The Secret to Disagreement Without Hate: Communication Skills Most People Have Lost

Into The Desert Ideas

Why is it so difficult to have meaningful conversations with people we disagree with? In an age of political polarization, social media outrage, and constant division, productive disagreement may be one of the most important skills we can develop.  In this episode of Into the Desert, we explore how thoughtful dialogue can bridge differences, reduce conflict, and help people find common ground—even when their beliefs seem worlds apart. Drawing from real-world examples, political debates, and personal experiences, we discuss why listening matters, how confirmation bias affects our thinking, and why consensus often produces better long-term outcomes than ideological victories.  Can a society survive if its citizens can no longer talk to one another? What happens when winning becomes more important than understanding? Join us as we examine the challenges of disagreement and the path toward healthier public discourse.  What do you think? Is it more important to defeat opposing ideas, or to understand the people who hold them? Share your thoughts in the comments below.  Purchase your copy of Seeking Truth by Elgin L. Hushbeck Jr. today:  https://amzn.to/3UCWnSS   Audible Version:  https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B399JRWY/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-310976&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_310976_rh_us  You're Probably Wrong (and So Am I) Purchase your copy of You're Probably Wrong (and So Am I) by Elgin L. Hushbeck today: https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Probably-Wrong-So-Am/dp/163199977X/ref=sr_1_1   Audible Version: TBD  Narration: Larissa Munz Image by pngtree.com  #ProductiveDisagreement #CivilDiscourse #PoliticalPolarization #CommunicationSkills #Debate #Consensus #Politics #Democracy #CriticalThinking #IntoTheDesert

Transcript

00:00America's entire power stems from the dollar's dominance across the world.

00:04So what I also advocate for is a neutral global reserve currency to denominate trade.

00:08So how do you think we can reform the global order?

00:11How do you think we should respond to this rupture in the global order?

00:15Change is always extremely difficult.

00:16And there's also the question of what do you change to?

00:19And you can say, okay, it's easy to always point out the flaws of the current system,

00:25but it's difficult to understand the flaws of what you're going to.

00:30How do you do that?

00:31The secret to productive disagreement.

00:34Welcome to Into the Desert, exploring the wilderness of ideas.

00:37Don't forget to hit those like and subscribe buttons.

00:40And we need your support.

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00:46Please become a fellow adventurer on Patreon and support this channel's mission of encouraging

00:51discussion, not division.

00:53The link is in the description.

00:58So Elgin, recently you were on Mission Underground podcast.

01:02And one of the things that I noticed in this podcast was that the host of the podcast had

01:08some very stark beliefs that I had a hard time agreeing with.

01:15There was a lot of bias in the questions that you were asked, and there was a lot of contradictions

01:21in his belief.

01:24And it was hard for me to even get through the questions, let alone listen to the whole podcast.

01:32But you handled it really, really well.

01:34You were able to have conversations where the host even agreed with you.

01:39And I thought that was really kind of interesting and something that I personally have not been able to do.

01:47How do you do that?

01:48How do you have conversations with someone you disagree with and not nitpick or point out all of the errors

01:58and just really be able to bring about a conversation?

02:04Well, it's not easy.

02:05We see that every day on the news where people are yelling back and forth to each other, calling people

02:10names.

02:11So it's not like it's a trivial thing to do.

02:13Quite frankly, it's something I've practiced my entire life.

02:18I look for conversations with people I disagree with.

02:22And one of the big things is I listen.

02:24Because even when I disagree with someone completely, and I disagree with this host quite a bit, I still learn

02:32things.

02:33If nothing else, I learn what they think and how they view the world.

02:37And that was kind of an important thing in this discussion because I'm from America.

02:42He's from England.

02:43He looks like he's – I believe he's from either Pakistan or India or – so originally.

02:50But he's British now and podcasting out of Britain.

02:54And so it's a non-American point of view, clearly was.

02:59In fact, one of the things he believes is he believes the American empire, as he calls it, is one

03:04of the biggest destructive forces in the world.

03:06So there's not a lot of room that we were going to have for agreement initially.

03:14But one of the big things I do when I do this is I don't focus on our disagreements.

03:20I actively look for underlying principles or things that we actually can agree on.

03:27And so one of the things I would do is I would revert back to, well, here's how I view

03:34things and let him ask questions about that.

03:38And then sometimes I would – he would make a statement that I would disagree with and I wouldn't attack

03:42him.

03:44I would just give him a particular reason why I disagree.

03:48But that's not an easy skill to learn.

03:50So I know you mentioned that you talk to a lot of people.

03:53You seek out people who disagree with you.

03:56I'm assuming when you started, you were probably similar to me where they would make a statement and you'd want

04:01to point out all of the things that was wrong with that statement.

