Opinion: Don’t panic this Thanksgiving: You can survive political disagreements

Many of us anticipate this upcoming post-election Thanksgiving holiday with dread, worried that angry political arguments will tear our families apart. We can’t talk to each other, we don’t want to and we don’t know how.
We seem to no longer think of the opposing party as people we disagree with. We think, instead, that they are bad people. Our political opinions are dominated by deeply felt grievances, on both the left and the right. We now see only extremism on the other side.
There is an antidote to this malignant disintegration. Based on more than 40 years as a child and family therapist, helping families communicate with greater openness and empathy, I will offer some advice.
Successful discussion of any important disagreement is based on a simple premise: We need to listen to each other. But listening is difficult, especially in most political discussions, when we are not really listening — we are waiting for an opportunity to present our arguments and defend our side.
Listening is first an attitude, then a skill. To listen more constructively, we need to take the time to learn about the people we disagree with — the stresses, anxieties and grievances they experience, the injustices they see, the values they try to live by and the stories that inspire them.
When we make an effort to learn about someone’s life beyond politics, we will almost always find some common experience or shared value, something we can understand and affirm, even with people whose political opinions are antithetical to our own. When we listen in this way, we take several steps away from repetitive and unproductive argument toward a new form of conversation: We have begun a dialogue.
It is helpful to understand the difference between a dialogue and a debate. The purpose of a debate is to win an argument, based on the assumption that there is a right answer (and I have it). In a dialogue, we acknowledge that someone else’s thinking may improve our own and a novel solution may emerge. We are looking to discover new possibilities, not trying to change someone’s mind.
Political arguments are typically framed as a forced choice between opposing opinions. In a dialogue, however, it is far more important to understand someone’s concerns and then, in response, to express our concerns. A conversation about concerns is very different from one about opinions. We debate opinions; we discuss concerns.
When we talk about issues in this way, we may find that, although we disagree about the causes of problems or what to do about them, we often share concerns. Even when we don’t, most concerns are likely to be understandable, something we might share in other circumstances.
We also need to consider someone else’s ideas with greater charity and regard our own with more humility. Humility requires us to accept that there are facts we do not know and perspectives we may not have considered about any policy or political problem. Charity and humility are antidotes to certainty and too frequently absent from political arguments.
Our best discussions then move away from ideology toward pragmatism, which is about what works and what doesn’t. The language of pragmatism is conditional, not absolute. To change an ideological statement — a statement of conviction or belief — into a pragmatic question, we can ask, “in what cases, under what conditions, to what extent?” Pragmatic arguments also reduce our tendency toward personal attacks, making disagreements about how to solve a problem, not who you are.
These shifts — from debate to dialogue; from opinions to concerns; from certainty to humility; and from ideology to pragmatic solutions — allow for much more successful discussions in families and political opponents alike.
Constructive political conversations, of course, are not always possible. Dialogue requires both a willingness and a degree of discipline that are difficult to sustain. In politics, sometimes we do need to argue and debate. And even when dialogue works, despite its many benefits, it is only a first step.
Still, we can begin with a small change. Brief moments of empathy and recognition of someone’s concerns convey a willingness to listen that almost always leads to some softening of our defensiveness and the harshness of our judgments, on both sides. Small changes can set in motion a positive cycle of listening and understanding — listening begets listening, empathy begets empathy and the next conversation will be a little bit easier.
As citizens, we cannot do much to change how politicians speak, except with our votes. But we can change how we listen and speak with each other.
Kenneth Barish is the author of the forthcoming “Bridging Our Political Divide: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Understand Each Other and Find Common Ground,” from which this article is adapted. He is a clinical professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.