I see Blue, women, physicians, and people of color in the winning column in tonight’s US midterm elections. Early voter turnout surpassed 2022 midterm numbers. Those of us who worry most about the direction of the country under the current administration can breathe a little easier now, for a little while.
But please hear me when I say that gaining control of Congress for two years does not solve our political and cultural challenges, not by a long shot. We need people in government, in the media, in our schools and universities, and in our communities who can lead with humilty, curiosity, empathy, civility, and a willingness to collaborate to solve complex adaptive problems with the greater good in front, ahead of party affiliation, power tripping, and self-interest. Have we done that for the government tonight? I’m not so sure, but I am open to any possibility.
Things will continue to get worse if every four years the primary goal of any administration is to reverse or abolish the policies of the prior one. We need stability and good faith negotiation, not cyclical ideological whiplash. We also need a return to respectful and civil discourse–at all levels of society.
I spent four hours last week with a Red voting friend. We worked out, walked, and shared a meal. We could have talked much longer about economics, leadership, family, marriage, parenting, and politics. We have agreed to gather regularly to do just that, and I cannot wait because we each show up to the other with caring, humility, curiosity, and respect. These are the attitudes and character traits that will save us.
Elected officials are meant to represent us, the citizenry. So if we have sent the most polarized, toxic, and intransigent people to government, that says a lot about us as a population. We need to work on ourselves in order to hold our politicians to any higher standard of conduct. The eight books I recommend here have all helped me understand and embrace the humanity in politics. They give me hope for the better angels of our nature to step forward, if we can muster the courage long enough. I have pasted their Amazon blurbs so you may consider consuming them yourself.
What books have helped you keep your mind open and stay connected in disagreement and conflict?
How do you integrate and apply their tenets?
How do you lead by depolarizing example?
Love Your Enemies, Arthur Brooks
Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a toxic “culture of contempt” that deepens our political polarization—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right?
Wrong.
In Love Your Enemies, social scientist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are not the right formula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work that offers a better way to practice leadership based on bridging divides and mending relationships.
Brooks’ prescriptions for improving our civil discourse are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act.
Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for national unity and victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.
A Republic, If You Can Keep It, Neil Gorsuch
As Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he was reportedly asked what kind of government the founders would propose. He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” In this book, Justice Neil Gorsuch shares personal reflections, speeches, and essays that focus on the remarkable gift the framers left us in the Constitution.
Justice Gorsuch draws on his thirty-year career as a lawyer, teacher, judge, and justice to explore essential aspects our Constitution, its separation of powers, and the liberties it is designed to protect. He discusses the role of the judge in our constitutional order, and why he believes that originalism and textualism are the surest guides to interpreting our nation’s founding documents and protecting our freedoms. He explains, too, the importance of affordable access to the courts in realizing the promise of equal justice under law—while highlighting some of the challenges we face on this front today.
Along the way, Justice Gorsuch reveals some of the events that have shaped his life and outlook, from his upbringing in Colorado to his Supreme Court confirmation process. And he emphasizes the pivotal roles of civic education, civil discourse, and mutual respect in maintaining a healthy republic.
A Republic, If You Can Keep It offers compelling insights into Justice Gorsuch’s faith in America and its founding documents, his thoughts on our Constitution’s design and the judge’s place within it, and his beliefs about the responsibility each of us shares to sustain our distinctive republic of, by, and for “We the People.”
The Opposite of Woe, John Hickenlooper
In just over a decade, John Hickenlooper has gone from brew pub entrepreneur to governor of Colorado, hailed by political analysts and media alike as a solid contender to be the next vice president. In The Opposite of Woe, Hickenlooper tells his own story of unlikely success in his singularly sharp and often hilarious voice.
After ten years at Wesleyan, Hickenlooper found himself laid off from his first job as a geologist. So he rented a space in an empty warehouse in an empty pocket of Denver’s downtown to open a brew pub. Honest, likable, practical, Hickenlooper turned out to be a natural at the job; the pub was a huge success. In fifteen years, he blossomed from small business owner into millionaire at the helm of a string of pubs across the western United States. He was so influential in the community that, encouraged by many, he ran for mayor, essentially as a lark. And then he won.
So began his eight years as one of the most creative and successful mayors in the United States. Doubling down in politics, Hickenlooper ran for Colorado governor in 2010, and won again—twice. Tackling a host of volatile issues, from prison reform to fracking, capital punishment to same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana, Hickenlooper’s administration has persuaded opposing constituencies of a true battleground state to agree and move forward on a middle path—all while dealing with tragic wildfires, floods, and the assassination of a cabinet member.
On display throughout the book is the rare candidness that has made Hickenlooper not only wildly popular but also remarkably successful. Cowritten with journalist and former speechwriter Maximillian Potter, The Opposite of Woe is a fresh and refreshing angle on our political landscape from one of its brightest rising stars.
The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt
Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns.
In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.
Think Again, Adam Grant
Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We think too much like preachers defending our sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, and politicians campaigning for approval–and too little like scientists searching for truth. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people’s minds–and our own. As Wharton’s top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he’s right but listen like he’s wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. You’ll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces concerned parents to immunize their children, and Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox. Think Again reveals that we don’t have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. It’s an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.
Switch, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?
The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.
In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people—employees and managers, parents and nurses—have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:
● The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients.
● The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping.
● The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service
In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.
Navigating Polarities, Brian Emerson and Kelly Lewis
How do you do two seemingly opposite things at once? How can you be candid and diplomatic, provide structure and flexibility, keep things stable and lead change, and focus on organizational interests while simultaneously doing what’s best for employees? Many approach these polarities with either/or thinking, but leaders, teams, and organizations that navigate them using a both/and mindset significantly outperform those who don’t. The trick is knowing how.
In their work with thousands of people across the globe, Brian Emerson and Kelly Lewis have seen the tension and stress polarities can create in relationships, teams, and in organizations. In this book, they share the practical tools to transform that tension into a positive driving force by expanding either/or thinking to include a both/and mindset.
The Way Out, Peter T. Coleman
When The Way Out was first published in 2021, the partisan divide in the United States had widened to a chasm. Five years later, the crisis has metastasized. Political polarization continues to be personal but has also become more entrenched structurally. Today, our political, media, and digital systems reward outrage, punish moderation, and elevate those who escalate conflict. If we want a less contemptuous politics, we must come together across our differences to redesign the incentive systems that manufacture disdain. How can we loosen the grip of this toxic form of polarization and start redirecting our energies toward our most pressing problems?
The Way Out offers an escape from this morass. The social psychologist Peter T. Coleman explores how conflict resolution and complexity science provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences, explaining the unexpected ways that deeply rooted oppositions can and do change. Coleman meticulously details principles and practices for navigating and healing the difficult divides in our homes, workplaces, and communities, blending compelling personal accounts from his years of working on entrenched conflicts with lessons from leading-edge research. The Way Out is a vital and timely guide to breaking free from the cycle of mutual contempt in order to better our lives, relationships, and country.
This updated edition includes practical plans and exercises for changing individual, social, and systemic practices. Coleman explores lessons learned since the first edition, considering how to transform the institutions that entrench conflict and find sustainable ways to live together.
