(Best of) Monica Guzman: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

This is a conversation with Mónica Guzmán from almost 2 years ago right after her book, I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THAT WAY, came out. Moni is on the front lines of addressing the problem of polarization and helping people bridge the political divide in their everyday lives. Everything we discussed is even more pressing today than when we first talked.

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What can happen when people from different "tribes" actually get together in person? We often jump to conclusions based merely on how someone votes. But do we take the time to understand how they arrived at that decision? How can we bring our friends and neighbors from a posture of contentiousness to one of curiosity? To put down the weapons of the culture war and pick up a cup of coffee with someone from the "other side"? Does sharing facts change people's minds? Does the tactic of dropping the perfectly worded factoid actually convince anyone of anything? Is there a line someone might cross where they're no longer a person we can even have a conversation with? We can have conversations about what is true, what is meaningful and what is useful. Is that all the same conversation?

Monica Guzman is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America; founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; and cofounder of the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. She served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize. A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, and is the author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

https://braverangels.org/

https://www.moniguzman.com/

https://www.moniguzman.com/book

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