When someone says, “I respectfully disagree,” I tense up. What they usually mean is, “I’m about to rudely argue with you until we’re both angry and nothing’s been accomplished.” 

We’re living through one of the most polarized periods in modern history, made worse by the ubiquity of social media, the 24-7 news cycle, and the destruction of trusted sources on both ends of the political spectrum.

Socrates believed in “knowledge through discourse,” but ‘discourse’ as a respectful, intellectual pursuit has lost its cache. Then again, Socrates was put to death by poison hemlock for pissing off everyone in Athens with his relentless questioning, so maybe respectful discourse is more a romantic ideal than a lost art.

Still, I don’t remember conversations being so tricky to navigate, disagreements so volatile, until just a few years ago.

Which brings up the point of this blog: Is it still possible to respectfully disagree, and if so, how?

I was losing faith, but then I watched Russell Brand debate Ben Shapiro on Brand’s podcast Under the Skin. What could have been a mess was instead a calm and considered discussion on a range of topics.

Let’s take a brief look at how these two intellectual heavyweights, on opposite sides of the political spectrum, managed to respectfully disagree so productively.

Whether you side with either or neither of them isn’t the point of this article. I’m interested in their conversational strategies, not their content.

“Hey look, an elephant!”

If you know you’re going to disagree with someone, address it head on.

Russell Brand invited Ben Shapiro on to his podcast. He was absolutely aware that they disagree on a host of fundamental issues, and both were prepared to have those conversations. But instead of diving straight into a 2-hour heated debate, Russell immediately pointed out the elephant in the room:

“I watch a lot of your content, as I said just in our brief chat before. And I’m sure you, even if you don’t watch my content, and I would never assume, I imagine you sort of know who I am.

So, how do you generally approach conversations with people where there is an assumption that we’re across some real or imagined cultural line? Does it make any particular difference to you?”

In just a few seconds he accomplished more than many of us do in an entire conversation. Let’s break it down.

Technique 1: Affect Gratitude

First, “I watch a lot of your content.”

Brand knows that one of the highest compliments you can offer a content creator is that you watch, read, or listen to their work.

Attention is an increasingly scarce commodity. Brand puts Shapiro in a place of gratitude by implying that his content is worth Brand’s attention, whether he agrees with it or not.

Technique 2: Display Humility

Next, “even if you don’t watch my content, and I would never assume…”

Here Brand lets Shapiro off the hook for feeling guilty in the event that he doesn’t reciprocate. In other words, Shapiro may not watch a lot of Brand’s content, and Brand wants Shapiro to know he doesn’t need to feel bad about it or defend himself.

What Brand’s done so far is to set Shapiro at ease with a combination of compliments and humility. But what he does next is truly exceptional.

Technique 3: Set the Tone

“So, how do you generally approach conversations with people where there is an assumption that we’re across some real or imagined culture line?”

There’s the elephant. Brand points directly at the huge, obvious behemoth between them. He calls it out and then directly asks Shapiro how he likes to approach these situations.

What Brand’s doing here is world-class perspective-getting.

If you’ve watched my speeches, listened to my podcast, or read my book, you’ve heard me talk about perspective-taking, which is the ability to see the world from the point-of-view of another person. The problem is when we try to take someone’s perspective by simply imagining things from their point-of-view. While it’s a useful creative exercise, it often leads us astray, because we are not in fact mind readers.

A far better approach might be called “perspective-getting,” which is simply asking someone to describe their perspective for you.

I recently spoke with Dr. Caitlin O’Connell, a renowned expert on animal rituals, on my podcast. She described how elephants will place their trunk, their most vulnerable asset, in each other’s mouths upon first meeting, as a mutual showing of respect.

Russell is about to spend 2 hours debating controversial topics that he and Ben knowingly disagree on. By asking Ben how he’d like to have that debate, Brand placed his trunk in Ben’s mouth. 

It was a masterstroke.

Seek Out Shared Beliefs

Lately it seems no one can agree on anything, no matter how big or small. But the truth is, even your worst enemy probably shares more common beliefs and values with you than not.

I think of my friend Ami Dar, the founder and executive director of Idealist.org, describing his teen years in the Israeli army. One day he was stationed alone on a watchtower observing Syrian soldiers across the fence. They were taking a break, laughing and playing soccer.

“It completely humanized them in my eyes,” Ami told me.

He realized at that moment that there were good and bad guys in the Syrian army, just like there were good and bad guys in his unit. And that the world would be a better place if you could get all the “good guys,” who share values like love, dignity, and freedom, onto the same side of the fence.

Debates tend to center around one tiny area of the human experience, which we magnify and extrapolate from until we’re blue in the face.

Much of that wasted energy can be avoided by deliberately and openly finding areas of common interest.

Technique 4: We’re the Same, You and I

At least four times during their conversation, Russell specifically called attention to something he and Ben Shapiro had in common.

“I’m sure that the results of diminishing the role of religion in cultural life is probably where you and I would have a lot of common ground… I bet that we agree on loads of stuff.”

This is one of those techniques that’s simple, but not easy. It takes a lot of self-confidence and self-assuredness to reach out across the fence and shake hands with the ‘enemy.’ But in doing so, he keeps the debate from spiraling out of control, letting emotions get the better of either participant, or devolving into personal attacks.

Anytime you have the opportunity to point out something you and your conversational partner have in common, the better. Then you can each calmly and reasonably discuss the tenets on which you diverge, which end up feeling minor in comparison to how many things you’ve already agreed on.

Connection and Understanding

We cannot meaningfully disagree with someone without a shared set of assumptions. There must be a foundation on which we agree, a bedrock of facts or assertions, for us to diverge from.

What’s lost in so many debates these days is an outright acknowledgement of those facts, or even an attempt to discover them.

Connection is not about agreement, but understanding. It’s clear that Russell Brand and Ben Shapiro do not agree on many important topics. But by affecting gratitude, displaying humility, setting the tone, and seeking common ground, Brand created an environment in which all participants could engage in a meaningful debate.

They may never be best friends, but I bet they could share a cup of coffee without coming to blows.

Hopefully soon we can move all of society back to the Agora. Poison hemlock notwithstanding.