Episode 112: Myisha Cherry discusses the skill of conversation
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What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
Hey, Matt Teichman here from Elucidations. Before we get going, I just thought I'd put in a quick plug for PIPA. We've been doing our hosting with them since 2016. It's been a fantastic experience. So if you have a podcast, you might check them out. They have great analytics, the service is free, and they make it easy to migrate. So if you're curious, visit their website at pippa.io. All right, thanks.
Hello, and welcome to Elucidations. I'm Matt Teichman, and with me today is Maisha Cherry, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and host of the incredible Unmute podcast, which I recommend that you go listen to as soon as you're done listening to this. And she's here to discuss the skill of conversation. I would also encourage you to check out Maisha Cherry's book, Unmuted, Conversations on Prejudice, Oppression, and Social Justice, which is a print edition of a lot of the interviews that she's done on the Unmute podcast. So one thing you hear about a lot in popular media today is that it's important to be willing to have difficult conversations, right? as opposed to, I'm not sure exactly what, as opposed to fighting, as opposed to being angry all the time.
I'm not sure exactly what the contrast is, but this is something you hear a lot. What is the difference between like a difficult conversation, quote unquote, and just an easy one?
Yeah, I think there's a range of, quote unquote, easy conversations and also there's a range of difficult conversations. I think, you know, even the suggestion that, you know, conversations being a solution to to solve our problems, particularly our political problems. I think it's a sense that we are fighting with each other or we, quote unquote, hate each other or we have these kind of assumptions about each other. And a lot of this is just based on a misunderstanding. Right. It's based on just general stereotypes or assumptions that we have about a particular group, a particular person. And we're talking to everyone else about them and we're talking about them without actually talking to them. Right.
And so what seems to be a solution to all of that is we need to have a conversation. So what makes it difficult is that. who we're having a conversation with is already somebody that we think we agree with, right? It's already someone that we had these kind of strong affective responses to. And so when you enter into now we have to talk, if anything, even if the conversation just happened to go easy after that, it's already difficult from the start because of all the assumptions and ideas and emotions that we have going forward. Also, I think that what makes a conversation difficult is not just the people per se or the assumptions per se. But also the topic. Right. There are just some things that are hard to talk about.
And I mean, we can take that from an interpersonal perspective, but we can also look at that from a political perspective. So I think, you know, contentious political conversations are hard, like race in America. It's hard to talk about race. So that's a difficult conversation. Right. Also, ethically, what we call kind of taboo topics such as sex is also conversations that are difficult to talk about out in the open. So you have in that particular regard. But also interpersonally, when you know, sometimes when people suggest, oh, we need to talk, even that invitation, we already automatically think that something is wrong. Right. It
sounds like a breakup in a relationship.
It sounds like we're about to break up. Something is wrong. It's about to come to a head. And so that can be a very difficult conversation because of what we think is going to happen. Right. But I think easy conversations, I mean, you know, I would like to think that this podcast is going to be an easy conversation. But the question is, like, how is that going to be easy conversation? Well, it could be the case that I just feel a sense of ease talking to you. Right. So that could make it an easy conversation. Although we're going to talk about kind of difficult content.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
0:00–5:35
2
How do Myisha Cherry and Matt define “difficult” versus “easy” conversations?
5:35–11:06
3
What conversational virtues (like humility and patience) does the guest recommend?
11:06–16:25
4
Why is “talking about the conversation” itself important for productive dialogue?
16:25–21:42
5
How does over‑confidence or under‑confidence affect the quality of a conversation?
21:42–25:59
6
What challenges arise when discussing race, and how can explicit background sharing help?
25:59–32:06
7
How does identity politics influence our conversational assumptions and goals?
32:06–38:27
8
What are the key takeaways for improving future conversations?
38:27–43:43
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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