Respectful dialogue is vanishing from American political life. There is, arguably, no more urgent question for American society today than how we can listen and talk with each other constructively — with less hostility and contempt.

I graduated from Yale College over 50 years ago, at a time when America was also bitterly divided by the struggle for civil rights and the war in Vietnam. Since then, my professional life has been largely devoted to helping family members talk together with greater openness and empathy and find solutions to difficult problems. To today’s students seeking alternatives to angry and unproductive political arguments, I would like to offer some advice: better conversations are possible, if we know how.

We should strive for dialogue, not debate. This distinction is often misunderstood. Debate is the antithesis of dialogue. The purpose of debate is to win an argument. In a dialogue, we are trying to learn from each other, and we acknowledge that someone else’s thinking may improve our own. We are looking to find new possibilities, not to change someone’s mind. You can’t win or lose a dialogue.

One of the best ways to begin a more constructive political discussion is to talk about someone’s life beyond politics. Listening to someone’s personal story is an affirmation of dignity — we communicate that their experience matters to us. Personal stories allow us to be influenced emotionally, to recognize, more deeply than we have before, that human problems are complex; and help us move away from oversimplification and certainty. We will then be able to make a gesture of empathy, to let someone know that their feelings and experiences are understandable, even if we disagree.  

In most political conversations, dialogue is only a first step — a necessary but not sufficient condition for coming closer together. The issues we care about have profound consequences for our lives, so we still need to argue and debate about them. We need to challenge our opponents, to point out facts they are not aware of and reasons — for or against — they have not thought of. But, in politics, as in families, it matters how we argue.  

We should express our opinions less often and, instead, express our concerns. This principle is more than a semantic difference. Emotionally and logically, concerns precede opinions. Once we have formed an opinion, some degree of hardening has already taken place. An opinion is a conclusion. When we argue about opinions, we are beginning at — what should be — the end.

We need to consider someone else’s ideas with greater charity and to regard our own with more humility. We should begin with personal humility — recognizing that others know more than we do, that there are perspectives we may not have considered, and that, in any specific instance, we might be wrong. True intellectual humility, however, demands more. Humility requires that we make a sustained effort to specify the limits of our opinions and beliefs. Whether we are liberal or conservative, we need to ask, where can we find a place for opposing priorities and concerns. Humility does not require that we change our beliefs, only that we recognize their limits.

We have now taken several steps away from ideology toward pragmatism. I am writing about pragmatism not as a political strategy, but in a meaning closer to its philosophical origin in the writings of William James — that truth is not found in abstract principles or beliefs, but in effects that can be observed. To change an ideological statement — a statement of conviction or belief — into a pragmatic question, we ask, “in what cases, under what conditions, to what extent.” The language of pragmatism is conditional, not absolute. 

Ideology imposes constraints on thought and problem solving. Ideology limits the problems we see, the stories we listen to and the solutions we are willing to consider. Pragmatism continues asking questions. Pragmatism requires a commitment to consider all the facts and a willingness to change our minds. Cherry-picking facts to support a desired, a priori conclusion is pseudoscientific and not pragmatism. 

I am not advocating humility and pragmatism as substitutes for ambitious policies and inspiring ideals. Dialogue is not a denial of malignant forces in our society and the need to contest powerful interests. Many problems of contemporary American life require ambitious, pragmatic solutions. 

Adherence to these principles is not easy. The temptation to engage in partisan debate is difficult to resist. In my experience, however, even small changes — gestures of empathy, appreciation of someone’s concerns and a beginning effort away from certainty toward pragmatism — almost always lead to some softening of our defensiveness and the harshness of our judgments, on both sides. In both politics and family relationships, small changes can have large effects. Our best conversations have the potential to set in motion a positive cycle of listening and understanding, with important benefits for our civic and our personal lives. We may, at times, lose hope about changing the hateful way our politicians often speak, but we can change the way we listen and speak with each other.

KENNETH BARISH, Yale Class of 1972, is Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill Cornell Medicine and author of “Bridging Our Political Divide: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Understand Each Other and Find Common Ground” (Routledge, 2024). In addition to his teaching and clinical practice, Dr. Barish plays jazz trumpet. His website is www.kennethbarish.com. He can be reached at kbarish280@gmail.com.