Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with producer Rachel Carlson for an episode on disagreement. Hey, Emily.
Hey. So It is no surprise that there is a lot of disagreement and division out there in the world right now. That's the understatement of the century, Rachel. And a lot of people are gearing up for the holidays where you might not always see eye to eye with the people you love in your life.
Yeah, this is true for many people I know. It is feeling tense and data supports this. Polling data from SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University shows that almost half of the U.S. electorate thinks members of the opposing party are downright evil. In a 2022 Pew study, growing numbers of Americans said members of the other party are dishonest. immoral and close-minded.
So it's not just in our imaginations, we really are becoming more divided.
So Emily, I wanted to know, what does science have to say about how to manage conflict well, political or otherwise? And that's how I ended up talking to two people who've been disagreeing with each other for almost 45 years. Jeannie Safer is a psychoanalyst. She's liberal. And she's married to Richard Bruckheiser, a conservative Republican who works for the National Review.
And he's adorable. So he's like 92 feet tall.
I asked them how they met.
We met in a singing group. So that was good because we shared an interest that was not political.
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Chapter 2: How can we create a respectful environment for discussions?
In other words, it's about seeing the person and not the label. So when we learn personal details about others, details about their job and their family and even what they'd like to have for breakfast, What science showed was that immediately people were able to view them with more warmth.
Just knowing those details made them change their perception and made them see the other person less not like them.
That's Juliana Tafour, the director of the Bridging Differences program at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. That's where Rudy and Allison teach their class.
And these tactics can help us be more charitable towards others, like by looking at the strongest parts of their arguments instead of the weakest, and more humble, just understanding where we might need more information or circumstances where our own beliefs might be limited.
Yeah. Humility seems like an important way forward.
Yeah. Like I know I don't know everything. And even the things that I think I know well, like there's always more to learn. So it's not really that any one of these things or even all of them together is a magic wand that's suddenly going to help us all agree. Yeah. And that doesn't seem like the goal. No.
Like for Jeannie and Richard, they both told me neither of them have really changed any of their opinions in the last 44 years of marriage. But it was clear to me just by talking to them, they really admire each other. They respect each other's beliefs. And I think what's most important here is they try to understand why they each hold the opinions they do.
When you live with somebody for how many thousands of years that we have, you learn that some of the things that you thought were wrong maybe weren't. And, you know, if also if you really care for somebody and admire them, if they have certain opinions, it's it's slightly changes how you feel about it.
Rachel Carlson, thank you for giving us a toolkit for moving forward in these divisive times. Of course. Thanks for having me, Emily. This episode was reported by Rachel Carlson, and it was produced by Hannah Chin. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones and Rachel checked the facts.
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