect of many conversations with other people too, and of many things happening in their own lives and in the world.
I do think it’s possible to shift someone’s position on a single issue, though, and sometimes, that can be the wedge that holds the door open.
BUBBLE BELIEFS:
Here’s one big thing that I try to remember — research shows that most people believe what the people around them believe. There are reasons why we have big pools of blue voters and big pools of red. Babies are born in those places, and they’re not born with any of those beliefs — but by the time they’re adults, they’ve probably picked a lot of them up.
(I also try remember that I have had the great benefit of an incredible amount of education, and many people in this country have been failed by our education system. 54% of American adults currently have a literacy below a 6th-grade level. 21% of American adults are illiterate. It’s not fair to expect them to have read all the news articles and essays I’ve read, especially if they live in an area where public TVs are perpetually tuned to conservative news.)
Some of those blue vs. red have to do with city vs. rural, or the specific history of that area, or the demographics. But a lot of it is also that people grow up taking in the ideas around them, and they get embedded in your brain without you even noticing it.
“Racism is a sea of shit, and if you’re swimming in shit, it’s inevitable that some of it will stick to you.” — Nalo Hopkinson
So yes, people may hold some pretty terrible beliefs. Maybe I hold some pretty terrible beliefs, that I’ve never actually examined. I try to enter into those conversations with that possibility in mind.
I might be wrong. I might be ignorant. I might have swallowed down something because it meshes with my sense of self and my worldview, and it’s actually a really problematic belief.
I don’t think you’re likely to persuade anyone if you think you’re standing on a mountaintop, handing down wisdom. Some of these questions (of how to build a better world) are really hard. We’re sloshing around in this muck together, trying to find a little clarity.
(Those who are willing to talk and try, at least. I don’t usually spend my time and energy on those who aren’t.)
ANECDOTE: When I was running for office (for those new to me, I’m currently at the end of a four-year term on my local high school board, and previously served four years on the library board. Both are unpaid positions), I met a lot of people and talked to them about local political issues.
I set up with my petitions to run at a table outside the Daly Bagel, a local coffeshop. It was a nice day, and a woman stopped to talk to me. I don’t actually remember what we talked about — my memory is pretty terrible, which is part of why I try to write so much down. I think we talked for at least half an hour, though, and by the end of it, we’d argued through some issue in a fair bit of depth.
I don’t remember the issue, but I remember what she said, though.
Paraphrasing: “I still don’t agree with you, but I appreciate your taking the time to think about this and talk to me.” And then she signed my petition to run.
It’s a truism of politics — most people do understand that you can’t please everyone — they just want to be heard. That’s the least we can do, as elected officials. Make space for them to talk, listen respectfully, and actually think about what they say.
FEELING ATTACKED / BACKFIRE EFFECT:
There’s one thing that I find particularly disheartening about trying to have these conversations. Research shows that human beings, when confronted with facts that contradict a position they already believe, are typically not persuaded by those facts. In fact, they tend to harden their original position, and defend it more strongly. (This is called the ‘backfire effect.’)
Why do humans do that? Because the things we believe become part of our identity, on a deep level. So if someone comes at you with facts that threaten that belief, the back of your brain is going to react as if they’re threatening you.
The same instincts that kept us safe from saber-tooth tigers in prehistoric times are the ones that will sabotage you now, leaping to the defense of your innermost self. It’s really hard to talk those instincts down, for all of us. They’ve kept us safe our whole lives, and for most of us, it takes a patient, intentional process to work around those animal instincts.
(Some of the tools for that, I found in the book Burnout (Nagoski); I recommend it to you. It’s a fast read. When I’m feeling attacked, I try to do my square breathing before responding (easier to do online than in person). After a confrontation (argument, fight), when my adrenaline is racing, I try to do something that will reset my nervous system back to a calm state. Work in the garden, walk in the sunshine, vent to a safe friend, cry. Weeding and pruning are really helpful when I want to hit someone.)
I hang out with a lot of smart, highly-educated people. I hated learning that those people are, statistically speaking, even MORE likely to resist facts and harden their original position. We’re particularly invested in our smartness, our education, the rightness of our positions, I guess.
This is what we’re all fighting, when we try to have those conversations. I truly believe we have to constantly talk ourselves down from that heightened fight-or-flight response, if we’re going to have any success changing someone’s mind — or letting our own mind be changed.
