Mónica Guzmán has some difficult conversations with her parents. She’s a liberal Democrat, while her mom and dad voted enthusiastically for Trump both times.
So, how does she bridge the political divide and maintain a loving relationship with her parents, despite their differences of opinion?
And what can you and I do to develop intellectual curiosity and see difficult issues from different points of view?
Mónica is the Digital Director at Braver Angels , the nation’s largest nonprofit working to depolarize America. She is also the author of the new book, I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.
On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Mónica joins Ross to discuss how she navigates the relationship with her conservative Republican parents, describing why it’s important to maintain connections with friends and family who don’t see things the way you do.
Mónica explains how condescension and curiosity are mutually exclusive, challenging us to begin conversations by believing that the other person’s perspective is valid and asking questions around how they came to their beliefs.
Listen in to understand how the more facets of an issue you see, the closer you are to the truth, and learn how to be open to influence or new information that might change your opinion.
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I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Monica Guzman
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast with Nori. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the creative editor at Nori. Today I have with me Monica Guzman, author of I Never Thought of It That Way, director of Braver Angels, some other things that you’ve graciously allowed me to leave off.
Mónica Guzmán: Hi, Monica. Hi. Hi, Ross. How’s it going?
Ross Kenyon: Good. Sometimes it’s so unwieldy to introduce people who are as accomplished as you because I’m just like, I’m already stumbling over my words. So thank you for excusing me. Totally. Yeah, well, you published a book and you pitched this one right over the plate for me. It’s called I Never Thought of It That Way, How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Why did you write this book? Start with the big one.
Mónica Guzmán: Oh, boy. Well, got to the point where it really felt like we are so divided that we’re blinded. Division, everyone talks about how toxic it is, how polarization damages us and pulls us apart. But at the end of the day, it also just keeps us from seeing the world as it is, which means it keeps us from being able to solve the issues we want to solve or, you know, really get creative at all when we’re this afraid and this surrounded by misperceptions of other people that we don’t always realize how we could possibly even correct them because we’re just stuck in these information.
Ecosystems are just these default settings in our worlds that make it really hard to get curious across divides because with who and how and haven’t we already burned every bridge there was anyway. So it gets pretty tough. So there’s eyes on the cover of the book for that reason, because this is really about seeing the world by seeing people. We can’t be informed about the world when we’re not informed about people and their perspectives. And we are severely misinformed about them now.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think it’s possible that there exists an objective view of reality or the world? I think you implied that a little bit. And I think that view has gone out of fashion.
Mónica Guzmán: Interesting. Ooh, an objective view of reality and the world. I mean, I’ve thought a lot about what objective means. Having been a journalist most of my career, there’s been a fascinating debate about objectivity versus transparency, for example. And some defenders of the traditional concept of objectivity and journalism talk about how it’s more of a craft and a practice to try to get out of yourself and acknowledge that each of us has a viewpoint and that if you want to see an issue or something that is shared as truthfully and fully as possible, you have to get out of your own viewpoint and I love that polygon theory.
I’ve always called it thinking kaleidoscopically.
Ross Kenyon: Or being intellectually promiscuous. Those are the two terms that I’ve... Phrases I’ve been...
Mónica Guzmán: I vouch for those as well. Those are great.
Ross Kenyon: The way that I often explain it is that basically any framework you have for understanding, say, a social phenomenon, if you’re able to, the easiest example for me to use here is Marxism. Even if you don’t think Marxism is a true theory for the full picture of the world, it is maybe really good at understanding or explaining some of how classes work and interact with one another, how property relations can shape a society. It misses quite a lot, too. But if you’re able to take that and say, oh, there’s some interesting ideas there without committing your entire self and identity into that, is that useful?
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah. No, I think it is. I think of just layering, layering points of view, you know, testing them all out, see if they kind of make sense and then trying to layer them and seeing what happens when you put all those layers, one on top of each other and look at the world through that. And that’s very challenging and we can’t do it for everything, but... I kind of like that people who are naturally interested in climate, for example, might be drawn to complicate their views of climate in a big way so they can get closer to truth.
