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How to Have Impossible Conversations
- A Very Practical Guide
- Narrated by: Peter Boghossian
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government
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Publisher's Summary
"This is a self-help book on how to argue effectively, conciliate, and gently persuade. The authors admit to getting it wrong in their own past conversations. One by one, I recognize the same mistakes in me. The world would be a better place if everyone read this book." (Richard Dawkins, author of Science in the Soul and Outgrowing God)
In our current political climate, it seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone who has a different opinion. Whether you're online, in a classroom, an office, a town hall - or just hoping to get through a family dinner with a stubborn relative - dialogue shuts down when perspectives clash. Heated debates often lead to insults and shaming, blocking any possibility of productive discourse. Everyone seems to be on a hair trigger.
In How to Have Impossible Conversations, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay guide you through the straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation - whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control. Boghossian and Lindsay teach the subtle art of instilling doubts and opening minds. They cover everything from learning the fundamentals for good conversations to achieving expert-level techniques to deal with hardliners and extremists. This book is the manual everyone needs to foster a climate of civility, connection, and empathy.
What the critics say
"In the course of my work over the past quarter century I have been having impossible conversations with Holocaust deniers, creationists, anti-vaccination advocates, 9/11 Truthers, chemtrail conspiracy theorists, believers in astrology and ESP, proponents of alternative medicine, religious fundamentalists of many faiths, and dozens more people with whom I disagree vehemently. I've gotten pretty good at it but I had no idea what I was doing until I read How to Have Impossible Conversations, a sterling compendium of the most effective techniques of communication. I wish I'd had this important book at the start of my career as I would have saved myself many a fruitless dialogue. This book is the start of healing our contentious and divided age." (Michael Shermer, publisher Skeptic magazine, Presidential Fellow Chapman University, author of Why People Believe Weird Things, The Moral Arc, and Heavens on Earth, and for 18 years a monthly columnist for Scientific American)
"This fascinating book provides not only useful instruction on how to talk with someone who thinks differently, it also offers a powerful method of questioning and reducing confidence in unsubstantiated beliefs to help people think about what is true." (Helen Pluckrose, editor, Areo Magazine)
"I thought I knew all I needed to know about conversations and arguments. I was wrong. I just knew a lot about debates and rows. In their insightful and highly readable new book, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay offer all kinds of ingenious pathways to constructive dialogue. At a time when public discourse has degenerated into mud-slinging and when campuses favour every kind of diversity except viewpoint diversity, this is an invaluable contribution. I guarantee that reading it will make you more - much more - persuasive." (Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford)
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What listeners say about How to Have Impossible Conversations
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Richard
- 2020-09-15
An manual on how to dominate and manipulate
A horrific manual on how to make others see things as you do without ever taking in any new information. Understanding some else's position is only useful to show them how they are wrong.
We all know these people and have learned to avoid them at all costs. For those who love this book, please never talk to me.
6 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-02-26
Excellent toolkit for polarized times
Fantastic work, and easy to implement. Bawling with friends and family over divisive topics has become the norm, and ends up fruitless. These tools can help them do the work of changing their own minds, while also making you take a look at your own cherished beliefs, if you're up to it. Great listen.
2 people found this helpful
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- JMS
- 2020-10-06
Helpful framework that requires practice
“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care”
Listen to the audiobook review on Audiobook Reviews in Five Minutes podcast: https://podcast.jannastam.com/
Would you like to have more productive conversations with people who think differently than you or strongly disagree with you? Hint: it’s unlikely to happen online. While many fear that conversations about politics, religion, and values are a futile endeavour these days, this audiobook may encourage you to persevere in your attempts to connect with others who hold what might seem to be intractable points of view.
1 person found this helpful
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- Naomi
- 2022-05-06
ODD and ADHD parents should read!
K I bought this book cuz sometimes at work I have to have really hard conversations. Didnt know itd ve a parenting book! So I also have a son with ADHD and ODD we've been working with him seeing lots of progress but it was really hard to have some conversations with him. I always got stuck or he always got bored and stopped paying attention. Well I've been applying the techniques in this book to talk to him and I'm getting through! I've read so many parenting books which have helped but I dunno this books hitting different in a very good way!
Anyways 5 stars can see this helping in many different life scenarios!
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- jketchum
- 2021-10-05
This book is an amazing resource
This book is full of very practical techniques that care about the individual you are speaking with. I could not stop listening to it and found it very engaging and useful.
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- Jason Feddema
- 2021-10-03
Very Thorough and Quality Advice on Communication
Very good tips on how to handle difficult conversations. It has a balance of advice for you to be more open minded, as well as how to breakthrough with people who disagree with you
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- Anonymous User
- 2021-04-22
Loved it. Great conversation tools.
I love the self reflection tools and encouragement for learning. Great conversation tools too. Remember be like water.
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- Josh Pratt
- 2021-03-23
Very interesting, well done
I need the accompanying book to make it a totally worthwhile listen.
The ideas and discussion at play needs more contemplation than I can get simply from listening.
Overall though it was a though provoking listen.
