I recently came across an interview with renowned sociologist Dr. Arlie Hochschild, who spent five years “deep in Louisiana bayou country” to better understand the viewpoints of people she knew she’d have differences with. Her experiences and insights are chronicled in her New York Times bestseller Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. 

Here are a few edited-for-clarity highlights from her interview.

Sharing our ‘deep story.’

In response to a question about how we can learn to see things from the perspective of someone we disagree with, Dr. Hochschild replied that “the first thing we have to do is establish a civil floor, not to come to agreement but to disagree well.” 

It’s an important distinction. It means being able to disagree without losing empathy or compassion for the person we’re disagreeing with. “To disagree well,” says Dr. Hochschild, “we need to understand each other's deep story: The story and pictures that evoke the feelings of the person on the other side.”

As an example, Dr. Hochschild shared an experience of being in conversation with a small group of liberals and conservatives, brought together by the organization Living Room Conversations. It began, she said, “with a very general question: What kind of country do you want to see? And there was general agreement: we'd like it to be peaceable, democratic, prosperous….There was agreement at the general level.”

Then the conversation moved to a more controversial topic: government regulations. “At that point a Republican in the group said, ‘Well, I'm against government regulation; it goes too far.’ And he told a story about someone he knew who owned property, and after the passing of some  wetland mitigation legislation discovered he had some wetland that he hadn't even realized was wetland. Next thing he knew someone was tromping onto his property with a gun representing the government telling him it now was being regulated. 

“Well, I couldn't believe it... that's not my picture of regulation. But if it were my picture of regulation, I would agree with him. So let's talk about the picture. Right? It's not that he's responding differently from how I would respond to that picture of a man with a gun who’s the regulator. If you saw it that way, of course, you’d feel, ‘What are you doing here? Get off my property. It is my property.’ 

That's the level of conversation I feel is missing in the nation now, where we're seeing the pictures and the stories that evoke the feelings of the person on the other side.”

Turning off our alarm system

Another thing that makes difficult conversations difficult is what Dr. Hochschild calls our ”alarm system.” Unless we consciously choose otherwise, we’re primed to get angry or upset as soon as someone says something we find disagreeable or offensive.

Perhaps surprisingly, it’s not that hard to turn off our alarm system if we set for ourselves the intention to just listen, as Dr. Hochschild did in this one last story:

“I was at a meeting of Republican Women of Southwest Louisiana. There were eight women around the table eating our gumbo, and one woman said, “Oh, I love Rush Limbaugh.” Rush Limbaugh! -- personally, I'm appalled by Rush Limbaugh -- he’s very angry and externalizing and opinionated, and every time he comes on the station, I'm not even interested. It's upsetting to hear him. So for her to love him -- oh my god, how could I identify with this woman?

“But I had my little switcheroo and I said, “Oh, I'd love to talk to you. Could we meet for sweet teas sometime this week and you can tell me why you love Rush Limbaugh?” So we sat down for sweet teas. I had told her what my project was and where I came from. And so she said, “Oh, I love Rush Limbaugh. He’s my dear heart,” she said, “because he hates femi-nazis.”

“Well,” I asked her, “who's a femi-nazi?” I thought, “Oh, my god. If she googled me -- she’d probably think I’m a femi-nazi.” Anyway, then we went on to environmentalists and I asked her why she didn’t like environmentalists. “Because environmentalists actually worship animals; they are animists. They put animals ahead of people.” So that was her understanding of environmentalists. That’s the picture that comes to her.

And after the interview, she said to me, “Is it hard? You've told me you come from Berkeley, California, and, you know, you don't agree with all the things I'm saying. Is it hard for you to listen to me?”

“And I thought, “Oh, she's watching me.” And I told her back, “No, actually it's not hard at all. I have my alarm system off. My purpose is not telling you who I am or trying to convince you of anything. I'm just trying to understand your world and I'm very grateful to you for helping me learn.” And she then came back and said, “Oh, I know what you're doing. I can turn my alarm system off too. I often do with my parishioners.” She was a gospel singer in a quite wonderful large Pentecostal church where her husband preached. “And I do that with my kids.” 

And then we had that in common -- that one thing in common. And she called me her first Democratic friend.”

Now you might be thinking, so what? What good does being friends do? She didn’t change her mind about femi-nazis or environmentalists.

But now she has an open communication channel to a liberal friend. She has a voice coming in from the other side, and that is golden. One of the main principles of persuasion, it turns out, is called likeability. If someone likes you, and if they think you like them, they’re far more likely to be open to what you have to say.

Compared to the other approach seems to be leading — one of ceaseless vilification on both sides — it’s hard for me not to see that as meaningful and hopeful progress.

Photo by John Cafazza on Unsplash