Good Reasonable People with Keith Payne

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Good Reasonable People with Keith Payne" on Here's Where It Gets Interesting

Released on December 16, 2024, hosted by Sharon McMahon

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Introduction to the Episode

In this compelling episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting, host Sharon McMahon engages in a deep and insightful conversation with Keith Payne, author of Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide. The discussion delves into the psychological and sociological factors contributing to the intense political polarization in the United States.

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1. The Core Thesis of Good Reasonable People

Sharon McMahon begins by addressing the apparent scarcity of "good, reasonable people" in contemporary online discourse, particularly on platforms like the internet. She questions why civil and rational conversations seem so rare in today's political climate.

Keith Payne responds by clarifying the book's premise: Good Reasonable People doesn't claim that everyone is inherently good and reasonable. Instead, it highlights a common human tendency to view oneself and one's own group as good and reasonable. This self-perception creates a barrier to understanding and empathizing with those holding differing views.

Keith Payne [04:00]: "Once you start from that assumption that I'm good and the people who belong to my groups are also good, then it sets up the context in which no matter what one group says, the other doesn't seem to hear them and we bring out the worst in each other."

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2. Group Identity and the Zero-Sum Game

The conversation progresses to explore how political affiliations have become intertwined with fundamental aspects of personal identity, such as race, gender, and nationality. This fusion transforms political debates into zero-sum games, where the success of one group is perceived as the failure of another.

Sharon McMahon [05:00]: "In many of our minds, it is a zero-sum game. In order for me to be good and reasonable, you must be evil and unreasonable."

Keith Payne agrees, emphasizing that this dichotomy exacerbates conflicts, making it difficult for individuals to see the humanity in those with opposing viewpoints.

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3. The Two-Party System: A Unique American Challenge

Sharon McMahon then questions whether the two-party system in the U.S. uniquely contributes to this zero-sum mentality compared to multi-party systems in other countries.

Keith Payne acknowledges that while multi-party systems might mitigate some of these tensions, many still collapse into broad left-right coalitions. He asserts that the two-party system intensifies the zero-sum perception, as the binary choice leaves little room for compromise or mutual understanding.

Keith Payne [08:30]: "The two-party system makes it even more salient because it's a zero-sum game."

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4. Historical Context of Political Realignment

The discussion shifts to the historical evolution of political alignments in the U.S., particularly how racial dynamics have shaped party affiliations over time. Keith Payne explains the realignment that occurred post the Civil Rights Movement, where support for civil rights convictions increasingly aligned African Americans with the Democratic Party and white conservatives with the Republican Party.

Keith Payne [09:50]: "Since the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, the two parties started realigning around race in such a way that people who were for the civil rights movement moved more into the Democratic Party."

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5. Tribalism and the Modern Political Landscape

Sharon McMahon posits that tribalism, historically crucial for survival, now manifests in political affiliations, a relatively new phenomenon in human societal structures. This tribal-like allegiance to political parties overrides previous survival-based group identities.

Keith Payne concurs, noting that while humans have always organized into tribes, the current political climate masks these affiliations under the guise of ideological discourse. He also points out that people's political identities often don't align with consistent, coherent principles.

Keith Payne [14:10]: "Most of us don't have very consistent opinions about policies and issues at all. We're kind of all over the map when it comes to principles and policies."

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6. Moral Foundations Theory and Its Shortcomings

The conversation delves into the Moral Foundations Theory, which suggests that liberals and conservatives prioritize different moral values. Sharon McMahon highlights Keith Payne's critique of this theory, which argues that while the theory identifies differences, it doesn't explain the underlying reasons for these divergent worldviews.

Sharon McMahon [20:00]: "I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about why they don't help us understand how we see the world differently than somebody who's not like us."

Keith Payne asserts that the differences identified by the theory are minimal and oversimplify the complex interplay of social groups influencing political beliefs. He believes that social identities, such as race and geography, play a more significant role than the moral foundations themselves.

Keith Payne [21:01]: "We're actually organizing our politics around our social groups, and these foundations... are ways of making sense of it, but they're not really what's driving it."

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7. The Influence of Geography and Demographics

Sharon McMahon discusses how demographers can predict voting behaviors based on zip codes, which correlate with income, race, education, and occupation. This predictive capability underscores the deep-rooted influence of one's environment on political leanings.

Sharon McMahon [22:49]: "People are shocked to learn that demographers can predict with fairly high accuracy who they are likely to vote for based on their zip code."

Keith Payne explains that these demographics often precede political orientations, suggesting that one's environment and social group heavily influence political beliefs from an early age.

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8. Sibling Dynamics and Divergent Political Views

A particularly insightful segment explores how siblings, raised in the same household, can develop significantly different political beliefs. Sharon McMahon poses the question of how identical upbringing can result in divergent worldviews.

Keith Payne shares his personal experience as one of seven siblings, noting that educational trajectories play a pivotal role. Those who attend college tend to adopt more liberal views, while those who do not may lean more conservative. He emphasizes that personality differences and individual choices, even within the same family, contribute to these disparities.

