When I disagree with you, it is my moral responsibility to call out your misdeeds and misconceptions. When you disagree with me, you are attacking me and putting my safety at risk. Or so it seems the world works today.

As the survey by the Brookings Institution showed, 51% of college and university students consider it acceptable to stop a speaker from delivering their presentation if they disagree with it. In fact, 19% said it is acceptable to use violence to do so.

It seems that we feel it is unsafe to listen to someone who has different opinions from our own. This can be seen in politics. Politicians often say that the ideas of their opponents are “dangerous.” Often they say it not only about the idea but about the person. It is not enough to disagree; they need to point out how dangerous someone with a different opinion is.

Opinions And Free Speech

In 2022, MIT faculty adopted a Free Expression Statement, which states, “Free expression is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition of a diverse and inclusive community. We cannot have a truly free community of expression if some perspectives can be heard and others cannot. Learning from a diversity of viewpoints, and from the deliberation, debate, and dissent that accompany them, are essential ingredients of academic excellence…”

Democracy allows for diverse opinions to be shared. In fact, it requires it. If you stop listening to opinions different from yours, you are actually acting undemocratically. You are isolating yourself in your own narrow world, believing your propaganda, so-called alternative facts. Not listening to your opponents works against democracy and against freedom.

This is especially visible in the online world of social media. You can’t expect any civility or decent conversation on social networks. People tend to like, share, or tweet short blurbs that often have little to do with reality and that lead to extreme views and a polarized society full of distrust, hate, and fear.

Person And Persona

In You’re Not Listening, Kate Murphy suggests that you learn to distinguish between the person and the persona. Let’s say that I’m wearing a T-shirt with “geek” written on it. You may immediately categorize me as a nerd, and you may reach into your memory to recall the other characteristics of geeks and nerds, feeling that you know me. You don’t. What you see is what I’m signaling to the world, a persona. You know nothing about me as a person. All you do is make a bunch of assumptions. You need to start listening to me to get to know me.

Signaling our persona or group affiliation, such as being a geek, goth, punk, liberal, democrat, republican, or sports club fan, is a shortcut to show who we belong to and to feel we belong. Unfortunately, this shortcut then leads to the polarization of society. We don’t see any shades of grey. We may believe that everyone associated with a specific group is the same. Only when we take the time to talk to people and truly listen do we discover that, regardless of the persona someone is presenting, they are a much more complex person deep down.

Media Influence

Social media has exacerbated this problem. We don’t need to talk to a person and listen to what they are saying. We can simply look at the social media posts they liked or reshared, and again, we can categorize them and believe we know them.

How media and social media, in particular, create our view of the world and how we let them, can be easily seen in an example that you see many times a week. Imagine an online poll of 10 seniors, of whom 80% support vaccination. What do you think the title of the story would be? “Elderly support vaccination!” That is the gist of the story. The results. The details of how the survey was conducted, the number of participants, and whether it was a representative sample are all less interesting.

Your summary of the study would be the same if the sample size were 10 or 10,000 participants. Very few of us would attempt to understand where the statement originates and how the study was performed. We care more about the title of the story than about the source of the story. And yet, without this in-depth background information, the information is rather useless and possibly even misleading.

Adopt The Mindset Of A Scientist

In Think Again, Adam Grant suggests thinking and acting like fact-checkers. It requires questioning information as we receive it rather than just consuming it. It means rejecting popularity and status as a proxy for reliability. It requires an understanding that the messenger is often not the source of information. This approach leads to critical thinking.

According to Philip E. Tetlock, a professor and a political science writer, we assume one of several personas when we think and talk. We can get into the mindset of a theologian, prosecutor, or politician. In each of them, we change how we think, communicate, and approach the world. We become preachers when our beliefs are attacked. We become prosecutors when we see flawed thinking in others. And we become politicians when we are trying to win others over. The problem with all these personas is that they don’t allow for rethinking our own position.

Adam Grant suggests that we need a persona of a scientist. In the scientific mindset, we would reexamine the facts, and if they are reliable and don’t support our view, we would change our view rather than ignoring the facts. Scientists are taught to doubt everything they know about the world and be curious about new ideas. It is expected that you change your position if you discover something new that explains the world better.

To behave like a mature, responsible adult who believes in democracy and humanity, stop threatening others for their opinions and listen to them, even if you disagree. Think about what they are saying, consider its merits, and challenge your own points of view. Hate speech and calls to violence are the only times when you should stop listening.

---

What is your take on the topic? How do we nurture a society where people listen to each other? How do you make sure you hear diverse opinions? Do you even want to? What benefits it brings and what it takes away? Could you be a friend with someone who has different opinions from you, belongs to the opposing party, or a rival sports club?

Photo: Generated with Dall-E