Or conversely, they might be drawn to just have one point of view and stick to it. And so I think we all have that choice of the things that we’re interested in. Are we going to seek to add friction to our existing view of that thing? Or is our interest instead going to lead us to want to pick a side and stick to it and then spend our energy defending our point of view?
Ross Kenyon: I’m so sympathetic to this, but I’m not always sure that it served me personally very well in that I often play the role of the actually guy where you’re like, actually, there’s a lot more nuance here and... It can frankly have crossed the line with it before where people are like, this is annoying. And then in cases where maybe there is a moral bright line, I extend more credit than is maybe due. Well, maybe you don’t even agree with that premise. I’m not sure where the limits of curiosity should naturally be defined.
But I feel like it’s also lonely because I’m less able to join teams or people who have an affinity for a certain way of thinking. So I’m just often alone, which makes it, it’s fun, but I’m just like a galaxy brain over by myself. I’m applying that in the meme sense where it’s mocking. I’m not saying I am that thing, but I don’t know that it’s always been so good to me. Am I missing something?
Mónica Guzmán: No, I think you’re right. I mean, in the course of writing the book really reflected on why have I practiced so much curiosity and what has it added up to for me? And I’ve found points in my life as well where my sort of Inability to just pick a side and stick to it or my sense that, yeah, there’s nuance, you know, I’m just going to kind of leave the door open to other points of view just meant, yeah, less sort of close fun attachments to people or groups based on that.
And I will say, I don’t think that any of us could demand that everyone be a certain way. To me, the healthy assortment of personalities and styles is a mix. It’s a mix of total committed fighters for a point of view and also the people who are standing at the boundaries of that circle and looking for other people who are curious about it, but also being curious about other circles floating around the ether. And I feel like I, for many things, I enjoy being at the boundaries of these communities of point of view, communities of interest rather than at the center.
But I think we all have issues where we are committed at the center and issues where we are at the boundary. And the healthy thing is to have a good mix of all of them. And of course, you know, history would look back and say, well, it’s a good thing that we had enough fighters for this wonderful thing and that wonderful thing when we needed the fighters. And it’s tricky to know when you’re living in the moment, you know, whether the balance is right.
Ross Kenyon: You just gave me a more nuanced answer for me to mull over. What am I supposed to do with that now? I don’t know. Think some more? I’ve already done the thinking. It’s not helping me. This is very Seinfeld-y, I guess. Do I need more nuance in my life? I don’t know.
Mónica Guzmán: No, I see what you mean, though, because one of the things that pulls us away from nuance is Well, man, you’re just you’re complicating your own conversations now. And you might be the annoying person who has a question when everyone else is ready to move on. I mean, that’s that’s not fun. But I would say in times this divided, it’s the people who insist on curiosity who are needed in a lot of ways and in a lot more places.
Ross Kenyon: You have a story in here about your your parents and your relationship with them and not wanting to lose that. Why don’t you tell it? And has there been any updates since you wrote the book? Are you guys getting along better since you’ve been thinking so deeply about this?
Mónica Guzmán: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So my parents... And I were all Mexican immigrants and came over in the late 80s and lived in the States for a while. And then in 2000, we became citizens. So I came home one day from high school and plopped my backpack on the ground in our office. And I saw a Bush Cheney sign over my mother’s desk. And that’s when it just first kind of dawned on me that all these Conversations and debates we had had about political issues actually meant that my parents were Republicans.
In my head, I was liberal and I was leaning Democrat and it seemed obvious, you know, because I’m a high schooler. I don’t know any better. And then there’s all these scenes in my head right now from being at restaurants. You know, we speak Spanish to each other. And so we spoke at a high volume at many restaurants debating about something Glenn Beck had said or something on CNN or something on whatever. And I think we got away with speaking a little louder than others might because we knew no one could understand.
