I Never Thought Of It That Way | Book Review

[By Chuck Almdale]

I never Thought Of It That Way:
How to have fearlessly curious conversations in dangerously divided times. Mónica Guzmán
Dallas, TX, 2022, BenBella Books.

How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations In Dangerously Divided Times, is the subtitle, and that’s what the book delivers. Not just how, though, but why. “Why?” you ask? Because these are dangerous times, we all can learn from one another no matter how opposed we may seem to be, and because it’s interesting. You learn about the other and about yourself. I will say that it can be unexpected and disconcerting when you see your own hard-won opinions start to melt. Suddenly they sound more incomplete than undeniably right.

From the publisher’s booksite:

Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own built-in curiosity. 

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society.

In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours. 

I never Thought Of It That Way
How to have fearlessly curious conversations in dangerously divided times
Mónica Guzmán
Dallas, TX, 2022, BenBella Books. $26.95

Guzmán’s book begins with three fundamental patterns of social interaction we all use: Sorting, Othering and Siloing. What follows is a combination of quote and paraphrase from the book.

Sorting

Finding and huddling up around our people is, demographically, what social scientists call “sorting.” It’s easier to like people who are like us. We begin with common ground: language, age, sex, nationality, occupation, neighborhood, kids; or topics like weather, traffic, food, movies, books. When we know and like someone, conversations can pick up where they left off. We steer conversations to what’s interesting or useful. We have the benefit of a shared path and some trust.

When we don’t know someone, conversations are about discovery. We look for interesting thoughts to pass the time, and for a bedrock slab of commonality on which to build something more than chatter. Sometimes we find it, often we don’t.

If we live among and only meet people who are like us and hold the same opinions, we won’t meet those who are different. That’s obvious. We’ll think, inevitably, we’re the norm and our views are the correct views.

Alfred P. Sloan, then-CEO of General Motors once called a meeting. “I take it we’re all in complete agreement on the decision here,” he said. Everyone around the conference table looked back and nodded. “Then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting,” he continued, “to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Othering

There is no us without them. When we push off from people who are not like us in some way that matters, perhaps disparaging them as well, that’s “othering.” Othering is about opposition, wariness, suspicion. It can range from harmless — drawing group boundaries — all the way to hateful and deadly, even to demonization; from the subtle side-eye at that person across the room, to xenophobia and genocide.

Othering can feel great. It’s our team, our religion, our nation, our race, our political or cultural group. It helps bind us together into a mutually supporting and defending group. Our human and prehuman ancestors survived and prospered throughout six million years of evolution by means of natural selection primarily because they lived within small supportive social groups. Much of our evolution was directed towards adapting to this small group survival: complex communication and division of labor were just two of the many behaviors that emerged. But the social dynamics of in-group behavior automatically creates different dynamics of between-group behavior. Our us creates the them.

Sorting and othering are inevitable, evolved human behaviors. They won’t go away. Simple passive awareness of them can reduce their tendency to create negative effects. But there are also active behaviors that can be more effective. That is what this book is about.

Siloing

The third fundamental pattern is siloing. Over time, our group of like-minded people develops a common set of beliefs and habits, and the more we hear, speak and think them, the more firmly they grip us. Our belief-set becomes an echo chamber, with the same thoughts and beliefs bouncing off the inner walls of our silo and coming back at us from all directions. The longer we spend in this echo chamber, the deeper we sink into an isolating worldview and belief system and the more difficult it becomes to hear or see anything that hasn’t already been heard and seen by ourselves and everyone else in our echo chamber silo a hundred times over. But it is so comfortable in the silo; our human nature continually works against our leaving, or even wanting to leave. Among the echoing voices in the silo are those that say Leaving is Death, that Others are the Enemy.

Again: sorting, othering and siloing are innate, evolved behavioral patterns. They helped our ancestors survive over millions of years. But now they may be working against us. We can’t do anything about them until we first become aware of them.

The Assumption Spiral

After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, 27-year-old Laura felt helpless. She watched people elect someone she found awful and began to think those people must be also be awful. “In my head I dehumanized people who did vote for [Trump] because I couldn’t understand it.” She calculated her way step by step to the awareness of her dehumanization of Trump voters in this manner:

1. My vote against the candidate I despise is a vote for things that feel absolutely good and important.
2. A vote for the candidate I despise must be a vote against these good and important things.
3. Anyone who votes for the candidate I despise must be against good and important things.
4. Anyone who votes for this candidate must be a bad person.

Laura then wondered if her assumption was actually true: did people vote for Trump because they were against all that she held to be good and important? What if they had different reasons, unknown to her, reasons she couldn’t even guess at. She decided to sign up for an event where she would actually meet real Trump voters whom she could actually ask Why? Why did you vote for Trump? When she did, the reasons they gave were reasons she never suspected. When she heard them and considered them, to her dismay they sounded…reasonable.

“We have an assumption that people choose their opinion,” a philosopher told the assembled group of attorneys trying to work through their differences. “But they don’t. Their beliefs form naturally over the course of their lives.” “BOOM,” went the mind of a listener in the audience. “I never thought of it like that.” And if that’s true, why do we spend so much time trying to talk each other out of their opinions? It’s the course of our lives, rather than a battle of reasons, that best explains our opinions to others.

Not long after the 2016 election, author Guzmán found an interactive map on the web: enter your U.S. county, and the map tells you the county closest to yours where the people voted exactly the opposite. Her King County in Washington state voted 74% for Hillary Clinton; Sherman County in Oregon went 74% for Trump. She contacted people in that county, asking if they’d be up for a visit. She then found two dozen of her newsletter readers to ride the bus with her to Sherman County and talk face to face with bonified dyed-in-the-wool Trump voters. Talk, not argue. Guided conversations, without interruptions; or questions that everyone individually answers. One thing she learned about was The Waters of the United States rule; critically important for farmers, meaningless to city folk like her. Many rural Trump voters didn’t trust the Democratic Obama administration to address their concerns about water; they felt they’d get a far better shake from a Republican and a businessman — Trump. The listener thought: “These people are voting for what’s important to them, not voting against what’s important to me.” That was for her an INTOIT moment — I Never Thought Of It That (Way).

If you’re even slightly tired of your particular echo chamber, or if you’ve wondered what the statements of those outside it actually mean, this book is definitely worth your while. Author Mónica Guzmán is now on the board of Braver Angels, a group that brings together people from both sides of our cultural/political divide for discussions, some on-line, some in person. Here’s a link to their California discussion list. Their next discussion is: Wokeness: Progress or Overreach? on June 24, 10-11:30 AM, online. Description:

Is being “woke” a good or a bad thing? This is currently a topic of significant debate in America, and the term has very different connotations and meanings depending on each person’s point of view.

In this environment, the Silicon Valley Braver Angels Alliance is holding an informal 90 minute conversation during which people with diverse political views will be able to come to a more in-depth understanding regarding how each of us defines and thinks of “wokeness”, and how we can more constructively engage on issues related to this term going forward.