Alienation is a losing game: What urbanists can learn from the haters
To change people’s minds, we have to make an effort first to listen. (Happy Cities)
A version of this article was previously published by Strong Towns.
“Tell me why I’m full of crap, over coffee.”
I posted this message to the local Reddit page for my city, Halifax, Nova Scotia, six years ago. At the time, I was an urban affairs columnist at a local newspaper, where I wrote about issues like bus lanes and congestion charges. I was not popular on Reddit. Every week I was told why I was “asinine,” “absolutely ridiculous,” a “child,” and “so f****** dumb.”
I wanted to understand why my columns attracted so much vitriol, and talking to people online wasn’t helping. So I figured, why not? Let’s meet in person.
What I learned transformed me. In 2017, I was making mistakes that sowed division and achieved nothing. These mistakes are common among urban advocates today, and it makes it harder to make progress on the issues we care about.
On two recent podcast episodes, Charles Marohn shared why Strong Towns avoids taking sides in tribal cultural battles: It divides people, turning potential supporters into ideological enemies. And it makes it harder to convince people of the common sense of what we’re calling for. That message resonates with what I learned by sitting down with my critics, and it also echoes recent research on persuasion.
The temptation of throwing mud
The fact is, I used to enjoy riling people up. I used words like “stupid” and “idiotic” a lot. I was on the side of justice, fighting for sustainable, healthy cities. My opponents just wanted to widen roads and build bigger parking lots.
It is fun to be right. You get to ridicule people who are wrong and be praised by people who are right. You get likes and reposts online for snarky takedowns and for saying stuff like, “Imagine thinking…” “Is this guy actually saying…” “Have fun killing people.”
My opponents also benefited, of course. They got likes and reposts for their own snarky takedowns. The psychologist Jon Haidt has said that social media is not a marketplace of ideas, but a “coliseum,” with each side fighting to ridicule their opponents and win adulation from their side.
All this can be fun—in a kind of antisocial way—but will it lead to progress? Perhaps. If we launch just enough insults at everyone who drives to work (78% of people in the United States), then maybe most of them will reject their way of life and their values, and they will embrace the beliefs of the people who have spent years insulting them.
Maybe. Unlikely.
A coffee with my haters
Six years ago, I sat down with my biggest critics, and they gave me the goods, telling me exactly why I made them so angry—as I described in a column from the time.
What really struck me was that I liked them. They criticized me, and we joked about it. In person, their points sounded sensible.
The most important thing I learned was that there was zero chance my message would reach them because of how I delivered it. “It doesn't sound like you're talking with the reader,” one told me, “it sounds like you're talking at the reader.” “You don’t see the other side,” another said, and “it makes it harder to take seriously.” They hated my “tone of derision.”
They had a sense that I was an urban snob, part of the “beers, bikes, and bullshit crowd,” as another Redditter put it. My writing drew a stark red line between them and me—and implied heavily that I was better and they were worse. I might be having fun, but there was no possibility of convincing anyone who didn’t already agree with me.
The research on persuasion
Three books came out recently that outline strategies for persuading people to change their minds—even across seemingly intractable ideological divides. Each book draws on decades of research and practical experience, and they come to strikingly similar conclusions:
How Minds Change, by David McRaney.
Think Again, by Adam Grant.
How to Have Impossible Conversations, by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay.
The authors have very different political views. (I, for one, disagree with some of the authors on many issues). But they agree on how to persuade, which suggests they might be getting at some core truth.
The basic approach can be summed up like this:
If you want to convince someone, they first must want to listen to you.
The best way to make someone want to listen to you is to listen to them and show them respect.
Whenever possible, invite them to explore their own beliefs instead of lecturing.
This approach does not involve overwhelming a person with arguments, or hitting them with “gotchas.” Instead, it depends on giving the other person a solid foundation of respect and comfort, so that they have the space they need to interrogate their own thoughts.