I don’t know. No one could understand in our rural New Hampshire town where I grew up. So, yeah. And then come the 2015 presidential campaign with Donald Trump as a candidate. The volume turned up everywhere, and it certainly turned up with my own family. And we had some seriously big fights and arguments about all of that stuff, you know, with me and going to my mom like, Mom, you didn’t raise me to respect somebody like that. You know, the way I saw Trump and the way she saw Trump for her, of course, she came at it from a very different direction.
And so to get to the place where I could see it the way my parents did, they both voted enthusiastically for Trump both times. It was a real challenge. And it was a challenge for them, too, to see it my way. But we were able to get to that. And we still are there. So you asked how we get along now. And we still get along pretty well. And we’re still talking about politics. I mean, just last month in D. C. , my parents were there for a book talk I was doing.
And that night at the hotel, it was like two, three hours on all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, it’s been an adventure with them.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think many people listening have similar experiences of disagreeing with their parents’ politics in some way or another. My most memorable personal experience with this is that I had a friend, coincidentally, a very serious Leninist, like old school classic. I didn’t mean to talk about Marxism so much this episode, but anyways, he was like properly a Marxist and his mom voted for Trump and He put up a post about how he had functionally disowned her. And my first reaction was very domestic and also really almost like a kind of like cerebral detached approach where I was like, well, her vote doesn’t really change the outcome of this at all.
And you only have one mom. And there’s only about 10 people on earth who care if you live or die, generally speaking. Most people are going to move on. Your mom is one of them. Surely that’s more important than... I’m willing to say that for Trump, perhaps. But would I also be willing to say that for someone who was much worse than Trump? At what point should I be throwing away relationships with people for despicable actions? If you don’t think Trump is it, where should the line be?
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah. And it does feel like a lot of people are making that calculation for themselves. And that’s the only way the calculation can be made. It’s completely personal. With COVID and the vaccine, I’ve heard of a lot of folks who You know, have just said, that’s it. Like, I can’t talk to my uncles or my aunts. I can’t visit them anymore. Like, we’re done. If they think of health this way and they’ve made these choices. But man, I do think about that a lot. And it’s a difficult thing to think about because you take your political, your political sensibilities are tied in with a lot of morality and a deep sense of what’s right and wrong.
And then your relationships with your family. Well, you know, obviously there’s like a deep connection there, hopefully, and kind of a baseline love. And so when those two things get into conflict, I think a lot of people are sensing that in a way that maybe they haven’t in their entire lifetimes, maybe in a couple of lifetimes. It’s been really rough for people. And because of the work I do, I hear from, I mean, this is my daily work. I hear from a lot of folks who, this is their life and it’s a lot of pain and it’s drawing them to my work.
It’s drawing them to the nonprofit where I work, Braver Angels. And people know it’s all broken and they want a better way, but how do you get away from A sense that this thing is despicable and I can’t, if I relate to people who believe it or who behave based on it, aren’t I then conceding my own self to it? Aren’t I endorsing a morally reprehensible thing? And that’s a real puzzle for folks. And I think it’s difficult even to talk about that. To complicate that, I think, is one of the big jobs of today, is one of the things that I try to do.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Why don’t you try to do it here? What’s an alternative way of approaching this issue? I noticed that you said that it’s a personal decision here at the beginning of a difficult answer.
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: But let’s take for granted that this person may be redeemed or this relationship is worth fighting for. A guy on the bus saying something hateful, you have no obligation to repair that. Right. But your parent or a child or something like that, what’s a way of even having a productive conversation these days?
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah. Well, one thing I’ll get to before I answer that question specifically is just the other day, someone was telling me a story about how they were talking to an acquaintance of theirs, a friend, and the friend said something horribly racist. I didn’t ask what it was, but just taking for granted. Okay. The friend said something horribly racist right in front of him. And that right then this person decided I can’t, that’s it. I cannot talk to him anymore. It’s over. And that then the next day he was talking with a black friend and the black friend told him, No, you turn right around and you make sure that you are still in relationship with this person.