Keith Payne [33:24]: "More college education is associated with more liberal views compared to those without a college degree."

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9. Utilizing Insights to Bridge Political Divides

When asked about actionable steps, Keith Payne emphasizes the importance of focusing on commonalities rather than differences. He advocates for maintaining civil discourse by recognizing that disagreements should remain confined to political arenas, avoiding personal conflicts and violence.

Keith Payne [39:04]: "My goal is to keep us fighting over them at the ballot box and not with guns and bullets."

He also highlights the value of preserving personal relationships by compartmentalizing political differences, allowing friendships and family bonds to thrive despite ideological disparities.

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10. Understanding Why People Reject Facts

In the latter part of the episode, Sharon McMahon addresses a frustration many share: the tendency of individuals to reject factual information that contradicts their beliefs. Using the analogy of someone believing the moon is made of green cheese, she questions why facts are often dismissed outright.

Keith Payne explains that this phenomenon occurs because factual disagreements are tied to personal identity. When confronted with facts that challenge deeply held beliefs, individuals perceive it as a threat to their self-concept and group affiliation. Consequently, they reject the information to protect their identity rather than engage with the facts objectively.

Keith Payne [44:49]: "If you say that I'm wrong about something that's important to who I am, I'm probably wrong about lots of other things."

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11. Strategies for Productive Conversations

To navigate conversations where facts are rejected, Keith Payne suggests shifting the focus from arguing facts to understanding the underlying reasons why certain beliefs are important to the individual. Instead of labeling someone as wrong, asking questions about what the belief means to them can lead to more meaningful and less confrontational dialogues.

Keith Payne [50:57]: "Ask why is this important to you? What does this mean to you?"

Sharon McMahon echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of listening to understand rather than to refute, fostering empathy and deeper connections even amidst disagreements.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Sharon McMahon expressing her appreciation for Keith Payne's insights and endorsing his book, Good Reasonable People. She encourages listeners to engage with the material to better understand the complex factors driving America's political divisions and to strive for more empathetic and constructive interactions despite ideological differences.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Keith Payne [04:00]: "Once you start from that assumption that I'm good and the people who belong to my groups are also good, then it sets up the context in which no matter what one group says, the other doesn't seem to hear them and we bring out the worst in each other."

• Sharon McMahon [05:00]: "In many of our minds, it is a zero-sum game. In order for me to be good and reasonable, you must be evil and unreasonable."

• Keith Payne [14:10]: "Most of us don't have very consistent opinions about policies and issues at all. We're kind of all over the map when it comes to principles and policies."

• Sharon McMahon [20:00]: "I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about why they don't help us understand how we see the world differently than somebody who's not like us."

• Keith Payne [21:01]: "We're actually organizing our politics around our social groups, and these foundations... are ways of making sense of it, but they're not really what's driving it."

• Sharon McMahon [22:49]: "People are shocked to learn that demographers can predict with fairly high accuracy who they are likely to vote for based on their zip code."

• Keith Payne [33:24]: "More college education is associated with more liberal views compared to those without a college degree."

• Keith Payne [44:49]: "If you say that I'm wrong about something that's important to who I am, I'm probably wrong about lots of other things."

• Keith Payne [50:57]: "Ask why is this important to you? What does this mean to you?"

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For more insights and to explore the topics discussed, consider reading Good Reasonable People by Keith Payne.

Transcript

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[Sharon McMahon]

Hello friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you with me today. My guest is somebody that I think you're going to love hearing from his name is Keith Payne and he is the author of a book called Good Reasonable People, the Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide. And man, let's just dive right in because there's a lot to unpack. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Keith, thank you for being here today. I am really excited for this conversation.

[Keith Payne]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Sharon McMahon]

You've written a book called Good Reasonable People and man, sometimes it seems like there are not that many good, reasonable people on the interwebs. Keith, Al Gore's Internet is not full of good, reasonable people. But why is that? Is it because our perspective doesn't allow us to see others as good and reasonable when they have different views than ours? Why are there so seemingly few good, reasonable people out there today?

[Keith Payne]

Well, the title of the book isn't Claiming that Everybody's good and Reasonable People. Let me put that out there right at the beginning. We're not claiming that everyone's good and reasonable, but somehow in our own eyes, we always insist on seeing ourselves as good and reasonable people. And we insist on seeing the groups that we belong to as good and reasonable people too. And once you start from that assumption that I'm good and the people who belong to my groups are also good, then it sets up the context in which we find ourselves today, in which no matter what one group says, the other doesn't seem to hear them and we bring out the worst in each other. So me insisting that I'm writing good and you insisting that you're writing good, and we have a different opinion about some big, salient, important political issue. Both of us must think the other one must be stupid or evil or too stubborn to look at the facts. That's the situation that I wanted to explore in the book.

[Sharon McMahon]

In many of our minds, it is a zero sum game. In order for me to be good and reasonable, you must be evil and unreasonable. In order for me to view myself in this way, you must therefore be all of the opposite of that. Is that what's happening in people's minds?

