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Learning to Disagree

The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect

ebook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 14 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 14 weeks

Are you discouraged by our divided, angry culture, where even listening to a different perspective sometimes feels impossible? If so, you're not alone, and it doesn't have to be this way. Learning to Disagree reveals the surprising path to learning how to disagree in ways that build new bridges with our neighbors, coworkers, and loved ones—and help us find better ways to live joyfully in a complex society.

In a tense cultural climate, is it possible to disagree productively and respectfully without compromising our convictions? Spanning a range of challenging issues—including critical race theory, sexual assault, campus protests, and clashes over religious freedom—highly regarded thought leader and law professor John Inazu helps us engage honestly and empathetically with people whose viewpoints we find strange, wrong, or even dangerous.

As a constitutional scholar, legal expert, and former litigator, John has spent his career learning how to disagree well with other people. In Learning to Disagree, John shares memorable stories and draws on the practices that legal training imparts—seeing the complexity in every issue and inhabiting the mindset of an opposing point of view—to help us handle daily encounters and lifelong relationships with those who see life very differently than we do.

This groundbreaking, poignant, and highly practical book equips us to:

  • Understand what holds us back from healthy disagreement
  • Learn specific, start-today strategies for dialoguing clearly and authentically
  • Move from stuck, broken disagreements to mature, healthy disagreements
  • Cultivate empathy as a core skill for our personal lives and our whole society
  • If you are feeling exhausted from the tattered state of dialogue in your social media feed, around the country, and in daily conversations, you're not alone. Discover a more connected life while still maintaining the strength of your convictions through this unique, often-humorous, thought-provoking, and ultimately life-changing exploration of the best way to disagree.

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      • Publisher's Weekly

        February 19, 2024
        Inazu (Uncommon Ground), a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, draws on his 12 years in the classroom for solid lessons on handling disagreements in this helpful guide. Much of his wisdom is “simple stuff that’s hard to put into practice.” For example, he advises readers to remain empathetic yet committed to their beliefs; use impasses to “deepen your understanding of what’s at stake”; and prioritize the “person over the problem” even when it takes time and energy. Inazu learned the latter lesson firsthand when he impatiently translated a lengthy fight with his wife into billable hours (“Do you realize how much money this argument just cost us?”). More time is spent unpacking communication issues than offering practical solutions, and those provided can be vague, as when Inazu recommends “asking an appropriately personal question rather than making all of your impersonal relationships purely transactional” without providing an example of such a query or how to work it into conversation. Still, the balanced mix of logic and compassion will help readers better understand how human nature informs conflict. It’s a good starting point for those looking to extend an olive branch.

    Formats

    • Kindle Book
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    • EPUB ebook

    Languages

    • English

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