All right. Hey, everybody. We are in the, last vestiges of November. It's a little before Thanksgiving, but,  a friend and I had a conversation recently and brought up a topic that I have really been meaning to Discuss because I've seen it in the past, probably good 10 years or so, if not more, and it's basically,  the  lack of nuance, maybe the lost art of nuance. We're going to discuss nuance in modern societal conversations and then how debates about all kinds of stuff that people find, personal to them, politics, culture, social issues seem to feel like they're oversimplified. They seem like they're getting to be extremely black and white and, there's not a lot of gray area people are discussing, which is a little bit dangerous, I think, and a little bit, scary, maybe a little bit sad, but it's been something that I've wanted to talk about because to me, nuance is important, and believe me, sometimes I can be, we all can be pretty black and white about things that we're very passionate about.

But starting off with, what nuance is right, then how nuance has been missing or is going missing in today's society as far as conversations are concerned. Then the importance of it in a meaningful conversation, why nuance matters and  what we think is dangerous about a lack of nuance, and then maybe how  we can bring nuance back into our conversations, see if we can start incorporating it back in because I think we really need to. Then some real life examples of nuance. If I can come up with some of those for you, I will, but, it's always good to throw an example and just to understand what it is that we're discussing.

 My little backstory on this is that it just seems like I had listened to another podcast, not that I'm going to go into it and mention it, but the overall viewpoint of it was that these days it seems like our conversations are very  sports team minded. Being from New England  or New York, if you're from either one of those areas, you'll understand the Yankees. Red Socks conversation, right? And if you're a  Yankees fan, you've always been a Yankees fan, it's your upbringing, your background,  it's a cultural thing for you if you live in New York city.

And if you're from the Boston area or the New England area, because there's some areas around Boston that also celebrate Boston sports teams, including Rhode Island, which is where I live. You are very passionate about the Red Sox, right?  I'm not a crazy baseball fan, but I know a lot of people that are, and those people are  what you would call diehard Red Sox fans. Now, of course, if  you're a big fan, you'll know that the history of the Red Sox is much like the Patriots, there was a point in time where the Red Sox were just not winners. They just had  game after game, especially against the Yankees, where they did not win.

 There was a very long series, of losses and it went on for a good almost  hundred years. And there's the curse of the Bambino and all that kind of stuff. So if you're not a huge baseball fan, you at least know that much about it, right? And you know that if you're walking around in New York and you're a Boston Red Sox fan, and you mention the Red Sox, you're going to get into an argument  with somebody about the team.

Now, what I want to touch on is that if you are a fan of one or the other, you are a. A complete and total fan . So there's no conversation going on in the middle there. You're either a fan of the Red Sox or you're a fan of the Yankees. And that's it.  Fans of both of those sides are really not interested in listening to anybody who's a fan of the Baltimore Orioles or the Atlanta Braves, they're just not. That's not a conversation they want to have. Now  obviously  both of their teams play those other teams throughout the course of the year and the season. But the really, passionate, excited, extreme conversation focuses around the Red Sox and the Yankees and which one are you? Are you with us or are you with them? Very us and them. As a matter of fact, if you listen to Pink Floyd, or if you're like Pink Floyd, this is a song called Us and Them. And it's basically that mindset. If you're not over here, then you're over there, right? 

In a lot of cases,  there's a spectrum and there's a gray area. And some things are okay and true and some things are not okay and not true. It's very easy to get into a mindset to dig your heels in on your side and almost no matter what you hear or find out, you don't change your mind about it.

We go back to identity  there's a podcast I did about identity and how identity is so ingrained in conversation, especially when it comes to politics, religion, money, a few societal things are very important. How you were raised or your family life or  your views on marriage or dating, or there's some subjects like that are just,  Gaza and Israel  right now, what went on in the Ukraine with Russia, these are very deep rooted, extreme topics that get underneath people's skin and they start arguing almost from their feelings as opposed to whatever is happening.

It's very easy to get caught up in that. Starting with what nuance is like, let's define nuance. What is it?  It's that there's subtle differences in viewpoints. There's detail, there's complexity, nothing is extremely  simple, nothing is extremely basic. A lot of things that we discuss as adults have more than one.

Viewpoint and more than one angle to look  from. Now I have a group of people that I've put together over the years that I've discussed it before. And we are, MBTI based. If you're into that, you find if you aren't fine, but we all, Identify as INTJs, whether or not you believe in the MBTI, it means that we've all answered the questions to  the test the same, and that a lot of the same things matter to us, right?

So all of us have the same viewpoints or we know we're not exactly a monolith, but we all have the same, ways of living and thinking about things. And we seem to be better at a conversation because I guess  we like concepts and we like to analyze things and for some reason we're open to, and I'm not saying that any other MBTI isn't but the world in general doesn't seem to be open to new information, or at least that's not what I'm noticing in conversations. And this is just what I call out in the wild. We have our conversations within our group and those conversations usually have cited information and links and peer reviews and surveys and things that like If somebody has brought a topic up and we all get into it and start discussing it, if somebody brings something to the table that we'd not seen before,  we will at least stop what we're saying and go follow a link. And we're looking for cited information. We're not looking for just stuff in a video or stuff that somebody uses an opinion. We're looking for like case studies and things like that.

