I try to live by a simple rule: have conversations with everyone, especially people who hold different experiences and perspectives. I find these conversations to be the most exciting and unique I get to have. Wisdom exists in all perspectives, no matter how you feel about it.
This was not a natural habit for me throughout my life. My wife has regularly chastised me for the unconscious face of disgust I would make when someone would make a comment I found dumb. Being able to rest in my curiosity was a muscle I had to train.
The crucial part of this life philosophy is to avoid arguing. Avoid the egoic need to correct or show your superior knowledge. Be curious. Ask open-ended questions. And, seriously, do not argue with them. That ruins all the fun.
On a recent trip to LA, I had an Uber driver who fit into the vast differences in perspective category. Right after I hopped in, he mentioned he left his job in 2020 to pursue “social justice.”
The conversation hung in the air for a moment, frozen. I hadn’t responded and he didn’t ask me a question. The conversation could’ve ended there. Instead, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to interview a real-life social justice warrior in the flesh, so I dove in.
"I asked, "What does social justice mean to you?"
My one question began an hour-long conversation about his perspectives and life experiences, which I’ve only encountered in online discourse. I learned that he’s an abolitionist, someone who doesn’t believe in prisons.
He has two brothers serving life sentences.
He believes the main reason for the financial success of America is slavery. He shared with me how capitalism is an evil system that needs to be replaced.
We discussed his views on spirituality and religion. He described his ideas for alternative ways of organizing society to me. Although I disagree with and even fear many of his radical ideologies, we never once argued about their validity.
After I left the Uber, I realized I’d never had a conversation with someone who held these worldviews. Typically, I find these people rage-posting on X. When I encounter these conversations, they’re filled with venom, and I never leave feeling better about the world. Here, I felt enriched by having had the conversation even though I still do not encourage or believe in the same ideals as my new friend.
I won’t convince this person to uproot their perspective, which they’ve created an entire identity around, in one conversation. However, maybe I planted some seeds in his mind so that he’s more open to seeing a broader perspective because of our conversation.
There’s an art to having a conversation like this. For one, I agree and disagree with much of what he shared.
His brothers are serving life sentences because of the three-strikes policy. Three convictions, and your sentence gets increased to life. It’s a blunt-force policy that leaves little room for rehabilitation.
Except I don’t believe the answer is to remove all prisons. My interest in the conversation was never to convince or argue. Instead, I just kept asking questions, asking him to explain why he believes what he does and how he sees solutions to the problems he’s describing. It appeared that I was one of the first people ever to ask him many of these questions.
He told me he believes that hyper-local communities would best handle crime and punishment. So, I asked him, “What’s going to bind these communities together?” He told me he’d never thought of that question before. So he had no answer.
Maybe that means he will ask his friends what they think the answer is. Or, perhaps he’ll be open to other perspectives in the future after realizing this lapse in thought.
When we talked about capitalism, he spoke of all of the evils of capitalism. So, I asked him if he had air conditioning, electricity, refrigeration, a dishwasher, a cell phone, and all the other modern innovations our lives depend on. Of course, he did. And again, he had never connected the two.
There’s no benefit to strong-arming someone who holds radical perspectives, especially in one conversation. A popular book on negotiation called "Never Split the Difference " was written by a former FBI hostage negotiator. In the book, he shares his simple strategy for each of his negotiations, asking open-ended questions and active listening. A conversation like this shares more in common with a hostage negotiation than a chat with friends, which is something to consider.
Stay Curious,
-Jared
Fascinating Jared. Thanks for sharing that.
Thanks for reading! It was quite the interesting conversation to say the least.