And so that sort of made him kind of think, and we ended up talking about this. And the principle there is that every time we burn bridges with each other across difference, we are eliminating the chance of a connection where the other person could see things the way you do. Even could. Or where you could see things the way they do. So every time you cut off that relationship, you’re eliminating that chance. If you leave the relationship intact, but take breaks or don’t talk about it for a while, or figure out a way to talk about it at some point, you’re allowing that difference, that challenge that your view presents to that other person to remain in their life.
Ross Kenyon: I love this because it validates what I think. I’ve told this story before too, that I had a friend who... Yeah. Yeah.
Mónica Guzmán: That’s the thing is like, I think a lot of people still believe or maybe unconsciously believe that, yeah, you cut people off, they will quicker to recognize their faults and then come back to you and come back to a quote unquote right way of thinking. You know what’s funny? I walked my daughter home from school this afternoon and she was literally saying like the same exact thing. She was telling me that there’s a group of five girls. She’s in first grade. There’s a group of five girls and she’s on that group.
And then there’s this other team with these two girls. And that she was telling me that the goal really was they’re trying to peel off one of the girls from the team of two girls. I said, why? Well, so that one girl could be alone. Well, why would you want her to be alone? Because then she’ll come and apologize. I said, what makes you think that’s going to make her want to come and apologize? Well, she’ll be all alone. What else could she possibly do? So I think that’s what we think.
We think even from first grade, right? She literally just told me this. But that is what we assume, right? We assume that all this shaming and whatever and cutting off is going to make people come back to us and apologize. But I don’t think we think about that very hard. When people believe what they believe and they’re not sure that you’ve heard them or whatever, they’re going to go find people who do. So what you said about leave them to the crazies, I’ve thought that about journalism too. Whenever a journalism outlet decides, well, we’re not going to hear from these voices anymore or we’re going to cut them off.
Well, you’re not going to convert people who follow those ideas just by virtue of not airing those ideas. You’re just going to make sure that someone less responsible Gets to be the ones that hear those ideas and that make that person feel heard and understood. So that I think is ultimately the challenge is we have to understand each other instead of just say, I want nothing to do with that. And then folks who don’t feel understood, who may feel, may believe things that whatever, you can judge them as you will, but they will go and find others who believe those things.
They will, especially if they’re proud of that conviction and they think that the rest of the world is just not listening.
Ross Kenyon: And we also framed this part of the conversation in terms of, you know, in your heart that you are right and this person is wrong. And your job is to, you know, in a very Machiavellian way, stay in their life so you can bring them back to the good side. When in fact, you might also be wrong about some things or be missing. And I think that’s where your book really comes in, I think, in a big way, right?
Mónica Guzmán: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because I hate the presumption we make that we are right and that we just need to educate these other people who disagree with us. That’s so terrible. I mean, I talk about curiosity is the whole point of the book. And when you are condescending, you cannot be curious. And people can tell when you are being condescending. It’s not something you can fix in your words or the way you ask questions. If it sits there in you, you’re not going to get very far. So you have to begin by Believing that the person is absolutely valid and that their perspective comes from a valid set of experiences and perspectives that you do not yet understand.
And the other thing is, even if they do believe something, you know, I don’t know, QAnon, right? If we can pick something that, okay, well, most people would agree that stuff is just baloney. All right, fine. Even if they believe the QAnon, right, if you follow their perspective and you ask them how they arrived at that, you will hear a story that you can relate to and you will hear the truth of their story. And that’s going to allow you to kind of walk alongside them and see them. And then instead of sort of somebody being defined by what to you is their ugly opinion or their false conclusion, it’s going to be defined by a whole lot else.
And that bad opinion or ugly conclusion is just one piece of the pie. It’s just at the tip. It’s just this last thing, you know, but there’s so much else going on. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: I saw an example of this, that if you take, for instance, in good faith, the argument that the world, the universe, whatever, is run by reptilian humanoids from another planet, that all world leaders are part of this reptilian bloodline from another planet. And they control the world’s affairs and everything is basically window dressing and theater to convince the masses to go along with this and lose their rights and wealth and blah, blah, blah. The read of that is empathetic, as I understand it, is that these are people with very little power in their lives.
