What to Do When You Hit a Roadblock While Talking Politics
One of the world’s foremost religious studies experts discusses how he overcomes those frustrating conversational dead-ends
Political conversation is all about walls. When you’re talking politics with someone who is on the other side of the ideological spectrum, you’re both feeling around for the inevitable barriers you’ll have to overcome. And we all encounter these walls in our daily lives: on Facebook, around the Thanksgiving table, in small talk with strangers.
From the liberal/progressive side, I know these walls very well. It’s hard to talk about gun responsibility, for instance, without the Second Amendment entering the conversation and shutting down any attempts to connect. It usually goes something like this:
Q: But couldn’t we make sure guns don’t fall in the hands of domestic abusers?
A: The Second Amendment says all Americans have the right to bear arms.
Q: Can’t we make sure it’s not ridiculously easy for someone to take hundreds of lives with the flick of a finger?
A: The Second Amendment says all Americans have the right to bear arms.
And so on. Once that wall is erected — once the unquestionable Second Amendment is thrown out there — it becomes insurmountable, and any attempt at discourse is impossible. The conversation usually becomes small, and rhetorical, and not useful in any real way.
Or consider the $15 minimum wage. In Seattle, proponents of the increased minimum wage were told repeatedly that we couldn’t raise the wage because the Market wouldn’t allow it. Never mind that other places have higher minimum wages. Never mind that the Market is made up of people, and people establish the economy — not the other way around. Once the Market gets tossed into the conversation, it becomes infallible, an obstacle that stops the conversation dead.
In many ways, these political conversations feel similar to conversations I’ve had with deeply religious people. They proceed up to a point, but once I ask a question that counters someone’s faith, the discussion is more or less over. Everyone has limits—we all are only willing to go so far in a conversation—and when someone runs into the walls you’ve established, your tendency is not to go further, but rather to retreat.
Is there any way to move around these walls? Can we talk over them? Find ways through? Does the conversation have to end with a collision every time?
To explore that idea, I talked with Reza Aslan. Aslan is one of the world’s foremost religious experts, and his latest book — an astounding exploration of the history of the concept of God titled God: A Human History — is all about belief. For years, Aslan has examined the history of religion and faith and the conflicts that occur when beliefs clash. He was kind enough to chat with me about his book and the very real problem of conversational dead-ends. (For more from Aslan—including his thoughts on talking trees, why farming was a net negative for humanity, and much more—you can read a full transcript of our conversation at the Seattle Review of Books.)
When I talk about walls, Aslan told me, “essentially, you’re talking about two different perspectives, two different points of view. And often it’s not that you are arguing over the merits of some kind of point, but what you’re really doing is talking about two different ways of seeing the world.”
It’s impossible for any two people to see the world in exactly the same light, he explained, “and so those kinds of conflicts sometimes come naturally.” They’re not an aberration, in other words—they’re a normal part of any human interaction.
Aslan encounters these schisms all the time in his work, and when that happens, he tries “to reframe the conversation and to redefine certain terms.” Early in our conversation, he pointed out, I referred to myself as an atheist. Aslan says he interprets that to mean that I don’t believe in God. “But I do think that in order to actually have a conversation with you, we’d have to first talk about what you even mean by God, because it’s very likely that your definition of God and my definition of God are vastly different from each other.”
By stepping back and examining the terms we use to communicate, he said, “that understanding would mean that you and I perhaps are much closer in our points of view than we actually thought that we were.”
In conversations about faith, Aslan says, “we have this weird perception that we all mean the same thing when we use this most complex of words.” But he finds the arguments that arise from those simple understandings can “dissipate once we start with this fundamental question of ‘what do you mean? What is your perspective?’”
Aslan concluded, “I do think that at the very least coming to an understanding of these things is a good way to start a conversation between people.”
This is all an inexact science. There’s no one sure-fire way to convince every single person that you’re right. But it seems to me that Aslan has struck onto something very important here. The next time you’re in a holiday conversation with that cousin who doesn’t see things your way, maybe take a step back. Say he starts talking about the Second Amendment. Ask him why the Second Amendment exists — what the point of it is.
If you can find a common ground — in the example I just laid out, an understanding that all Americans should be safe — then you’ve got a foundation. And on that foundation, you can build something together. A good conversation is never an act of destruction; it’s always an act of creation. As one of the world’s leading experts on the history and practice of faith, Aslan believes that before we can discuss our beliefs, we have to agree on our most basic definitions.