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- Zane Gates
- 2020-11-22
Well Thought Out
The authors obviously spent a tremendous amount of time and cognitive energy crafting this book.
Filled with excellent advice on how to effectively and concisely communicate better with anyone you encounter.
A must read for anyone who wants to advance to a more sophisticated life and career.
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- Deborah Murphy
- 2020-09-19
Enriched learning...
He used many strategies that I've learned to employ over the years. Yet in each case, he took the lessons much deeper. And expanded on the logic used to determine what other options might be more appropriate so that I could explore and experiment.
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- Robin
- 2020-02-27
Important Skills Spoiled By Author Opinions
The important skills are presented in a clear, easy to understand format. Unfortunately the author inserts his political opinions throughout the book, which makes the book far harder to listen to. I wish the author had taken his own advice and stuck the the solid rules he lays out for the reader instead.
270 people found this helpful
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- megan
- 2019-09-20
Good Read
I would suggest this to anyone who has been having a difficult time having conversations with people with different views. I learned that I have not been listening and trying to throw facts at people. This is where I plan to start in my practice of having good conversations. Thank you for writing this book. I'm sure I will re-read it.
54 people found this helpful
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- Alex Levy
- 2020-03-25
No other book will be as relevant after COVID-19
I mean it. The conversations we are going to have, we MUST have, are going to be rather difficult. Peter and James are 'godsend' because they have given us a guide to make the most of these conversations. In a world after COVID-19, the world will talk . . . a lot. The question is, are we going to have impossible conversations and do something about them, or not? I would put all my money betting that, if we all read How To Have Impossible Conversations, we most certainly will.
PS - Peter offers an Easter Egg in the afterword. (It's worth it!).
43 people found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 2020-05-31
How2sow doubt while not seeming to poop on friends
"Conversations that remain civil empower you, and change even the staunchest of minds are possible--even across deep divides."
- Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay
My first take on this book was it was "a pretty good practical guide. Not perfect." But the more I read, the more the message of civility grinds into the walls of debate technique and manipulation. I don't think this book was written with good faith. It isn't about patching the divide between the right and the left, the godless and Jesusland. That is its mask. If you are looking for technique, the book is great. If you are looking at a modest/humble approach to civil conversations, there are bits that sparkle (think of a lure), but in the end it is a cynical to not appearing to be a troll by changing your techniques, but they actually seem to encourage just a more socially palatable form of trolling.
I am a bit disappointed. I felt that while giving a nod to distancing themselves from manipulations, the book was mostly just an extended "how to" for manipulation. I was hoping for more of a how to have civil conversations, and got how to sow doubt and win in the long-term by not shitting on your friends. I wish I still could have returned my book. I rarely do this with books, but if I had the opportunity to return it I would have. If I had the foresight to NOT purchase this book, I would have avoided it.
One note: both authors were part of the Grievance studies affair in 2017 and 2018.
40 people found this helpful
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- Wayne
- 2020-05-28
The listener should expect more!
How to Have Impossible Conversations is disappointing because it promises so much and delivers so little. I purchased it because (1) i have a requirement that I place on myself that at least 10% of the sudiobooks I listen to will be non-fiction and (2) it was a $3.95 (the price of a good cup of coffee) Audible Daily Deal. The techniques that the authors say one should practice and drill are for the most part common sense. They also do not work when a conservative is seeking to exchange political views with a progressive because almost all progressives are unwilling to even talk with a conservative for fear it might changes their minds causing them isolation from other progressives.
Chapter 7, just before the end of the book, is a cursory discussion of concepts from Jonathan Haidt's excellent 2012 social psychology book The Righteous Mind. If listeners to the pablum of How to Have Impossible Conversations find themselves ordering Haidt's book that the meager offerings will be worthwhile.
What makes audiobooks a great medium is the quality of narration and thankfully there are many outstanding narrators. The authors would have done well to hire a professional narrator because Professor Boghossian stinks at it. I would apologize if I seem sarcastic but it's the book's fault! Now let's get back to some good fiction.
32 people found this helpful
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- Tomas P Cservenak
- 2020-04-04
Great way to keep friends in tough conversations
Also great deescalation techniques. Should be required reading for any new business or relationship, awesome
27 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous Ed
- 2020-01-26
It's jammed with helpful information
This book is extremely helpful, but it moves pretty fast. A course with study material, tests and labs could be developed from the knowledge contained within it - but only taught by instructors that have mastered the material and demonstrated high levels of proficiency in it. These conversational techniques should be taught along with logic in all schools in my opinion.
21 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2019-12-08
amazing book
I thought I was decent at conversation until I read this book it changed my life
17 people found this helpful
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- William G. Voit
- 2020-01-06
Excellent book!! So much to take in and ponder on.
This is awesome book. It will be on my short rotation list to listen to again after I reflect on the contents. So much to take in and ponder on.
15 people found this helpful
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- Grant
- 2020-01-31
Fast Speaker
The person who was narrating the book spoke too fast at times. I think this book would be better read in person.
14 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-07-05
amazing book
the content of this book should be taught at school! this is a must read.