We don’t have to look very far—especially in this bombastic political season—for evidence that many people seem more inclined to lob rhetorical grenades than seek understanding or civility.
And the problem is not confined to the public arena or social media. We hear reports of families avoiding holiday get-togethers because their past conversations on social and political issues devolved into name-calling and hurt feelings.
Steven T. Collis offers a practical, humbling path to more productive and empathetic dialogue. He’s the author of Habits of a Peacemaker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues.
As a law professor (the University of Texas at Austin) specializing in the First Amendment and a leading expert on civil discourse, Collis has built his career navigating some of the most divisive issues of our day.
All around the world, political discourse has turned ugly—with a frequent focus on sophomoric and polarizing name-calling rather than a mature discussion of policy differences. How did we get to this place?
“I’m sure there are multiple causes,” Collis says. “But the most powerful right now are social media and smartphones generally. Some of it is caused by people who deliberately do not want to discuss the merits of certain topics but simply want to ‘win’ exchanges through name-calling and polarizing techniques.”
The “10 Habits of Peacemaking” Collis writes about include such things as Seek Real Learning, Assume the Best in People, Don’t Feed People’s Worst Fears, and Hunt for the Best Argument Against You. He places Intellectual Humility and Reframing at the top of the list.
“It forms the foundation for everything else,” he explains. “Once we accept how little we know about most topics and how much more we can learn about even those topics on which we are experts, many of the other habits become far easier to adopt. We will want to engage in real learning, understand others better, be open to changing our minds, and employing many of the other habits peacemakers regularly use.”
Collis offers advice on using social media and news outlets as information sources.
“Rather than receiving our news as social media feeds it to us, we can instead use it to find sources we know will be credible,” he says. “One practice is to follow two different people whom we respect but who have different political biases. Then, if we want to learn about a topic of the day, look to see what news they are posting. This will get us a variety of views that we intentionally seek out, rather than passively allowing an algorithm to feed us.”
Is it possible to be a peacemaker and want to “win” an argument? Yes, Collis says, but rarely at the same time.
“In some settings, persuading someone else to our point of view can be the very progress we seek,” he says. “But we must always be intentional about how we communicate. If the progress we hope to make is to understand a problem better or understand someone else better, we should not allow ourselves to be lured into trying to win an argument. And if we find that most of our conversations involve trying to win arguments, we should probably start employing many of the habits of peacemaker. None of us right about that many topics!”
Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan is the award-winning, bestselling author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance. For a FREE copy of his book, click here.