And when something's brought up like that, where there was an actual survey or a bunch of analysis of data, we'll go and look at that data. And say, okay, I'll be right back. I didn't know this was happening. So let me go look at this data and come back because my opinion may not be what it was five minutes ago.

It just doesn't seem like that happens outside of our group too often. At least this is my experience because this is the group I'm in all the time. Then there's a contrast between that and like people outside that group and the contrast is extremely  stark. Sometimes if I forget where I'm at, I'll be quite shocked by people's responses.

If I present some information or I request information, if I'm talking to somebody about something and they're just dead set on whatever they're going to say,  I'm not trying to argue with you to win. That's not my deal. I know a lot of people want to just win the conversation or win the argument or be the victor of what they're talking about.

That's not really my goal. My goal is to just understand why you have the viewpoint you have. So I always ask for information and I don't want your opinion. I don't want you how you felt, obviously, how you feel and what you've been through is important, but it's really not the big picture.

And so you may be in a situation where you're an extreme exception to a majority,  so I want some basic information that's not personalized. I'd like something that's, "hey, we surveyed 500 people and we come up with this information" or whatever. When I ask for that information, depending on where I'm at, if I'm with somebody or if I'm talking to people outside of my group,  there's an offense to that question.

Like, how dare you ask me to give you information? How dare you not just take what I say and believe it? And I don't do it to offend anybody.  Okay you have this information. You're telling me about this please bring this information to the table and put it down. I don't want your interpretation of it I want the original facts.

I want to take the information and go off and browse and peruse through the information I may very well come back and say you know what I had no idea about this information so now my opinion  is different and now I don't disagree with you or I disagree with you but not in the same way. So this is what nuance is to me, there's  how we feel about the information, and then there's the information, but also there are so many different facets to something that's happening.

There are so many facets to a conversation about religion. It's not very black and white, there's always good and bad in every religion, so there's always bad things you can look at in religion and say this whole religion is no good because of these bad people. Now, to some degree, The people that are not bad should probably want to flush out the people that are in order to preserve the group that they represent for some reason people are not as excited to do something like that.

It's not fun, but the nuance is there, right? So the definition that I see here is the nuance is the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in your mind and still engage with them thoughtfully. So you're able to look at both sides of the situation or you're able to take these two facts. Of this topic and consider them, right?

So you're not disregarding one for the other based on your position or your viewpoint or what stance you're taking. If you've ever been in a debate class, you'll understand what I'm saying with that, right? Excuse me, I am a little congested, so I apologize for that. When people present stuff, they always present, they seem to present it in black and white.

Maybe it's cause I don't want to get into the complexity of the discussion. It's too much to get into or they might have to back down on some stuff if they actually realize that there's some details that they're leaving out, or there's some details that they haven't yet. incorporated into their argument.

I think if you're going to argue with something, or you're going to argue about something, in my opinion, the last thing you want to do is argue about something you don't know that much about. I just don't know understand. There are, for some reason, I've seen several people do this, where they just like to argue just to argue.

And sure, Devil's Advocate is fun for some people, but at the end of the day it's not It there's some insensitivity that goes on with the devil's advocate that, can be offensive and may not necessarily make the argument you want to make and it's just a sidebar to what's actually happening, but really, If you want to understand the other side, right?

I  have a problem. My problem  is something that's going on with you. And you have a problem with something that's going on with me. Why don't we take the problem that we're having and put it  to the side, right? So  our peripheral gaze is not at each other, but it's to the problem.

That's really what we would want to do, but also What we need to do as a society is start looking for common ground in arguments as opposed to, Oh, I'm looking for a way to make you feel bad, or I'm looking for a way to discredit you, which seems to be the way that like life is going right. So simplify language is easier to digest, but it doesn't have any depth and It doesn't do anything.

It doesn't solve the problem. I would, to be honest with you, I'm at a point in my life where I only really want to have conversations with people to learn. If I'm not learning something from the conversation, whether it's how you feel or your viewpoint, but also the information that I'm missing that's creating your opinion.

to be different than mine. I don't know what the point of the conversation is, right? I don't get it. I don't get the point of the argument unless the two of us are trying to learn something about this topic that we're not, we didn't see or we didn't get before, like agreeing on the topic might be a good goal.

I know that nobody does that these days, but they should. All right. So the absence of nuance in today's society, polarization, echo chambers, those are the two things that seem to happen, right?  It's definitely true in politics. We call it silo mindset,  look, I like myself, I like what I like, what I believe. I'm really only going to engage with people that believe what I do. And that's it. You don't believe what I believe. I have a problem with you, but  I'm going to stay in my little bubble where all my little people are. Politics is like this on both sides, right?