[Keith Payne]

Do you think that is a lot of times what's happening in people's minds? And I found myself arguing with people on social media about politics. And the most painful part of that was that I found myself arguing with my own family members about political issues and having those same emotions, thinking, how can you be so ignorant? How can you be so stupid? How can you be so evil? And these are people who I know and love, and I know in my calmer moments that they're not stupid and they're not evil. And so how is it that the groups that politics puts us in makes us come out swinging in a way that we feel that even people who we know and love and we know are good, decent people, they seem to us in that moment like they must be stupid or evil. That conflict is really compelling. And I think that's what so many of us want to find a way out of.

[Sharon McMahon]

You're 100% right. And this is something that I hear probably dozens, hundreds of times a day, this conflict in people's mind. It's not even necessarily a conflict between the two of us or between you and your loved one. You may not actually even be arguing. It's a conflict in your mind between what I know about this person when we're not talking about this issue, or when I'm not thinking about them in the context of politics and the way that their beliefs about politics make me view them, how I feel about them when I'm thinking about, like, how could they vote for that person or how do they see the world so differently? The way they see the world is so flawed and so wrong, and how could they vote against this thing that I think is so important? It's a conflict in our own minds many times and not even necessarily a verbal confrontation between me and somebody else, right?

[Keith Payne]

That's right. And part of it comes from the fact that we're drawing on these group identities that make us who we are, that are really connected to our sense of self. Identities like race, like gender, like being an American. And somehow we've gotten ourselves into this situation in which those identities are lined up with our political identities, being a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative. And the problem with those identities lining up is that it's a two party system and that means it's a zero sum game. And so our actual sense of self and our actual identities aren't zero sum. Right? We can have a diversity of different identities, we can have a diversity of different beliefs and things we care about in real life. But as soon as those get layered on top of politics in a two party system, then I would never, ever want to approve of what the other side is doing. And if the other side gets power, then it seems like it's a disaster, not only for you know, four years of who's in charge of the government, but my whole worldview and my whole sense of who I am, has this.

[Sharon McMahon]

Always been the case? Is this a uniquely American problem? When you're talking about a two party system by necessity being a zero sum game, is this a unique, uniquely American problem? Do other countries that have different politics where we have like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 different parties to choose from, is it less of a zero sum game there?

[Keith Payne]

I believe it's less of a zero sum game, but it may not be as divorced from our experience as it looks. Because even if you have six, seven, eight parties, a lot of times there's sort of two broad coalitions that those end up going into. One that looks something like left and one that looks something like right, at least for a lot of Western European countries that are fairly similar to the American system. So, yeah, I think ours makes it even more salient because it's a two party system. But I don't think we can completely get out of that even if we had a third party, just because the zero sum nature of governing, winning and losing elections still remains zero sum. And so you asked, has it always been that way in the United States? And on the one hand, we've always been divided along lines of race and along social issues around gender and sexuality and things like that. You know, we've been divided along racial lines since before the Civil War, and yet it hasn't always lined up so neatly with Democrat versus Republican. And in part because, you know, before the civil rights movement, during the days of Jim Crow, the Southern Democratic Party was the party of segregation. And so segregationists and those who were for civil rights were sort of divided across parties depending on what region of the country you were in. So it wasn't a neat left, right division in which race and views about civil rights mapped onto your party. After the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, since those were Democratic administrations, the Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration who pushed through civil rights legislation, the two parties started realigning around race in such a way that people who were for the civil rights movement moved gradually more and more into the Democratic Party. And those who wanted to resist those changes moved more and more into the Republican Party. And so that racial sorting has reached almost as far as it can go today, with 85 to 90% of black Americans consistently voting for Democrats, 60% of white Americans across the country voting for Republicans. But that gets much higher if you're in certain regions of the country, especially in the South. And we can Talk about the history, about why it's sorted out that way, if you'd like.

[Sharon McMahon]

You know, it occurs to me that when in the course of human events, that the idea of widespread democracy is relatively young in human history, and humans have not had the opportunity to be able to sort themselves into political ideologies in many ways in the past, maybe you did have a different idea than your neighbor, but tribalism was such that you needed each other for protection to survive until tomorrow. And so that took precedent over. I think we should diversify the way we spend our tribal resources. You know, like these sorts of questions could, by necessity, because of how survival worked, we didn't have the opportunity to sort ourselves along political ideologies 500 years ago in Europe or 500 years ago in Asia or Africa or wherever our ancestors came from. That wasn't an option. And now, by virtue of time and place, we have the option of sorting ourselves along political ideologies. And as you mentioned, race has a lot to do with political ideologies. Geography has a lot to do with political ideologies. I would argue that a lot of that is cultural. We inherit a political culture from our surroundings and our families. And you can still see lots of remnants of that through migratory patterns in the United States. And places where the Puritans settled still have remnants of Puritanism. And places where, you know, people from other parts of Europe settled in Appalachia, those still have remnants of cultural identities. But I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm alone in the world thinking about these things. About, like, people 500 years ago didn't have the opportunity to think about themselves in terms of a political ideology. This is kind of new to humans in general. Am I alone in thinking about these things? Keith, is it just me?