And to them, the people on the coastal elites, the people who run DC and Silicon Valley are functionally another species. They’re so far away from their lived experience. They feel ruled by aliens. I can’t tell if I’m being condescending or not, but this is like the best explanation for why that thing exists as a phenomenon. What do you think?
Mónica Guzmán: Let me venture something. I think the only thing that is patronizing about that is assuming that an academic and thoughtful explanation for this, for believing this kind of stuff applies to everyone who believes this kind of stuff. I think that’s it. It’s just... Sure. I mean, it adds up. And so many people go, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what’s really going on. Let me feel empathy for these people because they’re so powerless, right? Or because they’re wounded. I hear that a lot too. People are wounded. But even that is a judgment.
Yeah, that’s true. Even that is a judgment that can get in the way of just listen to this person’s story. So there’s a couple of I believe it, yeah. She had a problem, though. And her problem was that she’d come home and talk to Rick and ask him a lot of questions about why he believed what he believed. And Rick would answer them really respectfully and politely. But after a while, Barbara’s like, Rick’s never asking me anything. What’s up with that? So finally, she was like, hey, I don’t feel heard by you.
You’re respectfully answering and all that, but you don’t seem to be curious about me. And Rick was like, oh, and started reflecting on it. The thing is that I think I don’t ask you why you believe what you believe, because I feel like I already know why liberals believe what they believe. And Barbara’s like, oh, yeah, prove it. Right. And so she offered, you know, well, what about this? You know, and Rick is like, well, it’s this. And Barbara’s like, oh, yeah, kind of is that, you know, and she lobbed a couple of things at him.
And what they realized was Rick was surrounded by liberal points of view. And so he did feel like he understood them because he gets to read about them. They’re all over the media, whatever. And Barbara was more curious because she really isn’t surrounded by The more conservative point of view, like her husband’s. But what Barbara had to tell him was, but honey, I am not all liberal. You still need to ask me because you have to know how I personally arrived at that. And even if it kind of maps on to this other thing that you have about the whole group, you’re still not really open to me or listening to me if you’re not asking about me.
And so that’s my big concern is even theories about conspiracy theories. If we become too certain about them. We think we have all the answers. And if we have someone in our orbit who believes in the conspiracy theories or whatever we think those are, then we’re not going to want to ask them anything because we already know they’re just powerless or wounded. And it’s like, well, hang on. I don’t know. It’s like what we were saying in the beginning, right? One big theory can’t explain it all. And we’re incurious if we think that it can.
Ross Kenyon: A reminder that the map is not the territory is always welcome here. Yes. Why is it important for Rick to know why Barbara came to her conclusion? Does it help them do something better? What does it help to know that?
Mónica Guzmán: it helps them navigate Precisely that challenge that we were talking about earlier. You know, what is the calculation with the people you love the most? How do you square these ideas you think are reprehensible while the person you’re married to appears to be endorsing them, at least in your view? So you better figure out what’s going on there because, you know, it’s really difficult for you to it’s difficult to love a person who has an idea that you think is harmful. So figure out what’s behind it. In my book, I talk about an assumption that many of us carry, which is that if you believe something because of a value that you hold very strongly, care for others or whatnot, and then someone believes the opposite, it must be because they do not care for others.
We kind of have this binary view of values, right? So whoever opposes what you support must hate what you love. And we fall into that fallacy all the time. And we think everything’s a binary. But often, you know, that’s not it at all. And that other person is not motivated by what you assume is sort of support for a hateful idea or wanting to do harm to the world or allowing harm to happen. You know, 99% of the time, that person has a completely different narrative where their choices lead to good.