And I've noticed  if I bring up a political thing, somebody is, it's almost like they're so interested in, opposing me that they're not even sometimes making any sense. That's the goal for them. It's  to just wipe out the other person right? It's kind of like, I get it because within our bubble, that's the way we all have a conversation. I don't, the echo chamber and the in a vacuum thing, it's not good for us. It's not good for us as people.  Race, gender, culture, cultural identity, these are all things that where we fall into an us versus them discussion and some stuff to bring up left versus right woke versus anti-woke, right? Liberal versus conservative   they're set up a stark opposites, but within those groups, there are people that are like maybe interested in some issues here and some issues there, but they're not necessarily like, deadpan black or white, one side or the other, there's a lot of that going on.

But if you listen to the overall, like  the summary of everything that's being discussed, it looks like people are just never going to get along. It's a lot of division. Forget it. But when you start to go out in the  your neighborhood or in your community, you talk to people, You don't really get that impression with people face to face.

It's,  so easy to be divisive  when you're not standing in front of somebody, when you're online or you're watching the news or cable TV or whatever YouTube channel you follow or whatever, it's so easy to just like, The one thing that I do know is if you other people as a human being is so easy to disregard a group of people because you can "other" them.

If you can, that's fine, but if you can't, right?

 Social media in a nutshell is a different type of - the way that it's set up, the algorithm that's  geared to look at  what is the viral point? If it's looking for attention or it's looking for likes and shares  you the listener and I, have been on social media and have watched things go viral specifically because of something in the video, the picture, the discussion that is just generating a lot of polarization or response.

The algorithm  respond to stuff that people are incited about, right?  We technically tend to be way more incited about negative shit, right? That's the stuff that gets shared. That's the stuff that gets likes. There are groups that I know of that, or pages I would call them, where they just post stuff that's what you would call rage bait; we actually literally call rage bait. You put it up there because, and you don't tell them what your side is. 

I like to generate discussion. A lot of my posts I'll put up. I don't want people to be, I try  very hard not to influence them with one way or the other, how I believe the topic should be discussed. I want to go in there neutral. I want to drop the topic and I want to say, what do you guys think of this? That's it.  I'm not disagreeing or agreeing,  I'm not going to  denigrate anybody who doesn't agree with me, right? 

Especially being a group of what, 12, 000 people, my opinion isn't it's not law. It's not rule. It shouldn't be, I don't ever want to be in a group where people are not allowed to have a conversation now  if you start to, insult people instead of discussing the topic and  hate speech starts happening and things like that, regardless of what side you're on, I don't like that. So I'll step in and say, okay let's discuss what's going on here. But there's no need to tell somebody they're a piece of shit or whatever it is that you're saying to them because *they* are not the argument. The topic is the argument, right? So I try to keep people within guidelines of "let's discuss this" and there's no reason to scream and yell and insult. It doesn't actually move the conversation along, honestly. So I don't like that.

Sound bites and little things like that, the algorithms will push. I will say that stuff gets crunched down, right? So when there's a topic, there's nuance and somebody wants to discuss it they will of course leave important details out to make it look this way or that way. And it seems like lately people are not interested in looking at the whole story. They'll just start arguing about the thing they see and if you saw that, you might not have the same opinion that you do. This little snippet or piece of whatever it is that you're seeing is not the whole story, right? So let's get the whole story, right? Let's remember that; write that down on  your refrigerator or something,  put that somewhere where you can see it. 

What is the whole story? When I hear something and I get all upset, and that's another thing, getting all upset is another part of this. But before I get into that, before you lose your mind over something that you see or hear or whatever about people  that you don't know there are people that influence you and that's fine but most of the time it's somebody you don't even know over a topic that makes you personally mad, but really It's not something going on in your hometown unless you go on those like little pages for your town, your city " hey, when is trash day?" kind of things.

Outside of that, major news is typically not something going on in your backyard. It's something going on that makes you mad for some reason, but it isn't somebody that's coming to your house to, to  inflict whatever you're reading on you as a person, right? So you really have to reign that in and go, okay, why am I so pissed off about this?

This is something going on in another country or something going on in another state or It's a federal thing or whatever the case may be it's always good to check yourself on stuff like this. Let's start with why you're mad and  let's stop getting  happy, upset, whatever. And let's say, what's the whole story here, right? You can be really happy something's happening  but you don't know what happened that led up to it and that may make you not happy. So let's just try to figure out what the whole story is because news and media right now and social media, especially you're going to get snippets and pieces of stuff that are so simplified just to incite you.

To be honest with you, why should social media piss you off? So if something pisses you off, you should be mad at something is doing that. That's a control or manipulation of you. So let's say let's get into  nuance in, in discourse and how it's important, right?

