How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

Navigating political, moral, or religious conversations can feel like traversing a minefield. Unlike discussions about everyday topics, these dialogues often touch upon deeply held beliefs, making disagreement feel like a personal attack. But what if you could approach these “impossible conversations” with confidence and even foster understanding? This guide, inspired by practical techniques for effective communication, provides a framework for engaging in productive dialogues with those holding opposing viewpoints. It focuses on instilling doubt rather than forcing immediate change, emphasizing partnership and understanding over adversarial debate.

Beginner Level: Laying the Groundwork for Understanding

Before diving into complex arguments, establish a foundation of mutual respect and understanding.

1. Model the Behavior You Want to See: Be the change you wish to see in the conversation.

   • If you want someone to answer a difficult question directly, be willing to do the same.
   • Embrace “the illusion of explanatory depth.” Admitting the limits of your own knowledge encourages your partner to question their assumptions.
   • Model traits like listening, honesty, humility, and a willingness to change your mind.

2. Define Terms Up Front: Don’t let misunderstandings derail the conversation. Agree on the definitions of key terms, even if you initially disagree. Using their definition can build trust.

3. Focus on a Specific Question: Avoid broad generalizations. Hone in on a particular question to maintain focus and avoid getting sidetracked. Ask open, authentic questions that invite detailed answers.

4. Acknowledge Extremism on Your Side: Show you’re willing to critique your own “team.” Pointing out flaws within your own ideological camp demonstrates fairness and can create common ground.

5. Avoid Social Media Venting: Airing grievances online rarely leads to productive dialogue.

6. Shift from Blame to Contribution: Instead of assigning blame, explore the contributing factors.

   • Avoid causal statements and defensive language like “both sides do it.”
   • Acknowledge shortcomings on your side. If you can’t avoid blame, ask them to explain the other side’s logic.

7. Focus on Epistemology: How Do They Know? Instead of attacking their beliefs directly, explore the reasons behind them.

   • Common epistemologies include personal experience, cultural norms, religion, reason, and evidence.
   • Ask questions like, “What leads you to conclude that?” or “Would every reasonable person draw the same conclusion?”
   • Start with genuine curiosity about how they arrived at their conclusion.

8. Be Open to Learning: Consider the possibility that you might be the ideologue.

9. Things to Avoid:

   • Anger
   • Punishing people for asking questions
   • Focusing on the belief instead of how they know it.

Intermediate Level: Building Bridges and Finding Common Ground

Once you’ve established a foundation of respect and understanding, you can begin to explore deeper disagreements.

1. Let Friends Be Wrong: Offer a listening ear without judgment. If you don’t understand, say so.

2. Build Golden Bridges: Make it easy for people to change their minds gracefully.

   • Use phrases like “All good,” “No worries,” or “It’s a complicated issue.”
   • When attacked, build a bridge by clarifying your intentions: “The way my position is stated might lead someone to believe I want X (bad thing) but I really want Y (good thing).”
   • Alleviate pressure by acknowledging that no one is expected to know everything.
     Illustration of a golden bridge connecting two different viewpoints

3. Avoid “You,” Use “We” and “Us”: Frame the conversation as a collaborative effort.

   • Use the hostage negotiator tactic of “We’re all in this together.”
   • Refer to “that belief” or “that statement” rather than “Your belief.”
   • Switch from “I disagree” to “I’m skeptical.”

4. Reframe the Conversation: Keep the dialogue productive.

   • Focus on commonalities: “Ultimately, we’re both interested in…”
   • Reframe contentious points in a less combative way: “Maybe we can look at it another way.”
   • Figure out how to get someone to say “That’s right” (not “You’re right”).

5. Change Your Mind On The Spot: Be willing to adjust your perspective based on new information.

6. Introduce Scales: Use scales of 1-10 to gauge confidence levels.

   • Introduce perspective: “If X is a 9 on a scale of 10 for ‘-ism’, where is Y?”
   • Track changes in confidence: “On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that X is true?” (At the beginning & end.)
   • Compare different factors: “How does X compare to Y?” (Now/Then, Here/There, For Him/Her, etc.)

7. Turn to Outside Information: Use data to answer the question “how do you know that?”

   • Express openness to changing your mind based on reliable data.
   • Ask about the strongest experts on both sides of an issue.
   • Ask for specific evidence that could persuade “an independent observer.”

Advanced Skills: Deepening Understanding and Instilling Doubt

These techniques are designed to challenge deeply held beliefs in a respectful and productive manner.

1. Keep Rapoport’s Rules: This is a powerful framework for respectful disagreement.

   • Re-express their opinion so clearly & fairly that they say “Thanks, I wish I’d put it that way.”
   • List points of agreement.
   • Mention what you learned.
   • Only then, rebut.

2. Avoid Facts: Instead, focus on questions that expose problems and contradictions, and focus on epistemology.

3. Seek Disconfirmation: “How could that belief be incorrect?” This is the most effective way to instill doubt.

   • Determine if the belief is:
     • Not disconfirmable (tied to someone’s sense of being a “good person”).
     • Disconfirmable, but only under wildly implausible conditions.
     • Disconfirmable.

4. Yes, and… (no “but”): Build on their points instead of negating them.

5. Anger: Recognize its impact and how to manage it.

   • It blinds, derails, and slows information processing.
   • When you feel anger, pause, reframe, change the subject, listen, acknowledge and apologize.
   • Identify your triggers.

Expert Skills: Synthesis, Refinement, and Ethical Considerations

These skills involve collaborative problem-solving and navigating potentially manipulative techniques.

1. Synthesis: Recruit your partner to help refine and synthesize your positions. The goal is to get closer to true beliefs, not produce agreement.

   • Present an idea.
   • Invite and listen to counterarguments.
   • Employ the counter-arguments to generate ways to disconfirm your belief.
   • Use these to refine your original position.
   • Repeat.

2. Help Vent Steam: Talk through emotional roadblocks.

3. Altercasting: Casting your partner in a role that helps her think and behave differently. This can be ethically ambiguous; manipulative.

   • To avoid ethical concerns, limit altercasting to:
     • Taking their favorite solution off the table.
     • Encouraging civility, fairness, open-mindedness.

4. Hostage Negotiations: Use techniques like mirroring and emotional labeling to keep them talking and providing info.

5. Probe the Limits: Use the Unmasking Formula:

   • Apply Rapoport’s First rule (re-express).
   • Confirm you’ve understand their belief (giving them an opportunity to back down).
   • Try to understand the limits of their belief in practice.

6. Counter-Intervention Strategies: (Someone using these techniques on you).

   • Go with it, you’ll probably learn something.
   • Refuse to play.
   • Use counter-interventions.

Master Level: Engaging with Ideologues and Reframing Morality

This level focuses on understanding the emotional and identity-based roots of deeply held beliefs.

1. How to Converse with an Ideologue: Understand how their “sense of morality relates to their personal identity.”

   • Acknowledge their intention & identity as a good person.
   • Change the subject to underlying values.
   • Invite conversation about values.
   • Induce doubt about how they derived beliefs by asking sincere questions.

2. Moral Reframing: Recast an idea in moral terms that are less likely to evoke defense and more likely to resonate.

   • Learn to speak their language using their terms. Expose yourself to their ideas. Practice with friends.

By mastering these skills, you can transform “impossible conversations” into opportunities for genuine understanding and growth. Remember, the goal is not to win an argument, but to foster dialogue and build bridges across divides.