Is curiosity a practice you can get better at? Advice from a true expert on asking questions

One of the clearest signs of hardening cultural hostilities in America today is people on different sides of many issues showing less openness and curiosity to hear and consider anything beyond what they already know.

As a people, we have become “increasingly not interested in talking to people with whom we don’t agree,” writes New York Times bestselling author Sherry Turkle. “It’s hard to run a family, a school or a democracy that way.”

A return to “basic curiosity” about others’ thoughts and feelings is what this MIT professor prescribes as a “starting point.” Commentator Angel Eduardo agrees: “Curiosity is how we un-divide.”

Could unvarnished curiosity make that much of a difference in our seemingly intractable national problems?

Mónica Guzmán sure thinks so. This Seattle local has spent nearly 20 years listening to people deeply as a journalist and bridge-builder, in what she calls “one big, evolving experiment on how we can better understand each other.”

Her 2022 book, “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times,” was selected as a Greater Good Science Center “Favorite Book of the Year” for 2022, while making the U.S. News’ “10 Books to Read Before College” list too.

Although wading directly into trying to understand strong disagreement was challenging many times — starting with her Trump-supporting immigrant parents, as a liberal-leaning immigrant herself — she also admits, “it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”

And effective too, she believes. “Nothing busts through the walls we’ve built between us like a question so genuine and perceptive it cannot be denied,” Guzmán suggests, admitting that this is “a bit of a rebellious act these days.”

But if Guzmán has arrived at one conviction in all her work, it’s that “the barriers between us are lower than we think” — describing her aim as helping people become “one level more curious” about those who disagree with them.

Rather than a luxury hobby or secondary concern, it’s fair to say there is some urgency to her call. Without a healthy space between us, little else matters, since learning and understanding will cease, along with accomplishing anything together. So much is dependent on the space between us being healthy.

Like the great Christian virtues, Guzmán believes curiosity is a practice you can work on, get better at and create life conditions that nurture it. Are you ready to practice some more of this yourself?

Deseret News is partnering in the four months leading up to the election with the “A Braver Way” podcast that Guzmán leads for Braver Angels and KUOW, a National Public Radio member station in Seattle, Washington.

We’ll be exploring what the podcast is sharing with our readers and highlighting valuable insights especially relevant to the concerns so many have today about political tensions. Together, we’ll be helping people bridge political divides and overcome barriers in creative, generous ways.

We asked Guzmán a few questions about her work, to get to know her better, in advance of this media partnership launching and with their podcast’s Season 2 launching this Tuesday.

Deseret News: In the third episode of “A Braver Way,” you tell us that your Mexican immigrant parents voted for Trump. You didn’t. Yet you still talk about politics and enjoy each other. Speaking for all the families who are struggling to enjoy relationships where these kinds of disagreements exist, pray tell, what’s your secret sauce as a family?

Mónica Guzmán: Oh it’s definitely not easy, and takes every ounce of self-awareness in the moment not to do the kinds of things that make conversations spiral downward. … “How could my own mother think like that?!”

But even when we do slip — and this is important — it’s not the end. There are ways to fix it, right then and there (or later), with a follow-up or an apology. “I went too far back there and I’m sorry.”

In addition, I’d say curiosity is key. This is not just an open-eyed wonder about what the other person thinks and why. It’s a lack of judgment for the sake of more effective learning. It’s a pause on fear, because you’re getting a chance to explore the thing you’ve maybe assumed is scary, and correcting your projections with more truth.

Curiosity also involves patience. Because oh my goodness, we often have so little of it, sometimes especially for the people we love most! It’s asking one more question before jumping in with your opinion. It’s understanding that you’re not going to get to the bottom of your differences on major questions in one conversation.

DN: The stories you share in the podcast illustrate well how existential and deeply emotional many Americans feel about political issues today. When everything feels so life and death, is it fair to think Americans will be able to genuinely practice curiosity and seek deeper understanding? After all, in fight or flight mode, it’s hard to do anything but scramble to survive.

MG: The truth is, in some moments, speaking with some people, about some topics, each one of us is going to find ourselves in that place where curiosity may not be so possible. Daryl Davis is a Black blues musician who’s become famous for deeply hearing more than 200 card-carrying white supremacists in a way that shifted their views. Yet my friend Baratunde Thurston, the featured guest in our second main episode this season, who is also Black, drew a line for himself that “talking with people in the Ku Klux Klan is going to do more to me than for me.”

