Am I Using my Morals as a Weapon or a Gift?
EPISODE 9: Renowned author, social scientist, and happiness expert Arthur Brooks joins Governors Bredesen and Haslam to discuss why disagreement is important, how we can disagree better, and how to effectively broaden your perspective.
How can we solve problems when we don’t agree on the facts? The premise of “You Might Be Right” is to have civil conversations about tough topics, but is civility really the right goal – or should we be aiming for something higher? Arthur Brooks, happiness columnist for The Atlantic, Harvard professor, former head of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and newly-appointed member of the Board of Fellows of the Institute of American Civics, joined the governors live at the Baker Center in December 2022 to discuss practical strategies for navigating disagreements in everyday life.
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“Nobody has ever been insulted into agreement in human history”
Brooks started off by talking about the barriers to happiness, noting that faith, family, friends, and work – what he calls “the four fundamental institutions of meaning” – are all in decline. His prescription? To talk about matters of the heart, not politics. Starting off a conversation by asking someone about their kids promotes feelings of love, not combat.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a point of view on policy issues, Brooks noted. “To say, ‘you might be right,’ is not to say, ‘I don’t believe anything,” he told Governors Bredesen and Haslam. “It simply means that I have enough respect for somebody else to listen to what they have to say because the truth is, every single one of us is wrong, we just don’t know on what.”
And listening to people who differ from you makes life better and more interesting, Brooks explained.
‘The truth is, it’s basic self-preservation, to listen to people who differ from you,” he said. “You think you’re right, so your goal should be to persuade other people. Nobody has ever been insulted into agreement in human history. And if you want to persuade other people, the only way that you can do it is by being a decent human being. And the best way to get people to listen to you is to listen to them. It’s just common sense.”
“Am I using my morals as a weapon or as a gift?”
If and when you do have to have a difficult conversation, Brooks shared his best advice for increasing the odds that someone who disagrees with you might find your views “at very worst worth listening to, at very best worth adopting.”
“Number one is, am I using my opinions, am I using my values, am I using my morals as a weapon or as a gift?” he said. “It’s like ringing somebody’s doorbell and they answer the door, and you hit them in the face with a bouquet of flowers. Those are flowers, they’re beautiful, they’re a gift from you. But you used them as a weapon.”
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re a good citizen”
Acknowledging it is very easy to choose your news today and only hear what you want to hear, Brooks shared three recommendations for listeners to broaden their perspectives and become better citizens in the process.
His first recommendation: watch less news. His news “diet” includes no more than 30 minutes a day total, and limiting political news to 15 minutes of that, consumed all in one sitting and not at all from social media. “Turn off all the cable channels completely, they are hurting you,” Brooks said. “It’s really, really bad for you. It’s really bad for your brain, it’s bad for your motivation, and it’s going to lower your happiness.”
Number two: spend more time looking into local news and issues, and less on federal “infotainment.” “This is an intensely local experience,” Brooks told the governors. “We’re not in Washington DC. You guys don’t have to beat each other up and score points. You don’t have to do that, so you don’t.”
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re a good citizen because you’re well-informed on what you see on MSNBC,” Brooks continued. “That just makes you a bad citizen, not a good citizen. That’s substituting for you doing something for the school board. That substitutes for you actually cleaning up the park or doing volunteer work.”
His third recommendation? “Get out of the house more… actually expose yourself to differing viewpoints,” Brooks said. “You don’t have to do it 24 hours a day. I’m not suggesting you should marry somebody from the other party, although I wouldn’t say that’s a bad idea either.”
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Join the conversation on Twitter by following @UTBakerSchool, @PhilBredesen, and @BillHaslam.