 Well, welcome to the show, Kurt, great to have you. Thank you. Yeah, great to be here. I was laughing with Johnny when we were talking about Prep for the Show that we haven't had a moral psychologist on the show in a very long time. So tell us a little bit about your background and how that became an interest of yours. I mean, I think everyone is in their hearts of moral psychologists because we all think about questions of right or wrong. What's the right thing to do in a situation? I mean, if you go on Reddit, am I the asshole is a is a huge subreddit, right? People want to know, like, are you doing good things or bad things? And so I got into it kind of obliquely through my interest in how to make sense of the minds of other people, you know? So if you look at your pets, you might think there's a rich mind there. Maybe other people disagree with you, right? And depending on the kind of mind you see in something that dictates whether you treat it morally or not. And so that's kind of how I got into it. But now I'm kind of more broadly interested in how we make sense of, you know, the good and the evil of our actions. Yeah. And I think a lot of us right now are really focused on what's going on in our peer group around fraying of relationships. So there's been a rise in loneliness. We've talked about on the show and also some distrust zone and throughout media around the other side and where maybe people's moralities might come in conflict with ours. And I know a lot of your work is around polarization. And for us, when we talk about building relationships, I think we try to avoid that topic. We haven't really covered politics on the show for various reasons. Maybe our audience might know a little bit of our leanings. But for the most part, we've recognized that building relationships should not just be predicated on what your political leanings are. We should be able to connect with everyone. So what can you tell us about this rise of polarization that we're seeing and maybe the science that you've studied around what's going on and what we're all feeling currently? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Everyone knows that it's worse than it's been. And it's one of the politics and religion kind of things you're supposed to avoid at the dinner conversation. And I study both of those things. And I think there's lots of reasons that people have talked about for rising polarization. Our neighborhoods are more segregated now. So you're less likely to actually have to interact with someone on the other side on a day-to-day basis. And so it's easier to think of them in your mind as someone who's evil and other and different. We also have really separate media environments. So you can spend, you know, just as you can spend your days not bumping into someone on the other side, you can spend your entire time on the internet never being exposed to someone, you know, a news source on the other side that is in favor of it, right? Maybe you see like some gotcha tweets where look at this other person on the other side, they're idiots, right? But really genuinely engage with some idea that supports the other side is very rare. And so we're just kind of left in our echo chambers to demonize the other side instead of actually have to form relationships with them. Well, I definitely feel like it would be great if we just poked fun at idiots, but it's now added this layer of morality to it with good and evil and that being injected into the political language, I think has made polarization even worse for a lot of us when we think of the other person as morally completely wrong versus, oh, you know, maybe they're not thinking this through or maybe intellectually they haven't really been curious enough to understand what's going on. Absolutely. So I think political disagreement has always had some morality in it, but it used to be like, look, we agree on lots of things, but now we just disagree about this one particular policy. But now, you know, your entire identity is baked into left and right, and then you think of yourself as good, you think of the other side as evil. And in fact, we have some data that we just collected suggesting that people think that those on their side not only lack kind of like the right opinion on a hot button issue, like abortion or immigration, but they also think that let's say 20% of the other side thinks that adultery is okay or they're down with animal abuse. Like, you know, the basic moral judgments were like, people think that 15% of the other side thinks that child pornography is acceptable, which is insane, right? Because the actual answer is basically zero, but just these like caricatured perceptions of evil on the other side. And I know we were laughing internally here around algorithms and how much AI is now driving the content that we consume. But a lot of this outrage that's being generated is because that outrageous content tends to attract our interest and our attention long enough to tell the algorithm to give us more of it. And it just has created this caricature of the other side that is just so far as the science said from the truth. Like there's no way that 20% of the other side is pro-annibal abuse. Exactly, exactly. And it's exactly true, right? Like companies and the word that is in the biz is conflict entrepreneurs. So these are people who get rich off of people just getting angry and, you know, people get angry and then they donate money to their political campaigns and they click more and they buy things, right? So there's