Understanding complexity of the opposing viewpoints and then understand that we can create solutions that are more inclusive and empathetic as opposed to exclusive and divisive. What are the two things that we both agree on? The one I always DJ, right? People love music. I think once or twice, I've actually heard people say they don't listen to music  ever, like ever. I hate to say, wow, what a sociopath, but music is something to me that's very universal. And it's really rare that I find  somebody that doesn't like music, like at all. 

Most people like music. So let's think about this. There's all different types of music and just like religion. If you put them side by side, music is something that moves you.  You have your tip. Particular type of music and you think that's the best thing on the planet, but then somebody else's kind of music is absolutely terrible.

I guess the pineapple on the pizza is the most simplified version of that. Like you don't like pineapple on pizza, but  to say that nobody should have pineapple on pizza.  It's a fun argument, but  there's no reason to actually cross the street and tell somebody that they shouldn't have whatever the hell they want on their pizza.

Who cares, right? If you don't like something, then don't do it. But it's the reach across that drives me nuts.  I think  the most recent version of that would be  Beyonce and her country album. There are people losing  their shit over this.

And  first of all, if you've lived long enough, you've seen artists cross over. It's not even a new thing. There are several artists that have put together country albums  by the same token, there are country artists that made pop albums that made R& B albums I think the gatekeeping drives me insane, right? Cause we all like music. Who cares if somebody is listening to something different than you? So the thing with Beyonce is like, Hey, listen, she put together a country album. I don't know how it came about.   Being a specific culture, being a specific category, doesn't make you like, null and void to all other categories.

It's the weirdest thing ever because music is so influenced and so many different types of music are influenced by others that it's strange to me that people are very siloed in their music like that. And her I think the one important thing is like  beyonce singing Jolene and you think, and how dare she, like, how dare she go after, Dolly Parton song and who does she think she is? And she doesn't have  the stature in that particular category to sing a song like that and then you hear Dolly Parton, "oh yeah I had this song aside and for two years I've been wanting her to sing it". And then  that changes your opinion. Oh, Dolly Parton  wanted her to sing the song. Does that make you feel different? Because Dolly Parton is  the person who sang that song is her song. She owns it. So now how does that make you feel to be keeping a song that Dolly Parton specifically  went looking for Beyonce to sing? So  that's what I'm saying,  Beyonce and Dolly Parton are not ever gonna be people that come to your house for the most part  this is not affecting you in your house, in your backyard, right? This is stuff that just doesn't have a huge effect on your life. So why are you so crazy about, right? How dare Beyonce sing this song? 

 To say "hey, this person doesn't belong in this category because of whatever my particular interest in her or not"   Shania Twain got so much flack because she was married to Mutt Lang. It doesn't mean she wasn't a talented person. I've heard people go on and on about how Shania Twain  slept her way into the Grand Ole Opry. That's just nuts to me that people get this upset about it.

But anyway, music is music. Everybody likes something different and to me, it's weird to say my music is great, but your music sucks; it's the strangest thing to watch people do, but they do. And they get really upset over it. Is it because they want to get upset over other stuff, but they can't are they using music as like a catalyst or some other thing that they have to argue about? Perhaps ,right?

Who knows but it's interesting to me that it's the same thing with religion; there's a meme. I saw it's every single person's religion is like the number one priority. It's the religion that everybody else should have. If you think about that, it makes perfect sense that your religion that you grew up with, that you were raised with, and obviously it's very important to you. Your culture it's an identity based thing, right? So you're going for somebody's personal life when you go after their religion. I get that. But  there's got to be some understanding that if you look at the big picture, everybody thinks their religion is the one that's the right one. If you look at it that way, Coke, Pepsi, 7up,  Dr Pepper, every one of those brands will tell you that they're the brand that you should have, right? Why? Because they're trying to make their sales, they're trying to do what they gotta do. I'm not sure that's a religion's thing, but the lack of open mindedness and the lack of nuance and understanding of what each religion means to each person, If you can't understand that for somebody else, how could you expect them to understand it about you?

There's a bunch of different things like that we need to consider. So when you're mad at something that you see on social media, stop and think about it. First of all, social media is geared to piss you off. It's geared to get an overly emotional reaction out of you. That's what it's for.

And when you do that, you teach the algorithm what to feed you tomorrow. It is possible to change your algorithm and on Facebook there are a lot of people that are like  I'm done with Facebook I can't be here anymore, you could change the algorithm of your feed to  be bluntly honest with you It's just I think it's just too fucking hard for people to do that. They just don't feel like taking the time to do it. There's too much detail; everything has to be very broad stroke for people and if they have to start getting down into granular stuff, then now they're tired and it's tedious and it's too much for them. But all you need to do, if you're scrolling all day, which by the way, most people on Facebook are doing you're just scrolling all day. Up in the right hand corner of every single thing there are three dots. I shouldn't have to tell you this. I'm probably telling you something you already know. You click on those three dots and you tell the algorithm, I don't want to see this shit anymore. Don't show this to me anymore. This person is not somebody I want to watch rant and rave about whatever. Hide that person, unfollow that person, snooze that person, unfriend that person. Simple. And if you're getting unfriended by people on Facebook or IG or whatever it is, and you're pissed about that, you really need to come up with something better to do with your time. People do not have to watch everything you do. You're not that important and to take your friendship and put it on the line because somebody unfriended you or unfollowed you on a social media is insanity to me and it's interesting. . So if you want, do you like certain things? Then tell the algorithm, "Hey, see that right there? Gimme more of that."  I just added dogs that hike to my feed. All I see  are dogs on hikes. That's like  the best thing ever, right?

