How to listen when you disagree
Eh, perhaps I'm cynical, but listening to someone, and coming to understanding regarding how they might have developed there beliefs, sounds nice, and it's very compassionate, but I question if it's actually a step toward compromise, or simply understanding.<p>After all, for an increasing number of issues, in the end, the beliefs themselves are so polarized they leave no room for compromise.<p>To this woman, it doesn't matter that someone had to make the painful choice to have an abortion.  They don't care <i>why</i>.  The act itself is morally unjustifiable.<p>That is their belief.<p>There is no room for compromise in a belief system like that.<p>The same is true when you look at debates about gun control, climate change, etc.<p>So, sure, listening and understanding is an important first step.<p>But in a world where we are actively encouraged to conflate facts and beliefs (see:  Trumpiness), and where beliefs are so starkly polarized into black-and-white, good-and-evil, how can we have productive conversations on level ground that lead to compromise?  We can't even decide which facts are actually facts!