big business in getting people angry, but at the end of the day, people don't like being angry. And this report came out a little while ago that shows that the vast majority of Americans are part of something called the exhausted majority, which is basically like people don't really care about politics, you know, they're happy to get angry at someone who's extreme on the other side. But at the end of the day, everyone's tired and everyone just wants their country to work. And so it gives us misconception, right? The loudest voices kind of dominate the conversation, but for most of us, we don't even really want to talk about politics most of the time. Well, we've certainly been feeling it over the years. I know for AJ and I, I don't, it wasn't until around 20, I guess, I guess Trump getting elected where politics then had been forced on all of us and we're now having to deal with it. And as you mentioned, I think most of us don't want any part of this, don't want to get involved in this, but it is being forced on us. There's also an agenda to keep people squabbling and fighting, right? It's good for business. What had interested me is there are natural tendencies that are in our DNA that has allowed us to build civilizations and survive. And it is those basic nature mechanisms that allowed us to be here. I think there's a balance to it, right? So in religious or political situations, they're used to galvanize people, to get people together in order to create, in order to build, right? But that same mechanism can also be used to get people squabbling and fighting each other if there's not a reason to fear something outside. So for instance, in religion to galvanize people, to fear the unknown, to fear of evil, we need to galvanize together, work together in order to keep this out. So therefore, inside we're able to build these amazing things. But that same mechanism that galvanizes us can also be used to split us and fight each other. So I'd like to spend some time in your research of having an understanding of these internal mechanisms that are within us that are also used to exploit us. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a big question, right? The question of our human nature. So I think there are probably two things I would emphasize in what you just said. And one is that it's so easy for us to feel threatened. Well, would you say that it's easy for us because that's our default? Yeah, our default is feeling threatened. We like to think of humans as like apex predators, but that is not true. We didn't get there not being fearful. Humans are focused on threat, right? We're often always terrified. And although there's this narrative that we're apex predators, we're actually not. So I like to think of the movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he's like the toughest meanest dude. He's got huge guns. But the whole movie is about how Arnold Schwarzenegger is the prey, right? The predator is someone else. Like the toughest dude in the world is prey. And I think we evolved feeling like prey all the time. And so to deal with these feelings of threat, right? We're getting attacked. There's predators out there. We formed groups, right? And through groups, we can protect ourselves better and we can do the kind of things that you mentioned, which is like build great things, right? Really come together. But we're always worried about who's outside the group. And sometimes it's predators, but sometimes it's another group trying to destroy us and take what we have. And so I think that's the tension, right? We feel threatened, but now we're threatened of the other side, other people. And it obviously lends itself to politics. And if our default is fear, then we're constantly looking for allies. We're constantly looking for other people who are like us who share our views so that we can stave off that which we fear. Yeah, and we're always kind of focused on like, are you on my team or the other team? And especially like an election year where there's this like this real question of challenge and threat and conflict, that conflict becomes even stronger where it's like, are you the red or are you the blue? And if you're not the right one, then I don't like you. And it's hard to talk to someone who doesn't, who's like against you just because you're with some team. Yeah, and I think that what goes along with that is now because it's been forced upon us from all these other directions and we don't wanna talk about it, we're looking for even subtler signals to write the other person off and we're even faster to judge than actually engaging in conversation around these topics. Absolutely, and one kind of attribution for this behavior is like, we're aggressive. We're trying to like preemptively strike. But I think the real reason behind that and the motivation is that because we're afraid of getting aggressed against, right? We're afraid of getting dismissed. And so we, you know, preemptively, like you're afraid of intimacy in a sense, right? And so you won't get close to someone. And so this is like, well, you're afraid of like someone's gonna say like, you believe that, you're a terrible human being. And so you're gonna push someone away before you even have a chance to talk about politics. But when you do talk about politics, it's actually, it's usually not so bad, which I think is good to keep in mind. Yeah, and I think along with this aversion to even talking about it, it's allowed these caricatures to foment even further. So you talked about this exhaustion