And again, objective reality, even if overall your choice is the one that leads to the most good, chances are that their choice that you think is so harmful isn’t as harmful as you think. And there might be angles on it that you’re not understanding, which is a big part of what I’ve learned from my parents. There’s just a lot that I don’t see because I care about what I care about and they care about what they care about. But neither of us has the total set.
Ross Kenyon: I think that’s the case. I saw it today. It’s May 3rd. So the Supreme Court leak for Roe versus Wade came out late last night. And I’ve seen people posting this meme of things being like, well, if you don’t like abortion, here’s this list of policies that you surely must support. But I have like pro-life friends and they would cut that deal in a second if they said no more abortions, but we have to pay for universal child care and parental leave. Abortion is that like being pro-life is so important to them.
That’s almost a single issue thing. They would cut that deal without even thinking about it.
Mónica Guzmán: My mother is one of those people. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: But I feel like it’s presented as this like kind of slam dunk kind of thing where I’m like, if you talk to these people, they’ll gladly side with you on this.
Mónica Guzmán: It’s really surreal. Yeah. Yeah. And I think those memes do come from, you know, this really flat way of looking at people and not very well informed about how people’s perspectives actually work or how complex they truly are. We traffic in so much memes and slogans and talking points that we forget that everyone else is just as capable of complex thinking as we are. And that some people hold extraordinarily deep concern about one or another value. And it means everything to them. And so my mom has been a really good example for me about that with regard to abortion.
It’s like, it’s just not separate from murder for her. It’s just not separate from murder. And murder is the worst. It’s the worst. You know, so if you’re sitting there and like this is murder. Oh, my goodness. Then what an what an amazing thing the Supreme Court’s about to do. So, yeah. And it can can someone who does not believe that abortion is murder or at least believes it needs to be legal, you know, whatever it is. Can someone sit with that point of view or sit with someone who truly believes that this is a huge benefit to humanity?
This is correcting a big mistake. That takes a lot of courage and it’d be very uncomfortable to do that and to sit with that. But there are people who believe that in extraordinary good faith. It’s tough.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I’ve seen really nasty fights over this too, where I’ve seen a pro-life person trying to extract the, well, what if a woman on the last day of the third trimester decides she doesn’t want to have a baby? Is it okay to have an abortion then? And the response from the pro-choice person is like, that never happens. But the pro-life person is just trying to get them to say like, Yes, that would be bad to do that thing, but they’re not willing to do it. So it’s just like the conversation just fizzles and yells.
Mónica Guzmán: Right. And the only reason that other person is not willing to do it is because they know that the idea is you give an inch, they’ll take a mile and the whole thing instead of, no, let’s actually explore this. This is complicated. It’s okay that it’s complicated. It’s okay. I was just talking to somebody today about if we... Okay. So bear with me for a minute on this.
Ross Kenyon: Please try it.
Mónica Guzmán: Okay. But if we were... All the way creative and not really interested in the conflict as much as we seem to be. If we were all the way creative, maybe, maybe we would say, well, gee, all right, we’ve got the sanctity of life, the value of life over here, and we’ve got the freedom to thrive and for people, you know, mothers or childbearing people to have their own freedom to make their own decisions and live their own lives over here. These are both extraordinarily important and good values that are being thrown at each other with the issue of abortion.
And for decades, we haven’t been able to resolve it for all time. I’ve had this conversation with my mother, right, who’s on the other side of this for me. And she and I agree that, wow, wouldn’t it be cool if there really were an artificial womb That worked from a really, really, really early stage, right? So, oh, you know, raise my hand. I don’t want this baby. Cool. Well, let’s just, you know, and of course, it wouldn’t just be an artificial womb. You’d have to have a whole like social system to take care of that life.
But let’s assume we could do that. Maybe that would resolve it for all time. And then the next little thought experiment step is imagine if even a tenth of the energy that we’ve put Into just yelling at each other about this and wanting other people to change their views was devoted to actually working on what could actually be a solution. You know what I mean? Like, and I’m not saying doctors haven’t worked on this, but I don’t know. I don’t get the sense that they’ve worked at it with the same passion that people have devoted to the issue.