[Keith Payne]

No. I've been thinking a lot along the same lines. And I think, like you said, people have organized ourselves in tribal ways for millennia and not along any kind of political ideology. In some ways, I don't think that's changed much. Right. So we're still sorting ourselves out along tribal lines, but we don't talk about it as tribal issues. Overtly. The ideology, the issues become a kind of code that we talk in. Because it would be very awkward if I said, I'm a white man and therefore that's why I'm attracted to this party. Or if somebody explained their politics in terms of their identity, you'd think they were being very strange and crass. Instead, we talk about the economy and tax policy and things like that. But when we say ideology. It depends on exactly what you mean by ideology. If you just mean I'm on the Democrats team or I'm on the Republicans team, that's one thing. We sort ourselves into those groups really easily. But if by political ideology you mean a coherent set of principles and the issue stances that follow from that set of principles, I would argue that we still don't have that for most people.

[Sharon McMahon]

We're not actually very governed by principles.

[Keith Payne]

Yeah. And most of us don't have very consistent opinions about policies and issues at all. So if you look at how people respond from one month to the next, if you survey them multiple times, they're incredibly inconsistent even with their own past opinions. If you look at how their attitude toward one issue, like taxes, correlates with their attitudes toward other issues like government services, which should be logically related, they're often not. No, they're very weakly related. And so we're kind of all over the map when it comes to principles and policies. So what happens is that we know our group loyalties. I know that I'm with this group, and I would never vote for that group. And so I talk about how great my group is for the economy and how terrible your group is for the economy or whatever the issue of the day is. We talk about it in terms of issues, but it's often a euphemism for sanitizing the fact that it's. I want my group to be in charge, not your group.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah. And one of the ways that we know that people are not at all principled when it comes to these types of topics is studies from places like Yale that show if an idea is presented as being from your group, then you like it. And if the exact same idea is presented as being from the other group, then it's a bad idea. I don't like it. I don't. Those people are trying to ruin the country. It's the same idea. Okay. It just shows that our allegiance to our group, that we view ourselves a part of whatever that is, our allegiance to that group, is actually what is motivating us and not our principles. I mean, am I interpreting that correctly?

[Keith Payne]

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, we can see it as plain as day. Whenever the other people do that, whenever the people we're arguing with make those kind of slippery arguments and they endorse whatever idea it takes to bolster their own group, you know, we can see that they're being inconsistent. We can see that they're being unprincipled. It's really hard to spot it when we're doing it.

[Sharon McMahon]

We're good at seeing the stick in someone else's eye high, but not so good at seeing the plank in our own.

[Keith Payne]

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[Sharon McMahon]

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[Keith Payne]

Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve.

[Sharon McMahon]

In the studio. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Sharon McMahon]

You talk about this in the book, and I think this is really interesting. You talk about this concept of the moral foundations theory, which is very popular in social psychology, in political psychology, and for anybody who is not familiar with it, this is what you I'll just read you a section of the book. It says the most popular theory for explaining ideological differences is the moral foundations theory, which argues that liberals and conservatives have fundamentally different moral values. Both conservatives and liberals care about avoiding harm and being fair, but that's about all they share. Conservatives care much more than liberals about other values, such as loyalty to one's group, moral purity, which means protecting the sacred, and authority like respect and obedience to social hierarchies. These foundations are described as modules like little switches in the mind that turn on or off to trigger different mental reactions. These theories all capture something real about the psychology behind politics. And you say that lots of research shows that liberals really do score a few percentage points higher on openness to experience, and that people's political orientation is correlated with their thinking styles and emotional reactions. And conservatives really do value purity, authority, and loyalty somewhat more than liberals do. But you say ultimately, I believe that these theories are not very helpful in explaining why we see the world differently. They describe that we do see the world differently, but not why. And I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about why they don't help us understand how we see the world differently than somebody who's not like us.

[Keith Payne]