You have the ability to leave groups, unfollow groups, tell the algorithm what you don't wanna see. It's very simple. And then stay within your feed. If you want to see somebody's page, and you don't want to see whatever they're talking about all day, then shut it off. And then go see their page when you feel like it, when you're in the mood to deal with it. Your life is what you make it, and your feed is especially what you make it, right? So you tell that algorithm, look. This is what my account wants. This is what my account doesn't want. Get it right. It takes a couple of seconds every time you see something to do that, but it does work; it really does work. Some of us  our feeds are just a pleasure. It's peace and relaxation and it's all stuff we want to see. Now, depending on who you are, if it makes you happy to rant and rave about politics all day, or rant and rave about religion all day, or whatever, and get into arguments with people on the internet about stuff like that, great! That's great! 

But, if you're not the type of person that finds that interesting And after the election, we just had, if you, if there's stuff going through your feed, you don't want to see, tell the algorithm. I don't want to see the shit. That's it. Very simple. If you seem like, if it seems like a lot, I don't know what to tell you. You know what I mean? 

I will tell you that you don't want to be  a slave to social media. So you want to be able to get off it  a lot  for your brain chemistry to be dealing with . So you can bring your screen time down. Crack a book.  Put your phone down go for a walk in the woods.  Take a drive,  do things like that. Call up your friends, the people that you really love, the people that you're really close to and go do things with these people, cause this is life, right? You could very easily isolate yourself and never deal with anything and never do anything and you could doom scroll. Doom scrolling is a thing. What's the point of that? So anyway, that's my rant on that. 

The importance of adding nuance to a conversation is to try to understand the other side. You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, but you could try to understand, Okay, listen, I'm trying to get the concept of  your point. I want to see what you're looking at. I don't necessarily have to agree with it. I don't have to run with it, but  I should want to understand it. Trying to find common ground as opposed to trying to find problems and differences is a big deal. It actually makes a difference. Nuance is empathy, when we embrace nuance and we try to see the world through other people's  lives and perspectives and experiences, right? We could become empathetic to those people.  That might make us  or we might make deeper connections, or we might connect better with other people. Isn't that what we all want? Is to connect with other human beings. At the end of the day, even me, a dismissive avoidant who laughs at that sometimes, it is the truth.

We do want to connect with people, at least the people that are important to us, right?  There's that old, "Hey, listen, I like you. We go out to a restaurant, we hang out together. If you treat everybody like shit, but me, then that's a character flaw that I see in you". It doesn't matter whether you treat me better than the other person. What matters is that I'm seeing you treat different people, different ways, depending on how much  they matter to you. So if you go out somewhere and you treat a waitress maybe because I came from the  restaurant, bar environment, you go to a restaurant with me and you treat a waitress like shit, that's never going to be something I forget.  That's going to make my relationship with you different, especially if we're dating. That's a problem. I don't like that.  There are not people that are beneath you and I don't like people who act like there are people that are beneath them. Like not outwardly where they're just treating people like crap. I don't understand that. If somebody is bringing you food, they're serving you, with the exception of them being rude to you, you should, within common sense, be respectful of people like that and I don't understand people that aren't, right? 

I always say this to people when it comes to division if you're very religious, you'll never have to say anything to me about it, but you will think about this after I say it. If you're  Christian, Catholic, whatever  and you're being tested by that religion: what if, right? What if Jesus came  to test you to see how you dealt with humanity, how you treated other people? If Jesus at one point, I'm going to use Jesus, if you're Catholic or Christian, cause that's the easiest way to do it, but substitute your prophet in what I'm saying. What if that person came  in a form of the most derelict person you can think of, and interacted with you, how would you react to that person, and if you were being tested on whether or not you'd go to heaven based on how you treat them, what would  the results of that test be? And this is you're walking by homeless people. You're walking by people on drugs. You're walking by people who don't have anything to eat. You're driving down the road and you're seeing people that are panhandling on the side of the road. People that are looking for money at intersections,  that kind of thing. Would you go to heaven or not? If that was the way that you were getting into heaven, would you get into heaven based on how you treated that person? Now think back  10, 20 years of your life and people that have crossed your path that have been less than  desirable people to deal with; what if one of those people you treated the worst was somebody that you were being tested on, how would you feel about that? I'm just saying,  if that's your religion and you believe that,  you've got to have read the Bible and say, okay this is how Jesus treated people. Are you treating people like Jesus treated people? Are you claiming Jesus, but are you not acting like Jesus? This is the type of thing I'm trying to talk about. 