So if people really want to solve the issue, it seems like the one way that everybody wants to solve this issue is so their side totally wins and so they put all their energy into the fight against the other side. But if we’ve seen anything over decades, it’s like no one’s willing to budge on the morality of how important each of those values is. So why are we still fighting? Could we channel this another direction? But I don’t know.
Ross Kenyon: Interesting idea. What is with that desire to say there’s like a big election coming up and you get your side in and you want them to run with the ball as far as possible during their time. But, you know, the pendulum is going to swing back. And if you if you either change the constitutional rules or mores around it that make things like, hey, you’re not really supposed to, you know, affirm or block someone’s nomination in the like the lame duck period. Stuff like that I find – wait, hold on, let me back up one second.
What can I say with this? There’s this desire to sort of like salt the earth and drive your enemies before you and hear the lamentations, blah, blah, blah. And you forget that you’re still living in the same country or neighborhood as these people and they’re going to take power right after you. Their turn is coming next. And so why aren’t we more long-term, even medium-term thinkers about that?
Mónica Guzmán: That’s it. We’re not long-term thinkers. And again, I think you’re absolutely right about that, but I want to give credit to the short-term thinking here because level of threat with something like Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Ross Kenyon: That’s a biggie.
Mónica Guzmán: Oh my Lord. For people who are on one side of this issue, that is, oh my goodness. I completely understand Reckless and radical action. You know, I get it. And it’s going to be, yeah, you’re not going to argue against that. But the same the other way, right? It’s just, oh, I don’t know. I think I’ve slapped myself into a corner. It’s just.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a minute to recover. It’s just. Do we finally find your limit? Is this where it is?
Mónica Guzmán: I mean, I talk a lot in the book about kind of knowing when to kind of take a breath, take a break, that kind of thing. But I think I was just overwhelmed with the emotions that everyone’s feeling today. You know, a lot of people are feeling and how vastly different they are, because there are people like my mother who are extremely happy and are looking at most of mainstream media being extraordinarily panicked. I danced around this question in my own head that, you know, it might sound hokey, but it means something to me.
But how do we build a world where more people can be seen? I feel like for most people, the question they’re fighting about is how can I protect myself from those who do not see me? But the better question is how do you build a world where more people can be seen? I think it’s the more long-term question. So yeah, when your political side or your activist side really like poisons the well in order to make sure that you get what you need, you know, this political cycle. Well, the next time that the other side’s in power, they’re going to use at least as much of those tactics you used and then evolve them even more.
That’s the escalation we’re in. And we’re not thinking of the long game.
Ross Kenyon: No. How could you? That tit-for-tat strategy, the dynamic of it is just basically baked in. I don’t know how you- It is.
Mónica Guzmán: And we’re trapped in it. And I get it. And I’ve talked to a lot of politicians on background. And individually, nobody likes this divided thing that we’re doing. But nobody knows how to get out of it, seems. It’s pretty tough.
Ross Kenyon: Mm-hmm.
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah, I think that’s the big question. One is to always ask, what am I missing? So anytime that I feel that I’m kind of stuck on a judgment and there are three particular judgy assumptions we make about other people that are always wrong, or at least are never good to believe in the context of a conversation. And those are, you’re an idiot, you’re crazy, or you are evil.
Ross Kenyon: Man, didn’t I start off with all three of those though? I poisoned the well right from the start with my examples. I mean, but it’s like, but that’s the thing.
Mónica Guzmán: It’s believing that is about the whole person. This whole person is evil. This whole person is crazy. This whole person is an idiot. Like that’s a great way to guarantee that you won’t learn anything from this person’s experience and sort of valid path that they walk through their life. So that’s really important. And the other is, I think that we also have this sense that if we’re going to talk to somebody who we want to persuade, who we want to Learn from so that we have a chance of persuading them someday that, you know, it’s going to be an hour.
