We at the Minimise Project are all about making conversations about abortion go better. We believe that these conversations can be civilised, sensitive, kind, and productive. Pro-choice and pro-life people can understand one another, and minds really can change.

In order to help those conversations go better, we think it’s great to understand more about the psychology of conversations and disagreement. The thing about those is that they’re relevant in far more situations than abortion. So in that spirit, let me tell you about a really annoying conversation I had about books, and what it taught me about making conversations go well.

A few weeks ago I was at a party and started talking to a fellow nerdy academic type. The conversation turned to books. There was some initial common ground: we both liked Ursula Le Guin, and we both thought that The Lathe of Heaven wasn’t her best work. I was a bit embarrassed at how many more of Le Guin’s books my interlocutor had read than me, but all was well. Then the conversation worked its way around to C.S. Lewis.

I very much like Lewis. My interlocutor did not. That in itself was neither particularly unpleasant nor surprising: it’s pretty common for the well-read to look down on Lewis, not for his Christianity (many of the critics adore Dostoevsky or even Marilynne Robinson), but for a perceived shallowness. The epithet of choice is ‘entry-level’. I’m with the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in thinking that Lewis is consistently underestimated as a storyteller as well as a thinker. But “Lewis is actually amazing”, despite being correct, is a bit of a hot take, and I’ve had many fun disputations going back and forth on his merits.

This conversation was not fun.

Sometimes people will meet you half-way in a discussion. They’ll acknowledge when they think you’ve made a good point even if they disagree with your overall conclusion.  They’ll be interested, respectful, and friendly. They’ll seek common ground as well as clarifying differences, and they’ll avoid being antagonistic or rude. The person I was speaking to on this occasion was not (on this occasion!) like that. He was instead dismissive, arch, and cutting. The vibe I got was that this was a bit of a performance: there was a glint of semi-ironic, self-conscious enjoyment of the role he was playing. I love a good argument as much as the next guy: I’m co-running a website about how to have good conversations about one of the most controversial ethical issues in the world. I was not enjoying myself here.

The conversation became more general, and we started discussing broader views about literature, stories, and the purpose of the novel. My interlocutor didn’t think much of my takes. At one point he described the position I was defending on a particular disputed question as “basically nonsense.” I think I mostly managed to maintain my own good humour (at least on the outside!), but after some more back-and-forth I was very happy to extricate myself and go talk to someone else.

My conversation partner was never egregiously rude. But I certainly didn’t come away from the conversation feeling particularly listened to or respected. Was this what made the conversation so annoying? No. It was much worse than that. What made the conversation so annoying was that, once we got past Lewis, almost everything my interlocutor said was right, and almost everything I said was wrong.

I was trying to argue for a distinction between “writers that care about story” and “writers that care about literature as a kind of meta game of references and formal experimentation, the main point of which is showing how clever you are” (the latter being a type common among modern writers of ‘literary fiction’). I don’t really know how much there really is to the distinction, but I didn’t even manage to properly articulate it.  Flustered by the energy of the conversation, the distinction I actually ended up confusedly defending was between “writers who write for everyone” and “writers who write for a small elite of critics and other writers.” The examples I chose to illustrate the good, populist side of this divide? The first was William Shakespeare (defensible). The second was Jane Austen.

I think “basically nonsense” is a pretty fair description of the claim “Austen was a populist”. Austen (as my interlocutor was so keen to point out), wrote her books for an extremely rarified elite of landed gentry. The fact that her books are brilliantly written stories and universal in their keen observation of human nature doesn’t change that. As soon as I opened my mouth I knew I was talking rubbish.

It took me longer to realise that my interlocutor had been right about most of the bigger questions we were discussing too (but not about C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis is the best). He was quite right to point out that rumours of the demise of plot in the contemporary novel had been greatly exaggerated. Plot is probably on at least its fifth death by now. And while he was more of a fan of the formal experimentation of modernism and postmodernism than I am, he was also right to point out that many of the experimenters were also story-lovers. Just think of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

The creeping sense that I was mistaken in most of what I’d said was already pricking at me by the end of our conversation. By the day after the party I was certain of it.

My reaction to this was mostly to laugh. It was a bit of a rueful laugh, but there was something satisfying about it too. One of the more satisfying aspects was the realisation that I’d have found it much harder to recognise my own errors a few years ago. I’d have felt HUMILIATED, and that humiliation would have had me making up narratives where I was somehow right after all. I’d have been hiring myself as a lawyer to pursue my own acquittal on a technicality, with a hefty fee paid in the currency of truth. 

Recounting a conversation about literature has me reluctant to end this post with a bit of “what did I learn?” didacticism, but it’s a reluctance I’ll find the strength to overcome. The first thing I took away from my adventures that night is that you shouldn’t think that a person you’re talking to is wrong just because they’re being a bit rude or unpleasant. People can say true things in an unhelpful way – and they’re still true! I ended up being quite grateful to the fellow I was talking to: he helped me change my mind and get that much closer to the truth.

The second takeaway, though, is that when you happen to be the one with truth on your side, it’s so much easier for the other person to see that truth when you don’t make it harder. My interlocutor would have had a much easier time convincing me he was right if he’d just been friendlier, or more curious about my position, or more inclined to frame the conversation as a collaboration rather than some kind of adversarial showdown. Had he approached the conversation in a kinder way, I might have admitted he was right on the spot. Had he approached it any less kindly, I mightn’t have managed to admit it at all.

Of course, he might not have been particularly concerned with changing my mind! But we don’t have that luxury. My interlocutor and I were having a relatively low-stakes disagreement about literature. Imagine how much harder it is to change your mind on an issue as high-stakes and emotionally wrenching as abortion. Usually, the person you’re speaking to will not be saying things which are “basically nonsense”. But even if, like me that night, they are, it will be easier for everyone involved to see that if you don’t say so.

Ben