Intentionally Seeking Out, Talking to, and Learning from Those Different from Me

 

 

Many of us would lament that we have become an irreversibly divided society, and would assert that the blame lies with social media and specifically the algorithms that feed us what we want to hear and thus cocoon us more rigidly in our non-overlapping echo chambers. All of that is probably true. But I would argue that our isolation is more tactile than digital, and that we actively participate in it rather than it happening to us. 

Personal preferences may be changing, but the default living arrangement for many people in America today is a newly constructed subdivision in a far-flung suburb. The long commutes to work are a small price to pay for having a new and large home, and the lack of random pedestrians passing by your place is a feature and not a bug. In this form, there is no socializing from home to work (you surely hope not to literally run into another person or car while driving in!). Nor is there any small talk during kid pick-up, that morning and afternoon task involving an elaborate process that optimizes efficiency and safety but excludes making chit chat with fellow parents. Even if we do work hard to build relationships with people who live in our subdivision or send their kids to the same school, almost by definition these fellow humans are similar to us in socio-economic status, since the very purpose of most suburbs is to homogenize who lives in them, a bulwark against diversity enforced by things like minimum lot sizes even if former ways of excluding people have been rendered illegal. 

Cities offer the opportunity for more diversity. The same city block can include a palatial 6-bedroom rowhouse and a building the same size that includes 8 2-bedroom apartments. Public spaces like parks and food halls can be equally enjoyed by people in suits and those who are homeless. Going to city hall to protest a parking ticket or speak at a council meeting likely means passing by white-shoe CEOs and construction workers. 

But, the possibility to interact with others different from us does not necessarily lead to true and meaningful interactions unless we actively seek them. For it is not hard for us to find our people even in a big and diverse city, and never really engage with people whose lived experience or political worldview is different than ours. It is possible to avoid any contact altogether. Perhaps even worse, it is also possible to have contact but never meaningfully engage or be influenced. 

Ask yourself: when was the last time you had an extended conversation with someone fundamentally different from you…and actually listened to them and drew out their perspectives out of curiosity? I suspect that for most of us, most of our conversations are with people who agree with us, about topics that we agree on, and that the rare occasion we’re presented with those who disagree with us, we minimize or shut off any disagreement rather than sit in and even draw out that opposing perspective. 

If I may wade into a contemporary flashpoint example to prove the point. Let’s say you are a fan of or at least sympathetic to the work of Charlie Kirk. When you are told by a friend that he was a hate-mongerer and intentional provocateur who makes them feel unsafe, what is your knee-jerk response? Is it to say that his most controversial quotes are taken out of context and that he worked hard to give discussion space to those who disagreed with him? Or is it to express sympathy for that feeling of danger and ask for more information on what that’s like? The former negates your friend’s lived experience, the latter gives room to learn from it. Which is our impulse to think and do? 

Many such examples, which represent a hardening of our dividing lines rather than an opportunity for true human interaction and perspective-enhancing. What choices will we make to put ourselves in places where we can physically interact with people different from us? And what will we do with those opportunities? Or are such engagements not important to us, even something to run from?