04:05And that obviously doesn't work building conversations.

04:09All that does is put them on the defensive and shuts down the conversation and now you're done.

04:14How do you – how do you learn?

04:17How do you have enough conversations that you can get past the, okay, maybe don't nitpick, let's redirect the question?

04:26Well, you do have to actively search them out.

04:30I mean, yeah, when I was much younger, I tended to go for the gotcha question or really try to

04:39undermine them totally.

04:40And eventually I realized that's just not a good strategy for having conversations.

04:48They would either get frustrated and leave or both of us would start yelling or something like that.

04:54And it just – it didn't go anywhere and I didn't learn anything.

04:59So I started looking for other ways to have conversations.

05:04And, yeah, it's hit or miss.

05:06There are people – I talk with people across the political spectrum.

05:09I talk with people across the spiritual spectrum.

05:14I talk with atheists.

05:16I talk with Christians, fundamentalists and liberal Christians.

05:22Some people wonder how I can talk to people like that.

05:24It's because I have certain fundamental presuppositions going in, which is one of them is that I'm not 100%

05:34right.

05:34I'm not the perfect font of knowledge.

05:37I have things I can learn.

05:40So when I go into a conversation, one of the things I want to learn is, you know, what is

05:46wrong with my beliefs?

05:47And so just by starting with that particular point of view, it's suddenly – you know, I'm no longer wanting

05:54to attack them.

05:55I'm wanting them actually to attack me.

05:58There are lots of times in my life where I thought I just had this absolutely killer argument that was

06:05just going to utterly devastate the opposition.

06:08And once I developed it and honed it and I was ready to go deploy my new, you know, rhetorical

06:14weapon, I would search for some innocent victim out there that I could, you know, on the other side that

06:20I could go in and I could just – here's this perfect argument and it's just going to destroy them.

06:26And eventually I would find somebody and I would lay out my argument and wait for them to crumble at

06:32my feet and then all of a sudden they go, yeah, but what about – and my whole argument crumbled.

06:41So I learned from things like that that it's best to be humble, it's best to not assume you know

06:50everything and see what they can teach you because your position may be right, but probably is not going to

07:01be 100% perfectly right.

07:02And so, you know, just a simple human nature, we are wired to be far better at picking out the

07:11problems with things we disagree with than things we agree with.

07:16So what I look to go – people and what I look to have discussions with people that are disagreeing,

07:23I'm kind of hoping they're going to point out problems in my argument.

07:28Seriously, I don't expect them after doing this for so many years, I don't expect them to completely show me

07:35I'm wrong.

07:36I'd be open to that if they could do it, but that's kind of unlikely at this point.

07:43But what they do show me is they show me things I'm missing, things I had not considered.

07:48And that's what I have the discussion for.

07:51And also, that's primary.

07:55Secondary is I'm hoping to enlighten them a bit and maybe give them some things to think about.

08:02I don't realistically expect them to change their mind, but maybe I'm going to say something that will cause them

08:11to think deeper and question a little bit about what they're doing and sort of take on the same attitude.

08:20Yeah.

08:21You know, you were talking about, you know, the silver bullet argument, so to speak.

08:25And, you know, you see that all the time.

08:28You see these clickbait YouTube videos where group A has argument with group B and destroys them.

08:36And, you know, the videos are kind of like, ooh, what's this argument?

08:40I want to see it.

08:41I want to watch it.

08:41And I always click on these videos and then I come away disappointed because, okay, yeah, they may have made

08:47a good argument.

08:48Sometimes they don't.

08:49Sometimes it's like, what was that?

08:51But there's many times where they make the argument, but they didn't change anybody's mind.

08:57They didn't destroy the person who disagreed with them.

09:03The other person's like, okay, I'm just going to walk away.

09:07And I'm always disappointed because I think we inherently think that there's a perfect, like, if you could just say

09:16the right argument, you would sway everybody.

09:19And I don't think that exists.

09:21I don't think that there is the ability to have a single argument that is cohesive to sway any opposition.

09:30Yeah.

09:31Well, when you're in, and this is one area I have an advantage because I have made significant changes in

09:38my beliefs over my years.

09:39I used to be an atheist.

09:41I used to attack Christians.

09:44You know, how could they believe in such a thing?

09:48And most of the Christians I would talk to had no idea how to handle the arguments I was using.

09:54But every once in a while I would come up to a Christian who actually had studied some of these

10:00things and were able to answer some of my points.

10:05And, you know, granted, I'm now a Christian.

10:07But I didn't go from atheist to Christian in a single discussion, right?

10:15That was something that took a long time and I had to do a lot of thinking.

