“I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times” by Mónica Guzmán

I think it is clear to say that America is in a political divide. From the left and the right, democrats and republicans, there is discord, misconceptions, stereotypes, and lies spread with reckless abandon slandering their opposition. Being able to bridge the gap between parties and individuals’ different beliefs, has become more and more important as time goes on.

Mónica Guzmán’s book offers options and ways to have civil and curious conversations with people you may disagree with politically.

The book is 236 pages long if you don’t include the acknowledgements and notes at the end, 258 if you do. According to Storygraph, 64% of the books I’ve read this year were 300-499 pages long. It’s also the first non-fiction book I’ve finished so far. The word count is around 90,000, and would take an average reader about 6 and a half hours to finish.

 There are no content or trigger warnings for this book.

This book bills itself as a timely guide for creating and maintaining civil and curious conversations. A guide on how to make debates, ‘debates’ again, rather than fights to the death for one side or the other. It’s very personal. Guzmán writes in the first-person, and it feels like she’s talking to you rather than to a general group or audience. It’s light in tone, often being rather humorous, positive, and in some points upbeat.

I’ve found this book to be enlightening, and I have nothing but high praises for it. It helped me walk through why certain groups think the way they do. It challenged me to ask questions I’d never thought to ask, and I really liked how she discussed how social media isolates and “Silos” people into “echo chambers.” Her personal and casual writing style makes the concepts she introduces incredibly easy to understand and digest.

I would have liked it if she could have explained the limit to which you can communicate with others before their limited beliefs and polarization turn a conversation into an argument or even violence. As much as we would like to discuss and talk civilly, it’s a known fact that extremism is a growing domestic threat in America. You can’t have a conversation about growing political polarization without mentioning the elephant in the room, the Jan. 6 insurrection. As far as I remember, Jan. 6 is not mentioned anywhere in the book. The protestors were so polarized, and viewed their opposition so distortedly, that they turned to rioting and violence to solve it. I would have appreciated her take and advice on a situation like that. A situation that’s getting tenser year by year.

Driving down the differences and similarities between disparate party members is incredibly important. We need this book and we need to have these bridging conversations. I feel like there is more to this conversation, that due to the tone and exact topic of her book, she isn’t including. Which is totally fine! The topic is how to have difficult conversations from across the political divide civilly, not how to talk to someone with an extremist view point. 

Overall this is a book I would recommend for everyone to read. The tactics Guzmán suggests don’t just apply to bridging conversations, but to everyday conversations as well.