It’s complicated.

One of the truths of our human condition is that the world is complicated. Another truth is that we humans want to simplify it. We want there to be right and wrong, black and white. Our media, and especially social media, feed into our tendency of duality. In fact, social media amplifies our tendency to simplify things. Those are the images or tweets or stories that go viral. 

But the real world isn’t black and white — it’s actually shades of grey.

Issues are complicated. Some issues are more complicated than others, but issues are rarely simple. The issues that we find the hardest to deal with — gun violence, abortion, immigration, peace in the Middle East — are especially complicated. For example, even on a polarizing issue like abortion, most people have a nuanced opinions. A relatively recent academic study about the issue found that, even among those who consider themselves pro-life, very few are against abortion in all circumstances. There are some fanatics, sure, and those are the people who get media attention and whose opinions go viral, but they don’t represent the majority.

That study reassured me. I was feeling like I was the only one with opinions that didn’t fit neatly in the categories of pro-life or pro-choice.

The insight about complexity comes from psychologist Peter Coleman of Columbia who researches conflicts. He’s done extensive experiments on how to get people to come to agreement on difficult topics. And he’s found an answer. By giving people an article to read about a different complicated topic, he’s shown that pairs of people who started out disagreeing were able to come up with a joint statement that they could agree on. Even though they started out disagreeing, that technique dramatically increased the likelihood of their coming to agreement. And I do mean dramatically.

So how could this work in practice? We aren’t going to give people we want to mend relationships with something to read before we start talking like Dr. Coleman, are we?  Well, I suppose we could. Actually, maybe should create a library of articles all on the theme: It’s complicated. But if you don’t want to do that, here’s another suggestion.

Start out your response by saying something like, “You know, this is a complicated issue. I’ve heard that on difficult issues like this, most people have nuanced opinions.” Then you can follow with a response that represents your opinion.  As I’ve written about earlier, responses that either uses moral reframing (using a value the other holds dear) or that uses a story are both more likely to be successful than quoting statistics or just stating your opinion.

Please let me know if you try this and how it works for you! Contact me here.