Is it possible, in a hyperpartisan society, to have honest, respectful, candid conversations on deeply controversial topics?
Yes, but only if speakers are sincerely and openly eager to learn about each other’s experiences and perspectives, says journalist and author Mónica Guzmán.
The author of the critically acclaimed I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, Guzman spent Feb. 25 on campus, leading a workshop for staff and faculty, lunching with students, and holding a public conversation in Filene Auditorium with Elizabeth F. Smith, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and founder and director of academic partnerships and faculty engagement for the Dialogue Project, which sponsored Guzmán’s visit.
Smith began the talk by asking Guzmán about how she came to write her book. There were parallel paths, the author replied—one professional and one personal.
“What brought me to journalism was this sense from when I was a little kid looking around at the world, going, ‘Man, a lot of the things that go wrong seem to go wrong because of misunderstandings.’ And so I thought, well, maybe what I should do is try to help people understand each other,” Guzmán said.
But when journalists began to lose the trust of the public, she decided that “the media ecosystem itself is fracturing. People have their preferred outlets and they just won’t listen to anybody else. It felt like they needed to step outside of that and look at something a different way.”
That’s the skill set she teaches and writes about. Guzmán is senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, and hosts the podcast A Braver Way. She also serves as the inaugural McGurn Fellow at the University of Florida, working with researchers at its College of Journalism and Communications; is founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; and serves as a board member of the Institute for Multipartisan Education, which recently kicked off a partnership with the Dialogue Project on a student leadership program.
Guzman also cited personal reasons for what she called her obsession with helping to combat ideological polarization. Her family emigrated to the United States from Mexico, and, when she was 17, her parents became naturalized U.S. citizens.
“By the year 2000, they were automatic Republicans,” she said.
Guzmán, on the other hand, describes herself as a liberal.
“The 2016 election, as it did for many people, really tested our family,” said Guzmán.
But they passed that test and remained capable of civil debate, inspiring Guzmán to develop strategies for bridging political divides. Smith asked her about those tools, which, in Guzmán’s book, often take the form of acronyms.
LOOP, for example, stands for four guidelines for conversation driven by curiosity: listen, observe, offer, and pull.
“Listening ultimately for me is about showing people that they matter,” said Guzmán, who graduated from Bowdoin College in 2005. Observing, she added, is a “corollary to listening. Are people shrinking back? Are they looking tight? Are they looking broad and expansive? Did they smile a lot at that one example? Is there something to dig into there where there’s a lot of meaning and connection that can come out of it?”
Offering, in Guzmán’s lexicon, is a way to “talk about talk. It’s not, ‘I shoot you a thought and you shoot me a thought and I shoot you a thought and you shoot me a thought.’ But rather there’s a thing that we’re exploring together and you put meaning into it, and then I put meaning into it. It’s like a little cauldron.”
Pulling, she explained, “is my way of saying what questions are ultimately there for. Questions are a way of saying ‘this is what I don’t have that I invite you to share with me.’”
Smith also asked about the relationship between conversational bridge-building and activism, especially on college campuses.
“Dialogue without activism can be a navel-gazing exercise,” Guzmán answered. “But activism without dialogue is reckless.”
During the Q&A, several audience members associated with the Lebanon, N.H., chapter of Braver Angels echoed Guzmán’s conviction that people who vehemently disagree on issues can learn how to have constructive discourse. But there were also questions about how to scale formidable obstacles.
“I’m curious about how all of this advice and skills for creating dialogue and mutual understanding can be deployed, or where they hit their limits, when it’s insincere actors increasingly monetizing their ability to throw inflammatory ideas into the world,” one attendee asked.
Guzmán quoted a former editor “who always said, when I was complaining about something in the comments, ‘Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.’” So, she advised, stay away from social media trolls.
Earlier, in her afternoon workshop, Guzmán recalled for about 50 faculty and staff how, as a novice journalist interviewing sources, “I was only listening for where they met my framing, where they met my expectations.” Truly curious questioners, she said, listen not just for answers that meet their needs or expectations, but for surprises, personal stories, and narrative twists that help explain why people hold the beliefs they hold, allowing them to participate in shaping the conversation without feeling ambushed.
To practice those skills, she invited participants at round tables to share childhood memories, and, in a second round of interviews, to explain why those memories are still meaningful to them. Then the workshop moved into more challenging territory, tackling hot-button issues like abortion, gun control, and the impact of artificial intelligence.
Kristi Clemens, executive director of dialogue initiatives, says she was thrilled to bring Guzmán to Dartmouth to share her insights with students, faculty, staff, and Upper Valley residents.
“Our community is hungry for this. We’re hungry for tools, we’re hungry for connection, and we’re hungry for answers,” Clemens said. “Students asked insightful questions at lunch about how to make space for thoughtful engagement when what we want is instant gratification. Dialogue does not bring instant gratification. And so remembering and reminding ourselves to be patient with the big questions, to be curious—that’s what’s going to get us, hopefully, to a better space.”
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The Dialogue Project on March 6 is sponsoring a talk by organizational psychologist Adam Grant to discuss his critically acclaimed book Think Again, which examines the vital art of rethinking and reconsidering.