It’s going to be this conversation. And I better start to see progress in this conversation. If I don’t see progress, then it’s a sign that this entire effort is a waste of my time and it’s terrible. And that is another thing that I wish that I could just like wave a wand and just get rid of that assumption. Because People don’t meet each other on those kinds of terms. You can’t demand that people meet you on those terms. You don’t know what they are going through. And it’s just true that people don’t hear until they feel heard.
And a lot of times, for reasons you may not understand, that other person you’re talking to is not going to feel curious about you because they don’t think that you get them yet. And they’re going to be talking at you, talking at you, talking at you for a while. So the best thing to do is just is to think if you can have another conversation with this person about the same topic later, you’ve never left the conversation at all. It’s OK. It doesn’t need to happen all at once. It doesn’t need to happen right now.
Whatever progress means to you. Besides, you will soon see. I guarantee it. You will see something when you listen to this other person that you did not think about before. And you can’t predict what direction you’re going to go in that learning process. But chances are it’s going to turn the volume down on all this for you, which is going to allow you to walk around the world with less anxiety, less fear, and more creativity.
Ross Kenyon: I guess I’ve had disillusionment and had to back off of ideas I once was so certain of. I don’t know that I replaced a lot of those ideas with new strongly held beliefs. A lot of those new ideas are just chaos where I’m just like, I can see where a lot of people are coming from and I feel for people here, but I don’t know that I have sorted this one out. I don’t feel like people give themselves permission to not have everything sorted out like that.
Mónica Guzmán: Exactly. Exactly. And that almost felt like the most radical thing that I had decided that day was I am not going to pick one of these ideas. I’m not. I’m not going to pick. I’m just going to say that I believe it’s murder and I believe it should be legal. I can’t explain it, but that’s where I’m at. And I’m going to be as honest as I can.
Ross Kenyon: This is sort of me being obnoxious, but given that your namesake is known for being a woman of such strong faith, being St. Augustine’s mom. Oh, Santa Monica.
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah. I’m very impressed that you know about her. In Mexico, we have like saints days. So I still have like aunts who call me on like the same day for Monica. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, really?
Mónica Guzmán: It’s amazing. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Well, she was so confident. She was just like always sure that Augustine would eventually convert. And I kept praying for him, which seems like, uh, I guess you could, you could tell a story about how that’s actually you, but also it seems like doubt was such a key part of your, your ethos too. Right.
Mónica Guzmán: No, but I mean, now that you put it that way, cause Hey, I never thought of it that way, but now that you put it that way, Yes, St. Monica was not driven so much by certainty as by faith. She was driven by this faith that if I pray that there’s something good in my son and it will emerge. And she had this patience and she kept praying and devoted and devoted and devoted. So I guess I’m inspired by her faith in people, her faith in her son. And I think that’s pretty cool that like, you know, the good in people is always there.
And I do believe that. I have very little doubt about that. That’s one thing I’m kind of certain of.
Ross Kenyon: That’s such a beautiful cap to this whole podcast. Well, we should wrap it up. Obviously, if you’re listening and you like the timbre of this conversation, you should pick up I Never Thought of It That Way by Monica Guzman. Is there anything you’d like to say or point people to before we go? Surely Braver Angels.
Mónica Guzmán: Oh, Braver Angels for sure. Braverangels. org, the nation’s largest nonprofit working to depolarize America. It’s the largest grassroots cross-partisan nonprofits. So we have equal red-blue leadership. Not an easy thing, but it works and we’re modeling it and it’s great. Yeah. And also my website, monibusman. com. You can learn more about the book and me and all that good curious stuff.
Ross Kenyon: If you like the show, you like curiosity. So you’re a natural fit here. Thanks for being on the show, Monica.
Mónica Guzmán: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.
Ross Kenyon: It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for listening. If you like the show, please send it to a friend. Give us a great rating review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks so much for listening and have a lovely day. Thank you so much for listening. If you could please subscribe and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify, that’d be much appreciated. It helps us get our content out to more people. You can sign up for our newsletter at nori. com. Follow us on social media.
We will catch you next time.
