On Monday, I spoke with Weill Cornell Medical College psychology professor Dr. Kenneth Barish about his book "Bridging Our Political Divide: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Understand Each Other and Find Common Ground." We explored practical approaches for having more constructive political conversations across ideological lines and reducing the polarization in current political discourse.
Dr. Barish shared insights from his 40+ years as a therapist, emphasizing the value of moving from debate to dialogue, expressing concerns rather than just opinions, and approaching conversations with genuine curiosity rather than certainty. We discussed how understanding the emotional underpinnings of political beliefs — fear, resentment, and injustice on both sides — can lead to more empathetic discussions.
Buy the Book: Bridging Our Political Divide (Routledge)
Key Quotes
On dialogue vs debate: "In a debate, you're trying to win. In a dialogue, nobody wins. It's what can we learn from each other and how can we arrive at maybe a new understanding."
On emotions in politics: "Our political beliefs really start with emotions...fear is one emotion, resentment, humiliation. These are really strong emotions."
On finding common ground: "If we get to know people as people outside of politics...I'm almost certain that we're going to find something in common and something that I can respect about them."
On pragmatism: "Pragmatism moves us away from ideology...We should move away from ideology towards answering the question, How will it work?"
On work conversations: "In the discussion of their work, people are more interesting, they're more knowledgeable, they're more pragmatic. All of these qualities that we would like people to have when it comes to politics, they have in relation to their work."
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