Consider discussions around race or gender, right? If somebody from a marginalized group shares their experience with you, it involves understanding  how  they live their life may be very different from the way you live,  it doesn't require agreeing with everything they say or do, but understanding the complexities of what their perspective is, what individual information they have to offer you that may not go along with everybody else, but it makes sense for them.

You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to live it, but you should understand it and say listen for this person this makes sense and I need to be okay with that, right, for whatever reason so moving on.

Dangers of lack of nuance which is reductionism, obviously misunderstanding, forced misunderstanding, purposeful misunderstanding. Sometimes that misunderstanding is created to some degree. Right now there's a lot of misinformation going around and it's not an accident. If there's a lot of misinformation, you can't ever figure out which way is up and if you can't figure out which way is up, you're going to be a lot more susceptible to being manipulated. That's basically the bottom line. Anybody who's ever dated or been around a narcissist long enough can tell you that, or somebody with, a disorder that would be manipulative to other people. They can tell you that's the way it happens. That's how gaslighting works and everything else. So reductionism and, misunderstanding, right? Oversimplifying things. That's  one result of removing nuance from discussion. Another one is the us versus them mentality, which we've discussed or I've brought up already, right? That's the mindset where we don't care about what's underlying we're looking to pull a scorecard out and just push points  against the other side. Having no interest in like, how valid their concerns are, or completely ignoring the fact that you might be able to collaborate and solve a problem. It's more nope, there's something wrong with you and, nothing wrong with me.

Also in the past, probably 20 years, maybe 15, cancel culture has come around from this, right? This is one of the main, in my opinion, downsides to the lack of nuance in conversation is cancel culture and polarization of stuff, right? But It can contribute to cancel culture for you to remove nuance. That means  if you  say or do something that I don't like, it's almost like  you and your entire life and  and everything you do is just completely wrong to me. So that means that we all just come out and we make you  irrelevant as a person, irrelevant where your career no longer matters. You as a person no longer matters.  We just come out and see you as just like an invalidation of what you were. 

Now, we can say we'll see somebody's career is different than somebody's lifestyle, and that's true, but cancel culture usually just envelops this person and everything they stand for. And, as of late, it's become really strong, on both sides for  people that are okay with something and people that aren't it goes that far with some people there are people who I believe you don't hear the whole story about and obviously, there are people  who threaten and pay and do whatever they can to make sure stuff doesn't come out because their careers are going to be over but I've learned also, as I get older, that it's almost like  two things will go together. Somebody who's  vile will do things on the other side to make themselves look better.  

It wasn't an accident that Bill Cosby was a philanthropist and gave money to colleges, money to female black colleges. That might be a little suspect when you think about it, as much time as he spent at the Playboy mansion and how his setup was at the Bill Cosby show  and  you find out stuff later on and you're just like, wow he went through great lengths to keep this information from coming out cause there was so much of it when it finally did come out that it was amazing that nobody caught on, but. He threatened people. There's a video you'll see where he was doing an interview and somebody asked him a question and he got really pissed off.  "Not only am I not answering this,  you're going to take this out of the interview or you're going to lose your career. I'm coming after you if you don't do this". He threatened people enough, and a lot of this stuff went by the wayside that like, normally people would have, reported so it's totally understandable why somebody that would have been assaulted by him would be scared to death to come forward and say anything because he was the, you'll never work again; you don't want somebody to drag you through the mud because you're trying to come out and say something that people ought to know and you're being threatened  -hey your career is over, your life's over but the threats were enough that these women were just like I'm not gonna do that; I'm not gonna come on against Bill Cosby. Nobody's gonna believe me and my life will be ruined. So until somebody said, I don't care. And I'm doing it anyway, a lot of the other women probably had that same idea. 

Trying to bring a nuance back into conversation, is the goal, right?

So you want to adopt  more of a growth mindset, embracing the idea that learning and growth, they come from engaging with complexity. There are complexities to these topics instead of avoiding that, it's uncomfortable, but you may have to lean into the fact that there's more to the story than you're arguing, encouraging people that are listening to you to be comfortable with the uncertainty of something, right?

And to seek out like different ideas and different viewpoints, especially in, especially when it's uncomfortable, we really need to be able to sit in uncomfortable conversations. We can't do that as a society. We have a really hard time with it. And I think It's our downfall that we can't discuss stuff like adults that we should be able to talk about, and yeah,  they make us a little antsy, but so fucking what? We need to deal with that. 

Also, we need to ask better questions of the people we're talking to instead of jumping to conclusions.  If I'm having a conversation  with somebody about something and they jump to a conclusion to tell me what they think my point's going to be, this drives me insane. No, that's not my point at all. My point has nothing to do with anything that you just said, let me finish what I'm saying  before you jump to the end of it and tell me what you think I'm talking about Why don't you listen to what I'm trying to tell you. Drives me crazy.