One reason is, just like you said, liberals might score a few percentage points higher than conservatives on some of those foundations or values or traits. Republicans might score a few percentage points higher than Democrats on loyalty to authority and hierarchy. But if you look at those differences, they're tiny on a seven point scale. We're talking about a difference between Republicans and Democrats, probably of one scale point. So it's not like these are massive differences and they don't come close to explaining the massive real differences we have between our parties in terms of how we feel about the issues of the day and how we feel about what's going on. And the other thing is that it seems implausible to me that modules for valuing hierarchy, for example, would end up so much more likely to be in the brains of white people than black People. Right. So the way that our politics is patterned by groups, and especially race, as well as gender and other things like that, it would seem suspicious if those modules were divvied up in terms of groups. I think what makes much more sense is to say that our politics is actually organized around our social groups and that these foundations in terms of values like hierarchy and authority and things like that are ways of making sense of it, but they're not really what's driving it. Because we can predict basically before somebody is born, if we only know what racial group that they're about to be born into, that family and what their geography is, where they live in the country, which of those moral foundations they're going to find compelling.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, people. When we talk about elections in my groups, people are sometimes shocked to learn that demographers can predict with fairly high accuracy who they are likely to vote for based on their zip code. And of course, their zip code tells them a lot about their income. It may predict something about race. It's not perfect, but it has a high correlation to education level, types of jobs somebody might be involved in. And those things strongly correlate with voting in one direction or another. And people are always like, they can't tell who I will vote for. People are, like, incensed when I tell them that in fact, what is happening in their mind may not actually be as independent as they realize. Right. Like, they're personally offended that I tell them that if they live in thus and such zip code that there's a good chance you're voting for Trump or you're voting for Harris. They do not like that. They do not like it when people try to predict that even though the reason they're mad is because you're right. Right. The reason you're mad is not because it's wrong, it's because it's right. And they don't like being pigeon holed in that way. They don't like being told that they're making these decisions based on external forces and culture and not based on their own independent, autonomous assessment of the situation. Exactly. Like what you were saying. We're not actually that principled. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, too. Like, people really don't like being told that we can predict with a high degree of accuracy who one might vote for.

[Keith Payne]

Yeah. I mean, it's threatening to hear that. Right. It does sound insulting to say to somebody that you didn't arrive at these positions through an independent, logical analysis.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yes, it seems like an insult.

[Keith Payne]

Yeah. So what's Happening is sort of two things are happening on different levels at once. And from that person's perspective, they have thought about these issues probably a lot. They've probably turned it over in their head. They thought through the alternatives. They maybe have had conversations, even debates and arguments with other people. And so we've all, if we care about politics at all, we've all spent a lot of time reasoning through these positions in our own heads. And so we feel that we've reasoned our way to our conclusions. And that's true, we have. And yet we can tell from the outside, based on things like somebody's zip code, as well as things like their demographics and their education level and all these other things, which side of the argument is going to seem compelling to them when they're doing all that reasoning. So it's not like they've just accepted the opinion of their neighbors uncritically. We do actually think it through. It's just that when we're thinking about issues that are related to our identities, we don't just apply logical rules and stop if we apply a logical analysis and it ends up with an outcome that we don't like. We kind of go back to the drawing board and try again. And we just keep rejiggering things until we get an answer that fits with our sense of self. That seems satisfying and that reassures us that we were probably right all along. And the people that are in my group were probably good and reasonable folks all along as well. And so it's that process of not conforming to what your group thinks is easy and mindless and thoughtless. We actually put a lot of thought into it, and we want credit for that thinking.

[Sharon McMahon]

I think that's exactly right. We want to view ourselves as thoughtful, good, reasonable people, and a good, reasonable person would not be influenced by zip code. Keith, that's ridiculous. You don't know how carefully I've thought about these issues. I've read books, I've gone to church, whatever it is. I have talked about it with the peoples. I think that you hit the nail on the head. You know, one of the other things that I know you talk about and is, I think, missing from the conversation about why we view the world so differently. It's not just that. Well, liberals think, you know, more open to new ideas and conservatives care more about authority. It's why. Why are liberals more open to new ideas? Again, brought over generalizations, and as you pointed out earlier, the difference is actually quite small. Why do people care so much about certain topics? Why do Some people care so much about abortion. Why do some people care so much about gun control? Why do some people care so much about border security? Why do people care about public schools? I think if we could understand better why somebody else cares so much about a topic, that would help us in our quest to be rational, principled, good, reasonable people. Keith, can you help us make sense of this?

[Keith Payne]

Yeah. Well, the way you put it is just right. People care about a lot of issues, and they sincerely do. And first of all, our political debates usually stop right there. I say, I care about this issue. Here's what I think about it. And somebody else says, no, you're wrong. Here's some facts that'll prove you wrong. And we try to just wrestle them into submission with the force of our facts and logic. But the more interesting question is, why do you care so much about this issue? And I don't mean like, oh, because this many people will be harmed if this policy goes through. No, no. What is this doing for your sense of self? That your sense that you're a good and reasonable person and a valuable member of your groups and a valuable member of society. And it might be different for each person and each particular issue, but there's a commonality across all of it, which is that I care about it to the extent that it invokes my sense of self. We don't care about economic policies just because we're neutral accountants who want to maximize utility in the world. We care about some economic policy because it means something to me personally and something about the values that I and my groups care about. And so one of the best things that we can do, I think, to get beyond those sort of fruitless circles of arguing around and around again and again, is to ask that question explicitly and to be clear, it's weird when you do this in a political conversation. If you're at Thanksgiving dinner and your uncle says something that ticks you off politically, of course, everybody's reaction is either to ignore it or to prove him wrong on the facts. Right? But I would challenge people to try to literally do this, to try to ask, why is this important to you? What does this mean to you? And how is defending that position serving your sort of psychological bottom line that you're a good and reasonable person? Because if you get to that level, first of all, you're not arguing about policies and politics anymore. But also now you're two people having a conversation about what this means to me and what it means to you. And that by itself is miles ahead of the quality of our normal political discourse, and you might even come to understand each other a bit better. And because ultimately, when we're engaging in politics, we literally are trying to be good people and trying to make the world a better place from our own particular point of view. It's just that the other side can never see it that way. And so I think one of the most profound things we can do is realize that we're all sort of winging it and that none of us has the answers and that we are all just sort of dropped into this really complex, too hard to understand world. And we're trying to make sense of it the best we can from the perspective that we have, which is from our own group's perspective. And once you realize that that person is doing the best they can, winging it to try to figure out the story that is really driving what's going on in the world, I'm doing the same thing now. You're in a position where you can have a conversation that's not only more civil, but also an opportunity to connect rather than just to shatter at each other.