and that's also an outcome that those who are running these elections campaigns are trying to foment as well. Like they want their side to show up, they want the other side to be exhausted. We have to recognize that that's an outcome that they're actually looking for. Of you being tired, throwing your hands up and being like, I give up, I want nothing to do with it. I'm not gonna go to the polls. I'm not gonna submit a vote. I just want nothing to do with it. Especially the conflict entrepreneurs, right? Who are making money off of fear and off of anger. I think they're the folks who are like, look the moderate voices who wanna just say, let's just get a country that works. Let's try to find common ground and make policy. I mean, this has been the worst session of Congress ever in terms of how much they've accomplished, right? Because there's so much infighting. And so everyone wants Congress to do things, right? To make laws that help Americans. But they're not because there's so many people who are saying like, let's get angry at each other. And the people who are loudest are the angriest and everyone else, like I'm guessing the three of us who just want a country that works, like we're not out there yelling like, let's compromise. Right, because that's not something that sells. Yeah, and with that lack of compromise, there's then a version of events that gets pushed that the other side was purposely sabotaging compromise because maybe we've recognized one event in the past and then we use that lens to look at every event as a reason for them staving off compromise. And they are looking at us in the same way. Yeah, that's a great point. And it's actually backed up by some data. So this study came out not too long ago and it shows that every moral issue is a trade-off, right? So for everything that protects the fetuses, it kind of like does some kind of harm to women, you know, pregnant women or vice versa, right? Like there's always a trade-off or immigration, right? More open borders, more likely they have crime, right? There's always a balance, every policy. But this study found that you always think that the trade-offs that your side makes are regrettable, right? Like, oh, I understand that opening the borders will allow a little more crime in, but I think it's for the best. But you think the other side, when they make the same trade-offs, intend that harm. They're like, yeah, let's let criminals into America to destroy it, right? I mean, so again, it's this real asymmetry between like the morality that you think your side does and the morality that you think the other side does. And following along with that lens from earlier, the predator and the prey. So you may feel like you're the prey and the other side is the predator and not recognize that the other side is feeling exactly the same. They're feeling like the prey, hence they're taking the actions and behaviors of fighting off what they see in their eyes as a predator. Exactly, right, that's the root of it, right? And if it's kind of binary, right? It's binary. So if you think of you or your side as a prey, that's exactly right. You're adrenalized, you're running, you're panicked. And then to stop and think like, do they think I'm the predator? It's an impossible thought. The only common denominator there is noticing that everyone thinks the other person is after them, right? That you are the prey, perhaps we're all the prey. Exactly, it's hard to remember that when you think you're the victim in the slasher flick being chased through the woods. And like the other person also thinks that they're the victim, right? It's like, yeah, it's hard to reconcile with your experience. And now these threats are a much different level. So we've hijacked these ancient machinery in our mind that kept us safe from saber-toothed tigers, but now we actually fear our neighbor and their political leanings. And it's the same system that's been hijacked, but the threat level might, if you zoom out, feel completely different. Exactly, yeah, and it's not right, it's not your neighbor anymore because it turns out your neighbor is just like you, right? Because we self-segregate. It's some like mysterious other person who lives far away, who believes very different things, who wants to destroy your America. And we never actually have the chance to meet this person because if you did, you'd realize that they're a reasonable human being, right? They're a person just like you, instead it's some caricature on social media. And then if you think about what social media is, right? It's like something we're reading in bed or on the toilet, situations in which you're likely to get attacked by a predator, right? This is why animals look around before they use the bathroom because you're vulnerable and you're whipping out Twitter while you're on the can, like that, that's bad for your psychology. And then you've got all this social proof, right? You look to others to see if you should be afraid. And then everyone on social media is like, oh my goodness, it's terrible, it's terrible. And you're like, well, if all these other people are upset, I should be upset too. And this is one, two punch of terror, kind of every time you have a chance to learn about politics. And with this polarization, we haven't really touched on previously on the show why there's been this rise. What are some of the trends that you've recognized or that science has shown around this rise in polarization that we're so feeling at the moment? It's so clear to us, but I remember