The key, I think, is to not fall into the trap of drawing hard lines on all topics that last forever. For instance, maybe right now, if you’re planning to vote for Trump, you can’t talk about Biden’s age or the major problems you see with his presidency with that person who’s planning to vote for Biden. But maybe you can talk about it with that other Biden voter you know. Or maybe you can talk about something like that for just a moment. Or maybe you’re not in the right place for it now, but could be later.

As I like to say, the most important thing to do with a bridge isn’t to cross it. It’s to keep it.

DN: Many others are feeling so tired and disillusioned by politics they struggle to have any energy to talk, let alone vote. What would you say to weary hearts like this?

MG: I’ll say the thing you’re not supposed to say: Disagreement can be fun. We’ve forgotten this! But the fact is, in a conversation that breaks tension with quick moments of laughter, that mixes positive feelings with the negative, that starts to build some respect and trust (even just a little!), you can actually enjoy the process of sparring with someone else while learning not just about their views but your own.

I’ll admit, all this weariness can contribute for any of us to a kind of throw-up-your-hands disengagement with all parts of civic life, including voting. So many people are disillusioned by this election. Why even bother? But we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture. This election is not just about the two candidates. It’s about us. All of us. And the experiment of a society we’ve spent almost 250 years building together. We are still building it — we forget that too! — and it’s supposed to be messy. Let’s not give up.

DN: You tell the story in your book of a family in Knoxville, Tennessee, where the mother begged her grown children, “Can’t we just have a nice family dinner?” Yet political conflict inevitably exploded, leading some to storm off, others to leave early and others left weeping. Can we really blame people who’ve experienced something like this for thinking these discussions are impossible and it’s easier to avoid the topics (or the people) entirely?

MG: Not at all. For a lot of families, it works to follow that rule “Let’s not talk about politics.” It keeps the peace, everyone’s happy, and maybe they’ll find their healthy doses of friction somewhere else.

But for many other families, not talking about politics can have unintended consequence, such as slowly eroding the bonds that hold any relationship together. I’m thinking of one woman in the Midwest who told me about her father telling her that, due to the contentiousness of their political disagreements, he would no longer talk politics with her.

At first, to her, it seemed like a good move. But over time, she realized something. Certain political issues were so tied in with things she valued and cared for, that her father saying, “Let’s not talk about politics” amounted to him essentially saying, “Let’s not talk about you.”

She brought up this dilemma to her father eventually. They talked about it and figured out a way to balance her dad’s need for stability in their discussions with her need to be known by him.

DN: You describe “falling in love” with what you could learn in these conversations — what you call the “unpredictable meeting of minds where individuals with wildly different lives can surprise, delight, and ultimately learn from each other.” You also mention feeling so “stunned, giddy, or broken” in some of these conversations that you “couldn’t hide it.”

It strikes us, Mónica, the sweet emotional intimacy that seems to be involved here — and makes us wonder if one of the solutions to our loneliness epidemic lies in untapped relationships with these many political opposites spread throughout our lives?

MG: I think it absolutely does. I know it’s counterintuitive. The last thing many of us might naturally want is to explore the lives and hearts of people who disagree with us on things that matter most to us — people that seem just so wrong in so many ways.

But here’s the thing. That very moment when you encounter someone who is truly different from you is really a great shot at connection — the “sweet intimacy” that so many of us long for.

Every conversation is also a mirror — an opportunity to get to know not just another person, but yourself more deeply. Solitude is not the same thing as loneliness. It’s being alone and at peace.

DN: You tell another story of a grandfather reaching out to you after his son told him he didn’t want him in his life anymore, afraid he might indoctrinate his kids. Your own father also told you, “I’ve heard that some people who don’t share their parents’ politics ... they stop letting them see their grandkids. And I’ve wondered if that’ll ever happen to us.”

You didn’t hesitate. “Never. That’ll never happen, Dad. That’ll never, ever happen to us.” Other children aren’t so certain. Why are hardened boundaries not usually the answer in situations like this?