[Sharon McMahon]

Okay, I want to give you a scenario that I know somebody is going to ask me about, so I'm going to ask you, Keith, which is that if we accept the premise that humans are not actually all that different and that we are, as you say in the book, dealt a certain hand, and we are playing that hand to the best of our ability, that we're playing that hand in our own self interest, in our own viewpoint of how, of what is best. And that hand can include things like which racial group you're born into, the geographical region you're born into, what religion your family is, how well off economically is your family. A litany of cards in one's hand. If we accept that as true, sort of in broad strokes across the country, you can understand how a person who is born into a poor immigrant family, who does not speak English and does not have much education in an inner city would have a very different hand to play than somebody who had a private tennis instructor at the country club. Right. Like we all can agree, those are wildly different worldviews and life experiences. But that does not explain, Keith, how two people raised in the same household by the same darn parents can end up on such wildly divergent ends of the spectrum. And I know there's no two children who have the exact same upbringing. I do understand that. But if you're raised by the same parents, same economic situation, in the same demographic group, in the same geographical Location. How does that account for, say, even siblings who grow up to view the world so differently?

[Keith Payne]

Yeah, it's a good question. I've spent some time thinking about this too, and this has happened within my family. I'm one of seven brothers and sisters, and we have a lot of different political perspectives. In my own family, one of the factors that seems to matter a lot is people's educational trajectory. So the disagreements in my family tend to line up pretty much perfectly with those of us who went away to college versus those who didn't. And that reflects a broader trend that we see in general. Right. With more college education being associated with more liberal views and compared to those without a college degree.

[Sharon McMahon]

And some people would say that's indicative of liberal indoctrination at the university level. Keith. But that's a story for another day. But that's the explanation that many people use to sort of wave that away with. And then it's used as further evidence for the idea that, like, don't send your kids to college, it will turn them into a liberal. And again, that's not the topic of your book, but I just want to point out that's the explanation that some people have for the differences we see in people who go away to college versus people who don't.

[Keith Payne]

Right. Well, I just have to point out that studies that have looked at this actually find that going to college doesn't seem to cause people to become more liberal. If anything, it's more of a sorting effect where more liberal families tend to send their kids to college at higher rates or more liberal young people choose. Choose to go to college. And so college students are definitely more liberal than the general public, but they show up as freshmen already liberal, already programmed that way.

[Sharon McMahon]

It makes sense. Okay, continue. I want to talk more about the original question that we were discussing. You said some of it has to do with the educational trajectory of those siblings.

[Keith Payne]

Right. And that's the biggest determinant that I've been able to find. And it's not clear to what extent colleges is causing differences versus they're sort of expressing their personality differences and so forth by whether they choose to go to college or not within families is where I think those personality differences that we were talking about earlier do seem to make a lot of difference. So those differences are small, but the differences within families are also small. It seems salient to those of us who have big rifts within their own families, but there's a lot more similarities within families than there are differences in terms of politics. And so you know most families are all raised in the same geography. Like you said, they're all belonging to the same racial groups and the same religious groups for the most part. And so those broad demographic group differences, those aren't what explain the differences within families, but the differences within families are actually quite small. It just seems really big when you're in one of those families. When it comes to hiring, don't search for a great talent match with them. Thanks to Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find qualified candidates fast. And Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent Indeed survey, leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. Just go to indeed.com listen right now and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility, go to indeed.com listen and tell them you heard about them from this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

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[Sharon McMahon]

Going back to your original point that studies show that college students that arrive at college kind of pre programmed to a more liberal worldview. But how do the children from the same family get to be one kid goes to college? I'm not saying correlation equals causation, but the more liberal child air quotes goes on to college and this more conservative child from the same family does not. Why, Keith? Why?

[Keith Payne]

Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not aware of a really satisfying empirical answer for it. I've looked myself. I can just tell you anecdotally that even siblings within the same family have radically different personalities and world views in lots of ways, not just politics. In my family, for example, I grew up in a small town in Kentucky, and we have a huge range of how much Southern accent we have. But it's not just about where we moved away to. We had those differences in accent as little kids, and those of us with less of a Southern accent later chose to go away to college. And again, this is just anecdotal, but there's something that seems to be going on early in the way that kids identify with different people, different cultures. I remember when I was a kid watching TV and looking around at my small town in Kentucky going, how did I end up here? I'm supposed to be in New York or LA or something. I don't belong here. Even as like a 7, 8, 9 year old, I thought from a very early age that I was just passing through and I was going to get out as soon as I could. And that's what I did.