growing up having family members on the other side of the political divide and still having a great Thanksgiving together and having a spirited discussion at the table and my dad arguing with my uncle and then them hugging it out and us agreeing to see each other again on Christmas. Now it's a much different scene around the dinner table. Yeah, absolutely. So there are, there's some structural factors that political scientists would point out, right? Like the rise of the primary system gets you kind of more extreme candidates. The fact that the folks on Washington, they don't live in Washington anymore, they go back to their home district so they don't have to cooperate, right? So now we have politicians hating each other and really demonizing each other, right? So not just saying like this person disagrees with me on how we should get the work done, but now it's this person disagrees with me on, you know, core values or core harms. And that feeds down from politicians and media personalities to everyday people, right? They kind of, it's like the fashion of the day. And like, as you say, right now, the other side are not just well-meaning people whether they're fundamentally depraved and why would you have a conversation with someone who's not only evil, but who's gonna attack you kind of predator prey again, the first chance they get. So what can we do to start to build relationships, lower this threat level that we're feeling? What are your recommendations when it comes to actually communicating in a more effective and respectful way to build and foster connection versus this disconnect that we've all been feeling around the other side? Great question. And I think the first step is to recognize that our perceptions are misperceptions. So the other side doesn't hate you. The other side doesn't think that embezzlement and animal abuse is okay, right? We all have the same basic moral sense. And so you need to keep that in mind. In fact, we have some data that show that if you just remind someone, hey, you're gonna interact with someone on the other side. And guess what? They think embezzlement and animal abuse is wrong. You're like, oh, okay, that's cool. I'll have a better conversation with it. It seems insane that we're there, but like it's effective, right? So just recognize the other person has a basic moral compass and they don't hate you because if you think they hate you, then you hate them reactively. So that's the first step. The second step is before you talk about politics, like connect with someone as a human being. Don't just launch into politics, right? That's, you know, with any conversation, right? I mean, you guys know this, right? You have a whole podcast on like how to do this better, right? Like you're not gonna, hi, I'm Kurt. Like what do you think of Trump? That's a little aggressive, right? You could say, hi, like how was your day? Connect with someone about their fears, their hopes, their everyday concerns. And then once you build some rapport, then you can invite them to talk about, not force them. You're like, hey, I'm trying to understand your thoughts on this, right? And so the invitation coupled with this desire to understand is really what it's about, right? Like I took a cab ride to the airport a couple of months ago and the Uber driver, when I told him I was a professor who studied politics and morality, right? He's like, I'm immediately gonna tell you what I think about that stuff. And he said, he's like, I'm a Christian nationalist, but not the kind of Christian nationalist that you think. All right, I don't know what kind of Christian nationalists I think you are. So, but I said, well, why don't you tell me, right? I don't have a good sense of what kind of, what the varieties of Christian nationalists are. So please tell me. And once he knew that I was genuinely interested in understanding his positions, then he was really open and sharing his beliefs, sharing his personal experiences. And at the end of the cab ride, I still didn't agree with him, right? With his position, but I thanked him for sharing it. And I think he also kind of made some sense of what I was thinking. You brought up a very good point. We have these ideas, what the other side is. We are marketed their beliefs and ideas through media. Media works for somebody else, doesn't work for us. And so by asking somebody to explain their position, gives them the floor to be able to share with you who they really are and not the media's picture of who you are. And so that allows them to feel good that I'm now seen and heard for who I actually am. Now, when you said Christian nationalism, well, I'm sure everyone listening to this immediately got a picture of what that is that has been posted to them relentlessly for all of politics, at least for decades. For decades. But that picture is built to instill fear in other people. So having him explain that position and what that means to him is so helpful. I think also to go along with this, everyone at this point should be taking marketing one-on-one class in order to understand when you're being marketed to, to buy in, because here's the first thing that you are going to learn in marketing is that fear is the motivational driver in human beings. So that's what people are going to use. They beat us over the head with fear 24-7. So if I say I'm a Christian nationalist, well, you're gonna get the most scariest picture of what can be put together in order to keep you from connecting to that person. Because if we find commonalities in