MG: Sometimes hard boundaries feel important for a time because it’s gotten just that painful, just that desperate. We need our peace and our freedom, and sometimes we simply don’t have the resources to hang on in relationships whose struggles consume us.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t discover a healthier and happier connection, over time. It doesn’t mean we can’t go away and come back, go away and come back. … I have a good friend who is progressive, gay and agnostic and moved to Seattle from Alabama in part to find space away from her family, due to deep disagreements over what it means to be authentic to self and faithful to God.

But she has not broken the bond entirely, and while that’s been hard, it gives her hope. One time, she took a road trip with her sister that felt like a breakthrough. Another time, she canceled a trip home for a family wedding because a relationship had once again gotten too strained to withstand. Through tears, she told me the hole in her heart for her family means she’s decided to accept the pain. “I’ll never stop trying,” she said.

DN: Thanks for sharing so many powerful insights, Mónica. Overall, you don’t seem to be doom and gloom in your book or podcast when it comes to America’s future. Why not? Is there something about this work of deep listening and bridge-building that you think leaves you feeling more encouraged about humanity?

MG: Oh yes. Let me give you one example. Next week, we’re going to release an episode featuring voices from America’s largest cross-partisan watch party, from last week’s otherwise dispiriting presidential debate. There were hundreds of people in that room in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a structure designed by my colleagues at Braver Angels to help them share exactly what they felt and thought as they watched that debate — even in a room that was evenly split between liberals and conservatives (and many independents).

People in that room were just as disillusioned watching the debate as so many people across the country were. But because there was a chance to share their disillusionment more openly, because people could see it in each other’s faces and hear it in each other’s words, whether they were planning to vote for Biden, Trump or RFK Jr. ... there was this strange and wonderful kind of hope. It’s like, we could see the bigger picture, because we weren’t just huddled up with people on our own “team,” giving the same partisan reactions as ever.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt as hopeful as I did in that room, after that debate, hearing person after person talk about how awful it was … then seeing them smile, in awe of the power they realized we actually do have to come together and do something to change it.

DN: Wow. “A strange and wonderful kind of hope” — more of us could use a dose of that right now!

Speaking of which, like many others in America, many people of faith are now convinced they are combatants in a spiritual-culture war against the other political party — seeing their chosen party as occupying an enlightened role against this “one big enemy” to fight on the other side of the political spectrum. What would you say these folks are missing?

MG: More often than not, you’ll find a surer path to the change you want by questioning who you think of as the “enemy” than by waging war against them.

After hearing one well-known bridge-builder, John Powell, talk about the benefits of this kind of work, a concerned pastor asked him a question: “Are you asking me to bridge with the devil?”

“Maybe don’t start there,” Powell answered, encouraging the pastor to start with someone who believes something different, but doesn’t seem all that awful. After more conversations with people who disagree like this in less extreme ways, he explained, “You may ask yourself who you’re calling the devil.”

DN: In Episode 4 from last season, you talked to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who created the campaign “Disagree Better” to encourage healthier disagreement. Referring to the governor’s theme, one online commenter we observed during the Utah governor debate stated, “Disagree better is code for ‘give Dems what they want.’”

What do you say to those who have come to see calls for more generous political engagement as weakness that opens us to threats from the other side?

MG: It’s one of the biggest myths out there. The belief that bridging is naive. That curiosity is resignation. That the only sane response to this insane world is to stay aggressive in declaring your answer to be the best answer and the only answer, and that you have nothing to learn from those who stand in your way.

That could not be further from the truth. What is saner than humility in such a complex and evolving world? What is more rational than openness, when we are so often limited to what we can directly see through one set of our eyes — our own? I can pretend to have all the answers, but I never will. So, why lie? Where is the strength in that kind of deception?

If we’re truly here to build a society where all people have a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” we can only do that by leaning on and learning from each other. Even and especially when it’s hard.

DN: We’re excited to be partnering with the “A Braver Way” podcast in the months leading up to the election, Mónica. Is there anything else you’d like to add or point out?

MG: Only that underneath the anger and anxiety that’s out there around this election is such a deep need, from so many, to be heard and understood. If we get curious about where people are coming from, there is so much power and possibility there, if you know where to look.

Thrilled to be partnering with you in exploring this all. Stay curious!