[Sharon McMahon]

Here's what I really want to get to, which is how do we make sense of this in the context of our own lives? What kind of information? When we read Good Reasonable People, which, by the way, I think is such an interesting read and has a lot of important takeaways when it comes to the history of this sort of divide in the United States. The history of it is fascinating and explains a lot. And if nothing else, it'll satisfy a lot of people's curiosity about, like, how did we end up like this? So if that is a question that somebody who's listening to this has sort of like in a thought bubble above their head, how do we end up like this? Good Reasonable People has a lot of great historic information in it. But I'm curious about what do you hope people do with this information? If we acknowledge that growing up in Massachusetts often means that you're going to have one worldview, and growing up in rural Kentucky, you're probably going to have a different worldview. I grew up in northern Minnesota. My worldview is different than my mother's who grew up in Los Angeles. I have a different life experience than she does. What are we supposed to do with this information and how do we use it? We're never going to close all of the gaps when it comes to our ideological differences. It's never going to be like, well, we now have unity and we all agree on abortion, gun control, immigration, blah, blah, blah. That's not the goal. But what are we supposed to do with this information, Keith?

[Keith Payne]

By talking about all the things we have in common and the ways that we can bridge divides, I certainly don't want it imply that the differences between us aren't real or aren't important. I think they're very important and very consequential. And these are worldviews that are worth fighting over. It's just that to me, the goal is to keep us fighting over them at the ballot box and not with guns and bullets and assassination attempts and the rising sort of white supremacist violence that we're seeing increasingly in this country. And so my goal is actually pretty modest. And that's to keep us disagreeing with each other in a way that's peaceful. Beyond that, some of us want to be able to maintain friends and family relationships amid all of this political turmoil. And so that's another goal I have for us to be able to, if you choose to. Not everybody wants to, but if you choose to try to keep in touch and keep close to people who are different from you politically, that's a goal that I think is attainable by understanding the psychology behind our political divide. There are two things that I hear most often when I give talks about this topic. One is the sort of starting point I can't believe those idiots on the other side can't see the truth. But the other one is I'm so exhausted by all of this and I've already heard all the arguments on both sides and if I have to have another argument with my family member or coworker, I'm just going to die, make it go away. And how can I just go have dinner with my mother in law and have a perfectly nice time? And that I think it's probably healthy not to be consumed with politics in every aspect of our lives. We can still be political activists. We can still be knocking on doors, donating money. We can be voting and trying to convince people that our side is right. But I'm not sure it's good for politics to define every aspect of our life. And that's something that wasn't always the case. So I think that's a point worth trying to get back to where we can still sit down at dinner with our family and friends and not let politics be at the table if we don't want to. I'm not saying that people shouldn't, but we need a space to be able to have those conversations and also a space to actually have social relationships that don't always revolve around those fights.

[Sharon McMahon]

Okay, I have just one more question, which is something that is personally annoying to me, although I fully acknowledge that, you know, I'm not holding myself up on some pedestal, but why do people, when presented with Facts. Why do they just reject the facts outright? If somebody's like, well, the moon is made of green cheese and it's time for us to send men to the moon and harvest the green cheese because we are running out here on Earth and you present them with a litany of facts about how, no, the moon is actually made of rock and no, it actually doesn't have its own light. It's reflected light from the sun and it's not green cheese and blah, it's not radioactive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can give them all the facts. We've been to the moon. We have moon rocks. It will not matter. It will not matter. In fact, the outcome of that conversation is Sharon is an idiot. Right. The outcome is never. Well, I shouldn't say never. The outcome is too infrequently in my view. Huh. Those are some facts I had not thought about. I'm going to think about it some more. I'm going to investigate independently. I'm going to look it up. I'm going to consult the experts. That's almost never the reaction. It's shoot the messenger. The messenger is the problem, not my beliefs. Why are we like this? Yeah, I mean, this is fix it, Keith.

[Keith Payne]

Yeah, I can diagnose it. I don't know how to fix it. I absolutely recognize that frustration that you're describing. It happens all the time. And I think what's going on is that the two people in that conversation are playing two different games. You're trying to play the reason and argument game with somebody who's actually playing I'm a good person game. Right. So one person is defending their sense of identity, their sense of self, their sense that they're a valuable person, and they're using whatever facts they can come up with or non facts, whatever information and argument that they can come up with to defend that they're a good person. And if you say that I'm wrong about this, then it's not like, you know, you gave me directions and I didn't know the way to the movie theater. I can take on that information, say thank you very much, and go on about my day. But you're saying I'm wrong about something that's important to who I am. And if I'm wrong about it, I'm probably wrong about lots of other things. And the people who I believe, who I got this information from, they sold me a bill of goods. Now I have to start doubting them. What's easier to do, to start doubting my own thought processes, to Start doubting the groups that I belong to to start doubting whether the news sources that I found trustworthy for the last 10 years are lying to me. It's easier to just say, you don't know what you're talking about, Sharon, and let the facts roll off your back. So I think we have to realize that whenever we're defending our identity, whenever we're defending our sense that we're a good person, no feats of logical inconsistency are out of bounds.