So instead of jumping to conclusions Asked like open ended questions that encourage a little bit of a deeper reflection of the conversation, right? So as I said the why is a big deal like so why do you think that or what do you mean by what you're saying? Or your point of view is this, but what brought you to that?  What's the context of this, right? That way there's more of a deeper, thoughtful discussion or exchange than just  the surface stuff, right? And then we all need to do this challenge your own biases as a person, right? Take your time to examine your own views and engage with sources of information or with perspectives that are different than your point of view just so that you don't get siloed into one viewpoint or angle; you don't want to do that.

You don't want to get into one viewpoint and then scream at everybody that comes at you with something different because you don't want to be. Like one track minded like that. That's just not good for you. So part of embracing nuance is like recognizing that you don't have every single answer. You don't know everything about everything. There's always room to learn something else. There's always room to understand something else. So try to challenge yourself when you're having these conversations, especially now because  hot button topics going on right now and very extreme conversations. Try to say to yourself, okay, what is something this person could teach me about this topic that I don't know?

There's nothing wrong with that.  I've noticed that if you bring something to somebody's attention, instead of saying, oh, I never thought of that. For the most part, people are like no. I said what I said. And I don't care what it takes, I meant it and that's it. Don't talk to me about anything else. That's not really a conversation.  If you're running around all day, just trying to win arguments with people, to me,  that seems like a whole lot of a waste of time, right?

Obviously you want people around you to believe what you do, but how much of what you're talking about affects you personally? Like how much  other than, Oh, somebody  might see that I was wrong about something, or somebody might see me change my opinion about something, God forbid. How is it hurting you? How else is it really bothering you as a person? How is it bothering you in your backyard to listen to somebody else's point of view, right? Then there's also a patience thing. We do have a very impatient society and the granular stuff and the nuanced stuff is just like too tedious for people to deal with and that causes very short lived conversations very stunted conversations, right?

 If you slow down and you listen, like actively listen, if you don't understand something. Say, hey,  I'm listening to you explain it, and can you tell me what you mean by this? Tell me what you mean by that. It's not about convincing them that you're right and they're wrong. It shouldn't be. It's not about convincing them, or about winning.  Somebody is always going to win. Somebody is always going to lose, but that's not to me what conversation should be about.

So try to understand the person instead of convincing them. And this whole thing, I've heard this a million times and I totally agree. As you're listening to somebody, try to listen to them instead of formulating your response. We do this a lot as human beings. Try not to be like, okay I know what I'm going to say; but listen to the person that's talking to you,  actually listen to them. Instead of being focused on what you're going to say back, just listen to what they're telling you.

I know it sounds crazy, but we do that. All of us.  I do the same thing myself, and I have to stop and think about this. Yes, sometimes I can do that. I can see where somebody's going with a conversation. I try very hard not to jump in and say, yeah, I already know where you're going with this. Most of the time I'm right. Sometimes I'm wrong. But just listening to the person, how they're talking to you about what it is  what part of it's important to them, their inflections, their expressions, all of that, to understand where they're coming from.

So that's pretty much it. I would say  I'm going to encourage you guys, if you can, in the next  week or so,  to practice some of these things, like understanding,  the person that you're talking to, not trying to get over on them and beat them in the conversation, but to actually understand what they're saying to you, right? Listening to them, understanding what they're saying, and if not asking questions. What do you mean by that? I need a little more detail on that. 

Also, things that are important to you, that mean something to you and that you like to argue about. Make sure that you know what you're talking about. Make sure that you really look at all perspectives of the thing that you think you know everything about, right? Sure. You might know  much more about this thing than someone else, but there may also be. More to that story than what you experienced.  Also, if somebody tells you that they feel a certain way, not that we're big on emotions here on this podcast, but if somebody tells you they feel a certain way about something, you actually have no right to tell them they don't.

So if somebody says to you, I'm a person of color and I felt, marginalized, or I felt I was in this place where I felt like I wasn't safe, or you're talking to a woman that was out somewhere and they feel like they were in danger, you've no right to tell them that they were wrong to feel that way.

Now, they may not have been, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that they felt the way they felt. And to come forward and invalidate how somebody feels about something is dismissive. Believe me, I would know, right? Because I've been working on this  but  listening to why, and okay, I understand it, I understand that you feel this way. And  who am I to say, especially when you're not somebody that understands the experience. There are people who are not in somebody's shoes and cannot actually tell them anything . If you're a woman and you're worried about being in places where  it's going to be dangerous and you could be hurt by strange men, a man trying to tell you, "oh that's not the case"  is invalidating your experience, but they also have really no reference point to tell you that you don't feel danger if you do right, whether it's true or not, is not really the point.