there, well, now we're working together and that doesn't work for the powers it be. And it doesn't work for, what did you call them, conflict entrepreneurs? Yeah, exactly. I think the other problem with this is because of that fear, it's hard for us to see the ration, it's hard for us to see the rationality that the other person used to become a Christian nationalist. And you can talk both sides of the gun issue, but when you actually get to, okay, well, now I'm a gun owner because I was threatened or my child was murdered or I had a neighbor get robbed in front of me and I now value self-protection more than I did in the past. That's a rational reason to end up there. But when we focus on just the fear that's being marketed to us, it creates an irrational version of who that gun rights activist is. And it takes away their agency, it takes away their logic and why their history matters and how they reach that point. And you hit right on what the data suggests too, right? Like if you're having a conversation with someone, it's only gonna go well if you see them as rational. And today we're bombarded with the talking points of media as you said, John, and you're just kind of repeating those. And those don't make you seem rational, right? Because you're just talking about something you've been put in the back of your head by media. But it turns out what is the key to making you seem rational is to communicating those personal experiences of threat that drive your moral convictions. So we actually did a study with the gun debate. And in one conversation, people had about the gun debate was like, look, this is why I believe in gun rights or gun control. And they threw some facts at the other side, like real facts, right? About like, well, guns injure so many people or guns protect so many people. Those conversations went very poorly. The conversations then went well were conversations where someone said, the reason that I own a gun as you suggested, right, is because I use it for self-defense or my mom used it for self-defense or I'm against guns because I knew someone who was killed in a mass shooting. And those stories make you seem rational because those stories seem truer than facts, right? Today we don't think facts are true anymore, but stories have this deep kind of like resonance with human nature. And so we're like, oh, you're rational for believing that because I believe your story. And it's one thing that we've experienced with our coaching clients that when we actually spend time together in person and start to share our stories, we hear the rationale for their views and we can recognize each other as having different political viewpoints. And they'll laugh to us and say, oh, I didn't know that about you by listening to your show. Well, we do that purposely because we know in this snapshot where you're just watching a video of me and maybe I'm saying a bumper sticker or I'm repairing something in the media, it's very easy for you to jump to that conclusion about all the other rational things about AJ or Johnny and their viewpoints. But when you actually start to share stories in person in building rapport and the backstory of who you are, well, those political lenses that come into the picture make a lot more sense. Absolutely. I was just giving a TEDx talk in Reno and one of the other speakers was an ex-Navy seal, retired Navy seal. And this guy's kids went to Christian school and he definitely owned a firearm, right, this man. But he saw danger in many more places than I did because he actually experienced it, right? He was fighting in Iraq. He had people trying to kill him on a daily basis. And so I very much respected his viewpoint of the world and his moral stance because they're grounded in an experience that was obviously real. And so it was a conversation that we had and it fostered respect instead of just saying, this other person. The other thing about that is to go along with what AJ was saying, one of the other things that we do in our programs is to make everyone get in tune with their core values and to make sure that during their days and throughout the weeks and months and years that they are engaging in those core values. When you have defined and understand what those core values are and you're engaging them, you begin speaking through them. And what you will also notice is because you are so intimate with your core values that you are speaking through them, you begin recognizing when other people are speaking through their core values, be it non-verbal body language and their behaviors or their verbal language, they're gonna be speaking through those core values. When that happens, people are able to easily connect the politics and religion bullshit comes later because we've already connected on creativity, humor, ceaseless learning, health. Well, all of those things are incredibly important to the human experience and now we can connect on those things and you might build something, put something together, go on a bunch of workouts, get training, get to your ideal weight, learn a brand new skill only to learn about somebody's politics that are completely separate than yours much later after the job has been done, after the task was complete. And then when you look at it that way, you're like, oh, well, that's my friend, Michael. He's a loon. I don't believe anything other than his political but that guy helped me do X or when it comes to creativity, we can work together all day long because that's what's important to us. And for AJ and I, we've been business