10:20And there are many, many times where I was in an argument with somebody, a discussion, and they would say

10:29something that undermined my position.

10:31And, yeah, I would be silent and I would walk off, right, or the conversation would end somehow.

10:38But I would think about that.

10:40I would go home.

10:42I would, how do I answer that question?

10:45How come I didn't have a good reply?

10:47And in thinking through that, I ultimately reflected to the point that, well, I really can't use that argument anymore.

10:57And I have a Bible I used at the time.

10:59In the back of the Bible, I had written a whole bunch of Bible verses that had problems with them.

11:05And over time, that list of Bible verses got kind of crossed off to the point that there wasn't anything

11:11left.

11:13And that's how, you know, I view things.

11:16When you have a conversation with somebody, you're not going to, you know, if you get a MAGA Republican with

11:24a never Trump Democrat and you put them in the same room, I don't expect one or the other to

11:30come out being converted completely to the other side.

11:35What I would hope is that maybe they could see a little bit of what the other side is saying

11:41and maybe move a little closer together.

11:44More reasonable is you could get like a center right and a center left person that could have an actually

11:51intelligent conversation and that they might be able to come up with was potential solutions.

11:56I actually think a lot of our problems that are so divisive at the moment, it could easily be fixed

12:04if people would just listen to the other side and then seek a consensus.

12:08Yeah, you're not going to agree complete with me and I'm not going to agree completely with you, but maybe

12:14we can come up with a set of areas that we can agree on and then step forward.

12:21And that's not an easy process.

12:23And it's particularly not easy when each side is yelling at each other side.

12:30The other aspect of this is that it's so divisive at the moment is that even if you have reasonable

12:38people on both sides who begin to step forward and try and work together, they get called traitors and they

12:45get attacked themselves.

12:47You see this with Fetterman.

12:49Fetterman refuses to call Republicans Nazis.

12:52He refuses to to launch into the attacks so common among Democrats these days.

13:00And Fetterman is getting attacked as as a traitor to his party.

13:04So it's a very complex situation, but it does have a solution.

13:11Yeah, and I think that's where I don't know when this changed.

13:15Maybe you remember, but this idea that you can't please anyone.

13:20I've always heard that you can't please anyone.

13:22But I feel like we're living in a society where.

13:27That's the idea you you need to be able to please everyone.

13:30And you need to be able to get along with everybody.

13:33And disagreement is bad.

13:39Disagreement is wrong.

13:42Disagreement is, you know, evil in some way, shape or form.

13:47And I don't know where that came from.

13:49I don't know why we think disagreeing is such a bad thing, because it's disagreements that help us find the

14:00truth.

14:00Right.

14:01You know, you always hear that there's more than two sides to a story, you know, and the common thing

14:05is there's at least three sides to a story.

14:07You have side A, you have side B, and then you have the truth.

14:10And if you don't have side A and side B talking, then you'll never find the truth.

14:19And I'm just really interested in why we've come to this society where you can't talk if you disagree, because

14:27then you'll never find the truth.

14:30Yeah, it's kind of a paradox for our age, because the whole concept of democracy, rule by the people, is

14:38that the people talk to each other, they actually come together on a consensus opinion, and that's what governs society.

14:47The problem is, is because of a number of different factors, and one of them is obviously social media and

14:54the algorithms, you know, it's very clear that the thing is, emotion sells, right?

15:02You look at, go back into movies in the 30s and 40s, you know, it's not intellectual points that make

15:08a great movie.

15:09It's emotional impact that makes a great movie, which is why they tend to do stories about violence, or they

15:16tend to do stories about sex and other things, because those are the stories that will grab you.

15:21They tend to do, you know, they'll do a story with a family relationship, and the family's breaking apart.

15:27It's an inherent struggle that will get people to use modern parlances to click on it and watch.

15:34It's why, you know, they don't advertise debates on social media with a very intellectual discussion between two people who

15:43sharply disagree.

15:44No, they'll say, side A destroys side B.

15:47See, this person's devastating, you know, response stops the opposite, and they'll play it up into the conflict side.

15:54And there's some other corresponding factors that have happened over the last 40 years or so that has moved us

16:02from where back, for example, when Reagan was elected president, he had a Democratic House and a Republican Senate.

16:11And to think about it, those different groups, Chip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, they got together and they crafted

16:20Reagan's tax plan.

16:22If you had that same situation today, Reagan's tax plan wouldn't get, have never been passed, or at least not

16:29passed the way it was, because the Democrats would have refused to work with Reagan.

16:36And Republicans, if it reverses the situation, Republicans would refuse to work with the Democrat, like Obama or something.

16:43And therefore, nothing will happen.

16:46Everyone wants an all or nothing approach.