What matters is you felt this certain way. If you experience a death and it's upsetting to you, somebody telling you that you shouldn't be upset or , it's not that big a deal  is invalidating how you feel about it. So you can't tell somebody you don't feel that way or you shouldn't feel that way or don't worry about it or whatever it is. I think the more that we say stuff like that. . The more, uncomfortable we are with the conversation. So when somebody says to you, this person died and this is upsetting to me , and we try to jump to " hey, don't worry about it." and we try to like, stop that information. I think it's because it bothers us as people, right? To listen to that story. It's uncomfortable to hear it. Maybe we love our friend and we don't want our friend to be upset and that's upsetting to us. And so we're sitting in it uncomfortable. 

Maybe  it's upsetting  to us because we don't know what to do to fix it , or we are projecting ourselves onto them like, Oh God, if this was me, I  wouldn't be able to stand it so I can't listen to it anymore because if it was me going through this, it would be horrible and I don't want to think about it. So I want this person that's going through it to stop talking about it because it bothers me. Like I said, when something gives you a very strong emotional reaction like that, where you want to stop somebody from talking about something that's upsetting to them,  ask yourself why that's happening and  look at yourself, right? We can always be better people. We can always improve. So do that. 

Also try very hard when you're having a conversation with somebody to look at  the disagreement itself as a separate issue,  that person isn't the disagreement and you're not the disagreement for them but the disagreement is like over here, off to the side. And you both are looking at that. And  how can you both look at that in a way that like you can  agree to disagree or understand that both of you have different viewpoints on it? And so that you're not looking at it like I have to be right you have to be wrong, or you have to be right I have to be wrong, right? Because  those aren't the only two ways to deal with it. 

Also  when it comes to algorithms and social media and stuff like that, try a little harder on a day where you have 20 minutes to kill or whatever, and you just, you're at work and you're sitting in the break room or whatever, and you're flipping through your phone make an effort to change your algorithm. Instead of having a huge emotional reaction and saying, okay, I'm going to get off Facebook for the rest of my life, which is what people do. No catastrophizing, no dramatizing it. Just, "oh, this is something I'd like to see less of in my feed". Click. "Oh, this person, while I love this person, and this person is in my life,. This person and I don't necessarily agree on the stuff that we like, want to talk about.

I don't necessarily need to see stuff they're talking about come up on my feed. I don't feel like looking at it right now. Snooze it. I don't feel like looking at it ever. Unfollow it.  It takes a couple seconds, but it really teaches the algorithm, Oh, you don't like this. Then it'll start asking you questions. Do you like this? You want more of this? Less of this. Okay. It'll start asking you so it can learn what you actually want. Your social media. If it's your Facebook page, you should like what you're looking at. And for God's sake, if you're wasting your time looking at Facebook, you should enjoy what it is that you're looking at.

It doesn't make any sense to flip to Facebook and hate it. But the only option is not to like.. It is good to not have it on you as a leash. I won't argue with that, but if it's just oh,  there's five different things  that are coming up that you don't want to see, it's easy enough to just tell Facebook. Yeah. Don't show me that anymore. And  don't feel bad about it; if they're people that you love in real life, then fine. You can always take a day or a time where you go and you look at their page, independent of your feed, when you feel like it, all that stuff is still there. It's just not filtering into your scroll. That's all. So don't feel bad about that. If you want to take somebody out of your feed, take them out of your feed. It is your personal Facebook page and you have every right to change it to make it look like however you want. Also, just like when we go and vote on election day everybody should just go vote and be done with it instead of running around screaming about what they're doing because it's nobody's business what you're doing in the booth, right? 

That's privacy. That should be your privacy and you should do whatever you want to do with it. There was a time where that happened people used to just go vote quietly and go on with their lives. Those days are over. 

So you have to include, if you're going to talk about stuff, you really have to include all the well roundedness of the thing that you're talking about.

So those are the takeaways. Remember "what's the rest of the story" anytime you see something that's get you emotionally excited stop and go "wait do I know the whole story here?" is it something I need to worry about does it bother me where I live? Do I understand this topic? Do I understand it from beginning to end? And the person that's trying to tell me about something that they experienced, am I listening to them?  They're trying to tell me that there's something about this topic that is important to them. Am I really grasping the understanding of what they're trying to say or am I just trying to wait till they stop talking so I can talk?

Anyway, that is, the podcast on nuance, the logic of nuance, I guess we'll just call it that, right? That's the easiest way to do it. It's the way that everything else has been named, but. I will do a podcast, like I said, as I come up with topics and think about what,  needs to happen and, in the meantime, I would love you to have a lovely Thanksgiving. I believe Thanksgiving will be right after this podcast. And since either going to drop, I think it'll drop either. I think it'll drop Thanksgiving day. If I  can get up sooner, I will, 

 www. lanaanddave. com. That's the website. Still holding the fort down for Dave. Say  that every podcast, all of our social media  and all of our podcast, platforms are also there. So  any type of a podcast you listen to -any platform you listen to, you can listen to our podcast.

So we will talk to you soon. Bye bye.