EXAMPLE CONVERSATION:
When I was running for library board, our local library had just gotten rid of fines. I was asked repeatedly what I thought of that. People were sometimes a little aggressive about it. It wasn’t long before I’d figured out my response, and typically, I found that it took less than five minutes to change someone’s position on this topic. I’m not claiming I persuaded everyone, but I know I convinced some folks. This is how the conversation would go:
Constituent: I don’t understand why the library would get rid of fines. I like fines — they teach my grandchildren fiscal responsibility.
(NOTE: This is a place where the conversation can easily go off the rails. My initial response to that, mentally, was that it wasn’t the library’s mission to teach your grandchildren fiscal responsibility. That’s certainly true, but it’s not really the salient argument. And saying that is going to feel like an attack. I agree fiscal responsibility is a good thing, and we could maybe find some common ground starting there, but that’s not really the argument I want to make. So I sidestep here.)
Me: Well, you know, the American Library Association actually recommends getting rid of fines, if possible.
(Every once in a while, this is actually enough for them. This is the appeal to authority — if they trust the authority, and aren’t particularly invested in their position, they sometimes shift right there. ‘Oh, if the ALA recommends it, I guess it’s okay.’ Doesn’t always work, but it doesn’t hurt to try, especially if it’s true. Most of us have some authority whom we do trust and respect. If Heather Cox Richardson asked me to do something right now, even if I didn’t understand her reasoning, I might well do it.)
Me: Some libraries are dependent on fines to survive, but we’re lucky enough here that our residents love the library, and are willing to pay to support it. Property taxes cover the library’s expenses — we don’t actually need fines to pay for our expenses.
(This is an important piece of this conversation — I acknowledge that sometimes, fines are necessary, at least in the current system. More importantly, I remind them that we have common ground — we both love the library and what it represents. We’re on the same page now, with the same goal. It’s now just a discussion of methods.
If the person I’m talking to doesn’t love the library, I’m unlikely to be able to persuade them, no matter what I say. You don’t win every fight, or win over every constituent. I’m trying to persuade the ones I can reach. If it becomes clear that’s not working, that we’re really fundamentally coming from different places, I’m probably going to look for a way to end the conversation soon, cut my losses, refocus my energy somewhere more productive.)
Constituent: So what’s wrong with funding the library with fines?
Me: The problem is that fines are a regressive form of taxation — they hit poor people harder than rich people. A rich person won’t even notice a five dollar fine for a late book. A single mom who’s deciding whether she can afford food or medicine this week is going to have a hard time prioritizing paying a library fine; she just doesn’t have the money to spare.
(It’s important here, if you’re going to use a phrase like ‘regressive form of taxation,’ to make sure the person you’re talking to knows what you mean. The rest of that paragraph might not be necessary, if the person you’re talking to nods in understanding when you say ‘regressive form of taxation.’ They’re familiar with the concept already. But lots of people aren’t — including lots of smart people, and even those with college degrees. You can be smart, and just not move in circles where people are having those conversations frequently. So I try to figure out whether they know the phrase, and if not, I define it.
That’s a teacher thing — it’s one of the most critical things in the classroom, defining your terms up front, making sure that everyone in the conversation understands the language we’re going to use. If we mean two different things by ‘racism,’ and don’t realize that, we’re going to have a really hard time talking to each other about it.)
Constituent: Okay, I get that. But the librarians will work with you if it’s too expensive. They’ll often reduce or even waive the fine; you just have to ask.
Me: That’s true — but a lot of people don’t even know that. This is about cultural capital — you have access to that knowledge, that librarians can waive fines. And you have the cultural confidence and comfort to be able to go in and ask them to help you out. For you, that’s relatively easy — maybe a little bit embarrassing, but not a big deal. But that ask is going to be almost impossible for a lot of folks.
(If they look confused here, I try to bring in an analogy, hoping it will help.)
Me: You know, I’m a college professor in my day job. And there’s a thing that happens in my classroom — when students miss a test, or don’t hand in a paper, the middle-class and especially the upper-middle-class students usually get in touch pretty quickly. They drop by office hours, or write me an e-mail, apologize for messing up, and ask what they can do to make up the work.
My working-class students — they don’t do that. They’re often feeling an intense sense of shame at messing up — maybe they’re the first in their family to go to college, maybe a lot of college has been them feeling like they don’t understand this place, the rules are obscure and don’t make sense to them. So when they feel like they’ve messed up, they don’t get in touch with me and ask for help. They just put their head down and try to keep going.
