How to talk productively with people you strongly disagree with
This could have gone in spirituality or politics or relationships.... but I think spirituality is probably where it really belongs.
This TED talk is about how to productively engage with people you strongly disagree with. I found it interesting, informative, and at least a little bit hopeful. Start at 6:40 if you prefer to skip her religious struggles.
Video https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_phel..._left#t-904766
Transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_phel...eft/transcript
Excerpt: "We celebrate tolerance and diversity more than at any other time in memory, and still we grow more and more divided. We want good things -- justice, equality, freedom, dignity, prosperity -- but the path we've chosen looks so much like the one I walked away from four years ago. We've broken the world into us and them, only emerging from our bunkers long enough to lob rhetorical grenades at the other camp. We write off half the country as out-of-touch liberal elites or racist misogynist bullies. No nuance, no complexity, no humanity. Even when someone does call for empathy and understanding for the other side, the conversation nearly always devolves into a debate about who deserves more empathy. And just as I learned to do, we routinely refuse to acknowledge the flaws in our positions or the merits in our opponent's. Compromise is anathema. We even target people on our own side when they dare to question the party line. This path has brought us cruel, sniping, deepening polarization, and even outbreaks of violence. I remember this path. It will not take us where we want to go."