Consider the case of Daryl Davis, a black jazz musician who has convinced multiple members of the Klu Klux Klan to abandon their robes. He did this, amazingly, by spending lots of time with them, one-on-one. In two interviews with Love + Radio, he describes his strategy:
“Give that person a platform, allow them to air that point of view, regardless of how extreme it may be. Believe me, I’ve heard some things so extreme at these rallies they’ll cut you to the bone. Give them a platform. You challenge them, but you don’t challenge them rudely or violently. You do it politely and intelligently. When you do things that way, chances are they will reciprocate and give you a platform. He [a Klu Klux Klan leader] and I would sit down and listen to one another. Over a period of time that cement […] that held his ideas together began to get cracks in it. Then it began to crumble, and then it fell apart.”
You can read the transcripts here—well worth your time.
Not all of us are up to befriending Klan members, but there is a lot we can learn from Davis. If you want your opponents to want to listen to you, you will need to throw out all the name-calling and mockery. You need to ask: “What would it take to get this person to a place where they actually want to hear me?” Crucially, this means you need to be genuinely curious about what they have to say.
Of course, these conversational tactics don’t work for writing a column or giving a public talk, but we can approach them with the same spirit. Acknowledge that there are good reasons to hold opposing views. Show evidence you’ve heard those views. And send the message that we are all on the same team.
The common, but flawed, mental image of persuasion
In a recent Strong Towns Podcast episode, Charles Marohn told a story. An urbanist publication asked him to fly to their office and help them craft their messaging so they could better reach conservatives. He remembers sitting in a room with eight to 10 people, and they asked him, “So, what do we say to get conservatives on board? […] How would you say this in a way that […] someone from Oklahoma would agree with?”
He was “bewildered” by this.
“There’s not some magical incantation that gets people who don’t think like you to agree with you,” said Marohn. “You have to sincerely understand them […] to listen to them. And then you can communicate with them.”
Marohn hit the nail on the head. The goal here is not to find some secret Jedi mind trick that will befuddle people’s brains into agreement. If we want to build broad-based support, we need to give people reasons to want to hear us—which means we should care about what they care about and show curiosity about them.
What does this mean in practice? Here are a few examples:
Stop demonizing drivers. Almost everyone is a driver—this can’t help.
Stop deriding people’s way of life. Do not say that people live in the suburbs because they are narrow-minded or irrational. Acknowledge what people love about their communities—while also highlighting the headaches better planning can fix.
Stop demonizing people for owning trucks with high hoods. The danger to pedestrians and children is real, and the evidence suggests, I think, that governments should regulate the issue. But this is harder to achieve because urbanists have spent so much time mocking truck drivers. Spite is now against us.
Do not call NIMBYs self-serving, privileged people who deprive everyone else of housing just to prop up their own wealth. For many people, almost all of their wealth is tied up in the value of their home; of course they’re protective of it. But we need enough housing for everyone. Acknowledging their motivations does not weaken the argument. It ensures it might be heard.
I am not saying that everyone should talk in a calm, saintly voice at all times. I am saying we should adopt the demeanour of someone who enjoys difference. Hold strong beliefs, but also, be someone who gets invited back to the barbecue.
Positive sum debate
We are lucky that listening is the most effective approach to persuasion. If name-calling and manipulation actually worked, we would be stuck with it forever.
Luckily, the best approach is to not be an asshole. This is fantastic. If more people decide they want to actually convince people, then we might enjoy a future in which more people give us the time and space to express our points of view. And, if more people do that, there is more chance all of us will actually learn from disagreement—because the most effective strategy is, after all, to listen.
Unfortunately, being an asshole is the most effective strategy to get a bigger audience on social media, which is part of why it is so common. So we need to distinguish these two goals: If you want to get popular with your crowd online, be a jerk. But if you want to build a broad coalition, cut it out.
It’s tempting to believe that we can take the snarky approach and overpower the opposition with tough language and the weight of research. But remember: We are the minority. Very few people walk and bike to work in the United States and Canada. If anyone can win by being obnoxious, it’s not us.