Worse — often they stop coming to class. Instead of just flunking one paper (and maybe getting a C overall), they flunk out of the class entirely.
So that single mom we talked about before? The one with a couple of kids, and a life where she’s scrambling all the time, and maybe the apartment isn’t as neat as she’d like, and she has NO IDEA where that picture book is? Maybe her kid left it at the park. Maybe it’s buried under the couch. She doesn’t know, but she knows she can’t afford to pay the fine, she doesn’t know that the librarians can waive it, she’s feeling super-ashamed that her kid lost a book, and what’s going to happen then?
She’s going to stop coming to the library. She’s going to stop bringing her kids to the library. And those kids — aren’t those EXACTLY whom we most want to come to the library?
(That’s when I usually convince folks. They’re nodding in agreement, because now, we’re definitely on the same page. We both passionately want the same thing — we want all those little kids to be able to go to the library, to go to storytime, to have access to more books and knowledge than their parents had.)
SCARITY VS. ABUNDANCE / TRUST IN GOVERNMENT:
Two last pieces of background assumption.
A. I believe that we can live in an abundance economy. That there is, in fact, enough for everyone, at this point in human history, and that if we all contribute to the common good, we will be richly rewarded. We will get more than we give.
For a lot of history, scarcity economy was accurate. If there isn’t enough food in your village, and your children are going hungry, and somone from the next village over takes your food because they’re hungry, well, you’re going to be pretty angry, and understandably so.
Millenia of human history has mostly leaned in this direction (acknowledging here that there are cultures and places that operated from more of an abundance mindset at various points). It’s not surprising that scarcity is the equation at the back of many people’s heads.
B. The other part of this is trust in government — I trust that if I pay my property taxes to my local government, they’ll spend 6% of that on the library, and they’ll generally do a decent job with it. I accept that there may be a little waste, and even a little corruption.
But I believe in economies of scale, and believe that overall, government is going to do a better job of getting library services to the general public than a privatized library would (which is presumably skimming off some percentage for its shareholders). I believe that government can do better than private industry for firefighting, for healthcare, for education, for mail service — all of these are public goods.
If you and your community’s main experience of government is that they’ve screwed you over; if one of the fundamental tenets that everyone around you believes is that politicians are all corrupt — well, sure. Why in the world would you trust government to do anything then?
When I’m talking to people, I can usually tell pretty quickly if one of their fundamental tenets is distrust of government, and/or belief that we must live in a scarity economy. If so, then those are the fundamental areas I have to try to persuade them to change position on first, before taking on specific subject areas of policy.
TENETS:
Here are the key things I try to keep in mind when having these conversations:
1) We all tend to believe the things the people around us believe; we live in bubbles. I have to remember that for myself, as well as for the people I’m talking to.
2) We are all likely to get more entrenched if we feel attacked (and even bringing facts to the table can feel like an attack). That means me too. Strategically, starting with facts is unlikely to work. Start with listening, and with responding with your own experience, or experiences of people you know. Look for common ground to build on, before addressing the areas of disagreement.
3) I try not to assume that the person I’m talking to is stupid or evil. (They may feel that they are under existential threat, that their lives and livelihoods are in danger, and as a result, some believe this is a zero-sum gain, and their only chance of survival is if others are held down.)
4) I try to assume that they are of good will, and honestly believe that there is some moral rightness (or at least dire necessity) to their approach. (If it becomes clear they’re not arguing in good faith, I walk away.) I try to listen, and think about what they say. People want to be heard, and they want to be respected in conversation.
(If you can’t respect them as people, even while disagreeing vehemently with their positions, then trying to have these conversations probably isn’t the right task for you. That’s fine. There’s plenty of other important things to do.)
5) I believe most of us actually want the same things. We want our friends and families to be safe. We want our children to do better than we did. We want to be healthy. We want to work a reasonable number of hours in order to secure the necessities of life. We want a vacation every once in a while. That’s the common ground I start from. “What unites us is far greater than that which divides us.” — John F. Kennedy
6) A lot of the time, I truly believe we’re in agreement on goals. We disagree on our assessment of the system (utility of / trust in government, scarity vs. abundance economy), and on our specific strategies for improving things.
If we can find common ground on goals, and get to discussing strategic approaches, we have some hope of changing people’s positions (including our own).
That’s it. That’s what I’ve got so far. My position may change tomorrow — I’m open to change.
Discuss.