partners for 17 years. And through that, we have learned about ourselves, learned about our political positions, have talked about spirituality and religion and through 17 years, those have shifted to both of us. However, because we believed in what we were doing and were focused on that result, though we were able to poke fun at each other, have some laughs at our political and religious experiences and learnings because we had something much bigger than those things to focus on. Absolutely. I mean, pick up two things you said there. So one, right, people are more than their values or sorry, people are more than their politics, right? They're like grounded in core values and I have a big family in Nebraska and they are evangelical conservative folks and different than the kind of like progressive professors that I usually hang out with. And I went to a funeral of my cousin who passed away sadly at the beginning of the year and we didn't talk about politics once through that entire visit, right? Cause I knew them, they knew me, we knew we loved each other, we cared for our cousin and through that weekend, we just reminisced about him and talked about all the great things about my cousin Jeff and it never came up, right? Because we knew each other and maybe if it had come up, we would have acknowledged the difference but it just wasn't important in that moment. And so it's exactly right, like our core values matter and communicating them. The other thing that you hit on that I think is really important to kind of emphasize is that you said your positions had changed over the time that you guys have worked together and people when they think of their own values, they think of them as sometimes, especially with politics as like never changing and having no kind of complexity or contradiction. That's ridiculous. Right? And so I work with some kind of practitioners who go into like really divided communities and one mechanism or strategy they use to kind of bridging divides is to encourage people to think inside themselves of tensions and contradictions they might have about particular issues, right? So you're like, look, I'm anti-immigration and you're like, well, you know, don't you know this person and aren't they an illegal immigrant? And, or if you're like, I'm pro-immigrant but like, what didn't this bad thing happen and what do you think about that? And, you know, weren't they an illegal immigrant and you recognize the tension within yourself and realize, you know, it's not so black and white and that allows you to kind of connect with someone else who might differ, right? It's now shades of gray instead of black and white. Yeah, I think, again, it comes back to core values. If you're a ceaseless learner and somebody who is addicted to growth and wanting to be the best that you could be, I do not see how you can't challenge yourself on religious, spirituality, politics because they are a part of life. You're not going to escape it. You're bombarded by it and you have to confront at some point, well, what is it that I believe here? And am I just going along to get along or am I actually digging in to understand how this relates to me and who I am? Well, there's a big blind spot there as well around the fact that even these politics are evolving. The Overton window is shifting. So what it meant to be a conservative or a Democrat 40 years ago is different than what it means now but yet we have this blind spot that it's fixed and that it's built on a solid foundation. So if I'm saying that, then my assumption is that that's always been the way it is for me. And then my assumption also goes to you, that you're fixed in your view and it's not evolving internally for you and maybe you're not feeling those internal contradictions. And I think that's difficult for us to really grapple with this blind spot that we have around how these views have shifted over time. That meaning is constantly changing and being redefined based on culturally what's evolving around us. Yeah, there's this amazing finding in science called the end of history effect. And everyone agrees that they've changed till now but right now they think is the end of history, right? They'll just be the same forever from now on and never change again. And I think that's exactly wrong, right? We change in all sorts of ways, right? There's new things we consider. We grow exactly. Now, the other blind spot with this is that we often view right now what's happening to us as the worst. And we don't think about the historical patterns and how this polarization has happened before maybe not directly in our lifetime but it's happened historically because this is hardwired in our DNA for survival that's just being hijacked in this scenario in this particular location in time. And it's happened to tribes at different parts of the world. Maybe they weren't consuming social media but there was tribalism, there was polarization, there was people not understanding the other person's side of this view but I think we have this blind spot around well it's the worst it's ever been right now and now I have to dig my heels in and fight harder than ever. Yeah, and it's not even that bad in America, right? Like we're like America is divided but if you compare America to other countries where there's ongoing civil wars It's not right like just because you give someone a dirty look if they're wearing the wrong color or wrong hat or wrong t-shirt or wrong bumper sticker right you're not gonna try to attack them but that happens in other places