[Sharon McMahon]

Okay, how do we know if the other person, like, we're playing the facts and logic game and they're playing the I'm a good person game? How do we know which game we're playing? Because let's not kid ourselves, sometimes we are also playing the I'm a good person game. And how do we know which game somebody else is playing? Because if we're playing two different games, then nobody is actually ever going to win because these games have different rules, different objectives. Right? If one game, the goal is to score points, and the other game is to hug teddy bears, nobody will ever win anything. So how do we know which game we're playing? And how do we evaluate which game somebody else is playing?

[Keith Payne]

Well, it's easy to see it when somebody else is playing the I'm a good person game because they dodge the facts, they move the goalposts, they contradict themselves, they flip flop. It's easy to see it whenever somebody else is doing it. The trick is to understand when we're doing that because it doesn't feel like that from the inside. And they probably don't know that they're doing it when they're doing it either. That's the tricky part in the book. I talk about an example where I caught myself doing that. I was making coffee one morning when during the 2020 election, I heard news that Tara Reid had accused Joe Biden of sexual assault. And my first response was, oh, she's probably just lying. And then I noticed myself thinking that, and I thought, wait a minute, we just finished the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, and I was going around arguing that we should take women's accusation of sexual assault seriously, even if they don't have any proof. And then I thought, well, maybe she does have a point. Maybe Biden did this. And then I thought, well, but Trump's been accused of way worse by way more women. And so even if the worst case scenario is true about Joe Biden, then it's not going to change my vote because Trump is still way worse on that score. And I'd gone through all of these logical mental gymnastics over the course of about two minutes. And by the time I was finished making coffee, I realized that I didn't have to change my vote and I was satisfied with how it all had gone. Looking back on it, I can catch myself. I can see that I was playing the I'm a good person game and I'm going to make sure that these facts add up to it. But in the moment, it just felt like I was reasoning through a problem. So I don't have an easy solution for how we can stop doing it or how we can catch ourselves doing it. But I think the first step is to understand how it works and just become aware of these kinds of identity driven reasoning processes. First start to spot them in other people and then with practice, I think we get better spotting them in ourselves. So that's the most hopeful solution I have for that.

[Sharon McMahon]

So let's say somebody sends me a dm. I get the zillions of DMS a day. The DM is about the moon is made of green cheese. And I say, here's a link to 42 reasons why that's not true. And the person comes back with, you people are all the same. Where would I have gotten this language from? I don't know, Keith. You people are all the same. Whatever it is, I can easily see like, okay, we're not playing the same game here. What is the next best move for me in that scenario?

[Keith Payne]

In 90% of the cases, I think, you know, if you're arguing with a stranger on the Internet and you find yourself in this position, absolutely the best idea is to walk away, stop talking to that person.

[Sharon McMahon]

Okay.

[Keith Payne]

The stickier problem is whenever it's your friends and family.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah.

[Keith Payne]

And you can't just walk away. I mean, you could, but most of us don't want to. And then you got to sort of summon up your courage reengage and say, all right, I've given you all these facts and you don't seem interested in them. What's going on under the surface? Why do you feel the need to believe that the moon is made of green cheese? Not where are you getting this information? And here's why it's wrong. What does it make you feel to assert that and to express your conviction about that? Why does that make you feel that way? And what's it doing for you as a person, for your sense of identity? And then you're in a position to start getting somewhere.

[Sharon McMahon]

That's a good tip. I like the tip of, like, what's going on for you when you feel like it's really important for you to assert that this belief is real. And that's a different conversation than you're an idiot for believing such a stupid thing.

[Keith Payne]

Yeah, a much better conversation.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah. Because at the very least, it's like I always say, listening to understand doesn't obligate you to agree with the person. The goal is not to have your mind changed and come to see that the moon is in fact made of green cheese, but understanding why it's important for them to think that that actually is super useful information. Like, there's a bunch of stuff you can do with that. If nothing else, it just helps you understand somebody you love better.

[Keith Payne]

Right. And at the same time turns what could have been an argument into a conversation about what you care about most.

[Sharon McMahon]

I love that, Keith. This was so good. I love the book Good Reasonable People. I love this conversation. Thank you for letting me ask questions on behalf of my friends. Hopefully this will not be the last time we meet. Thanks for being here today.

[Keith Payne]

Oh, thanks so much for having me. It was great talking to you.

[Sharon McMahon]

You can buy Keith Payne's book Good Reasonable People wherever you buy your books. If you want to support independent bookshops, you can head to yours or go to bookshop.org I'll see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to here's where it gets interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show that helps podcasters out so much? I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.