16:49And quite frankly, when you have an all or nothing approach, you usually end up in the end with nothing.

16:54So there's actually a lot of examples I could give of situations where people wanted all or nothing, and therefore

17:01they ended up with nothing.

17:02So that's grown over the years.

17:05Social media has exacerbated, particularly, I mean, we talk about social media.

17:11One of the aspects we don't realize is the number of bots that are out there.

17:15And so there are foreign governments who have a vested interest in dividing American public.

17:22And therefore, they have lots of bots that their sole purpose is to split the American public.

17:32They don't care whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans.

17:35What they want is they want there to be a split and have both sides fighting against each other so

17:40that we can't actually come to an agreement.

17:43So that's a factor as well.

17:45So you have all these various factors.

17:47The bottom line, here we are with, you know, the main focus of both parties now is to defeat the

17:54other party.

17:54Well, that is something that can't last forever because, you know, it's going to resolve.

18:01Either the division will go away or one side or the other will win and dominate, at which point you

18:08don't really have a democracy anymore anyway.

18:10So this is something that can't last forever.

18:13What's in doubt is how it's going to end.

18:16You know, that's an interesting point that you bring up, too, is because there's a number of books that I've

18:22read.

18:22I'm a huge fan of fiction books.

18:24And there is a number one where the key plot point is you have two sides, but the one side

18:32creates a division in the other side as a way of weakening them so that, you know, the first side

18:42wins.

18:42And it's always up to, like, you see this really good example that probably most people have seen is Civil

18:50War, right?

18:52You have the AI robot who really puts a divide in the superheroes.

18:59And so they're fighting amongst themselves instead of fighting the bad guy.

19:07And why?

19:08Aren't they on the same side?

19:10Yes, they might disagree on, you know, who's in charge and, you know, at what point do we draw the

19:20line?

19:20Or, you know, Tony Stark did a big mistake, and so they're going to fight with him about the mistake.

19:25But you solve the problem first, then you can pull the blame and figure out how to have it not

19:31happen again.

19:32But having that division weakens the team.

19:36It weakens what should be something wonderful.

19:42And that's kind of where we are today with the United States, because we're – there's a whole series of

19:48problems.

19:48Like, illegal immigration is actually an easily solvable problem, except neither side was willing to give an inch to let

19:59it be solved, right?

20:01Because they – both sides are taking an all-or-nothing approach, right?

20:05Okay.

20:07However right your side may be, whichever side you're on, all-or-nothing ends up with nothing.

20:16Of course, they always hope that they're going to get all, right?

20:19But, you know, you're taking a crapshoot.

20:23If you have a majority of one, if you get 50% plus one and you get to pass exactly

20:31what you want to pass, that will only last until you lose the one seat in the legislature or whatever.

20:40And now it's 50% plus one on the other side, and they will completely erase everything you did.

20:45You see that now with executive orders from presidents, right?

20:51When Biden came in, first thing he did is issued a whole slew of executive orders to completely reverse what

20:58Trump had did.

20:59And then when Trump won re-election this time, he issued a whole slew of executive orders to reverse all

21:05the orders that Biden had put in.

21:07Well, what if we actually ruled by consensus where you could – okay, instead of settling for 50% plus

21:14one, you get a law that you can get a 60% or 70% approval of.

21:20Nobody gets everything they want, but they get a large part of what they want.

21:26And so you put together this law, you pass it.

21:29Well, that consensus law is going to last a lot longer than a 50% plus one majority.

21:35And, of course, now we're in the situation where the laws are changing so quickly, particularly when you add in

21:41all the court cases because, you know, Trump comes in or Biden comes in and issues an executive order.

21:46And then suddenly it's tied up in the courts for three or four months or years.

21:50And so it doesn't even go into effect until close to the end of their term.

21:55So their solutions don't even last very long.

21:58So this is the dysfunction in our democracy at the moment.

22:02And it comes from us not being able to talk to each other and be willing to work with each

22:08other.

22:08And, you know, granted, it's going to take time, effort.

22:12It's not going to be easy.

22:14It's, you know, it's much easier to, you know, pounce back at somebody than to listen thoughtfully and try to

22:22come up with a cogent response.

22:25But the cogent response is much more effective in the long run.

22:30So what do you think?

22:32Is it important to have positive disagreements or is it more important to defeat the other side?

22:39Do you think these strategies work?

22:41Do you have any others?

22:42Let us know down in the comments.

22:44We do read your comments and respond to many of them.

22:47And if you made it this far in the video, consider watching one of our other videos and supporting our

22:52channel on Patreon.

22:54Thank you again for watching Into the Desert, exploring the wilderness of ideas.

22:59And to our fellow adventurers, a special thank you for helping to support this channel out on Patreon.

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