at other times so it's not so bad right now. And not to mention the overlap of views and values shared between both parties is much larger than we recognize because that's not where the media puts their focus and attention, right? So the only thing that's highlighted in the culture wars and in the political divides and the polarization is where there is difference in disagreement. You're not gonna sit there on social media and scroll through all the agreements that both sides have all the things that we both agree on in the world that we want to see we are only fed that sliver of the pie where there's clear disagreement that can be leveraged to keep us exhausted and at home or to keep us motivated to fight. Exactly, exactly. I think we agree on probably 99% of moral issues and the 1% that we disagree on we probably still agree about the underlying motivations there which is we wanna have a vibrant society we wanna protect the vulnerable and we wanna have a fair society for everybody, right? Like and then there's the trade-offs, right? But underlying those trade-offs is a common motivation. It's important to recognize that in a time where we're bombarded with a version of events that's completely opposite of that that the motivations are not aligned and in fact the motivations are they're the predator and we need to fight them off as the prey that's being attacked. So we have some work that kind of shows how those differences manifest between liberals and conservatives like their concerns about protecting the vulnerable and it might be useful just to kind of know as we're approaching this election season and what we show is that basically more progressive folks kind of amplify existing differences in vulnerability. So if you think of like let's say illegal immigrants people generally agree that they're more vulnerable to harm or trans folks or the environment, right? Like coral reefs, like they're more easily harmed than let's say corporate leaders or the police, right? So there's folks that are in the world a little more vulnerable to harm and in the world a little more powerful and less vulnerable to harm. Well, everyone agrees liberal conservatives that there's like general differences in vulnerability and so we all agreed about that but what progressives do is they amplify those differences, right? They see the people that are already vulnerable as super vulnerable and the people that are less vulnerable as super invulnerable. So like oppressed oppressor, right? This narrative about like someone can really be harmed and they're super vulnerable and this other person is an oppressor and they're totally invulnerable. On the other hand, conservative folks they're more likely to dampen these differences in vulnerability and see everyone as more or less equally vulnerable to harm. And so this gives some kind of insight into a lot of issues like black lives matter versus all lives matter, right? Black lives matter is like black folks much more vulnerable than the police and even conservatives would say like a homeless black person is more vulnerable than the police to start with but conservatives are more likely to say but everyone can be victimized in an individual sense which I also think progressives generally agree, right? So we agree with both of these things but it's just the kind of extremity, right? Of these positions, right? Amplifying or dampening these differences. Well, and then to go along with that if the data doesn't match those narratives well, let's paint a picture that goes along with our narrative and ignore the data both sides to it. Absolutely. And then who they choose to fall into those roles? Like where they choose to focus and put their spotlight on to again, motivate us to take action differs greatly. So there might be a view that well, the police are under attack based on all of this violence that I'm seeing towards police that's being consumed in media. And then the flip side is like, no, actually the police are the ones who are doing the attacking and we need to support the people that they're attacking and then we're not looking at the data and the numbers or just looking at the stories because we're driven by story. So the narratives that are being painted on either side and we have to recognize that oftentimes a lot of the shifting that happens in us is not because we're confronted with new data. It's not because someone then says, hey, you have this story but look at this data. Look at this cool chart that I made of all the data that proves your story wrong. We're actually motivated by another more powerful story coming along that allows us to shift that perspective in line with the data that we're seeing. Absolutely. And we don't think of the thousands of stories where we all fully agree, right? Most police officers good at putting their life on the line protecting ourselves, right? People from marginalized groups, right? Working hard to try to like make their way through life and struggling more than folks who are maybe in less marginalized groups, right? So we generally agree on all of those things, right? But those stories that like hit those kind of like hot button issues against each other one way or the other that you said, those are the stories that animate outrage. Often two perspectives of the same event. And I think that's what's so troubling is you can pick any event and based on the media you consume, it will share a perspective that aligns with your values and what you think the world is happening. And you'll see a view on the other side where their media aligns with their perspective completely. And then we're at this complete roadblock around what this event actually was and how we're supposed to move forward from this event. Just on this last bit, could we summarize? We got a little off track to summarize how people can rise above this and connect. So we started with one just learning about the other person. So if you want to pick up there, Kurt and then we can summarize that for our audience. Yeah, you bet. So right, the motivation to understand is powerful, right? And even more than that, letting people know that you're trying to understand is powerful, right? This is why I can have so many conversations with Christian nationalists, with self-described communists, with millionaires who are staunchly libertarian. I can talk to all these folks because I want to understand what they think. I want to understand what makes them tick. What are their core values, as you mentioned, right? And what's the kind of tensions that they see? And so this kind of connection understanding is key. And then I think the second point is the invitation to share, which is kind of part of that, right? Like, please like help me understand instead of be like, well, what do you think about, right? Like those are very different things to say. And then I guess the third one is like once, and we frequently miss this too, I think. So we connect and then we invite and then third, we want to validate their feelings, right? Because people are threatened, right? I just told you something deep about what I believe in my convictions and the experiences that I have that underlie those convictions. And now I'm worried you're gonna attack me. And so I think what you need to say is not you change my mind, because that seldom happens, but I think you just say like, thank you for sharing. I understand how you could feel threatened in that situation, and it makes sense why you believe what you believe, right? Like just acknowledge their rationality and the genuineness of their concerns. So connect, invite and validate or the kind of civil understanding, right? Civic engagement. So those three things together I think are good tips. One of the things that our clients struggle with and frustration around is this validation can feel to them that there's agreement. So how do you validate someone who has a completely different viewpoint and perspective than you without agreeing with them? Yeah, it's tough, right? And I just, I want to reiterate, right? Like it's so, it seems so hard to have a conversation when all the forces are kind of saying like they hate you, don't talk to them, right? But it's actually not that hard, right? Like it feels hard, but you can just be like, you know, making a new friend and you go up to someone like, oh, I'm guessing you don't necessarily agree with what I'm thinking, but I would really love to hear your views. And then right, as you say, you have to validate them. And how does that seem like not disagreement or as I've written about a little, sometimes it seems like betrayal. You're betraying your side if you give any quarter to the other side. And I think what you can do in that situation is first validate your own self before you validate someone else, right? You can tell yourself, look, it's not betrayal to have a conversation. You can even tell them in the conversation, right? Like, oh, thank you so much for sharing. I have to admit, I've got a different perspective, right? Acknowledges, they haven't changed your view, you don't agree with them, but I really appreciate you having the courage to share your thoughts of me, especially today when everyone's so angry. And I'm trying to understand. And so you ask follow-up questions, right? These are just like general, how to make friends advice, right? Asking follow-up questions. You said this, can you help me understand that more? And then once you validated, then you have a chance to talk about your thoughts and experiences, right? And that's another way that you can still feel like true to your convictions. You don't give up, but you do validate. Yeah, I love that. And I know in Johnny and my disagreements, it's often, okay, well, I'm curious, how did you arrive at that conclusion? Or what shifted your perspective on that? Because I thought in the past, you viewed it this way. Or, you know, that's interesting that you've evolved your position. What was it that allowed that to happen? And either he'll share a piece of media or a piece of data or a story or perspective or an experience that he had that really shifted his viewpoint. And I think that's the one thing that really unites all of us is the experiences and the emotions tied to those experiences. So maybe you didn't actually go through that traumatic event in particular around guns or around crime or around an encounter with the police, but you've been through traumatic events in your life and you can recognize how that would be totally shifting in your perspective and view of the world to have gone through that traumatic event. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you for stopping by. Johnny and I really enjoyed talking to you today. Where can our audience find out more about the work you do and that TEDx talk that you gave and Reno? Yeah, so the TEDx talk might not be up for a little while, but I have a sub stack newsletter. You can find it on sub stack or if you find me on Twitter, it's linked in my profile there. Beautiful, thank you for joining us, Craig. Great, thanks for having me.