I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

Guzmán explores the concept of curiosity as a tool for bridging societal divisions, presenting a four-step framework developed from her 15 years as a journalist in Seattle. The chapter establishes curiosity not as a passive trait but as an active practice that can be cultivated and directed.

The author’s framework begins with “finding the gap”—identifying what information one lacks. To illustrate this concept, Guzmán recounts an investigation by her colleague Anika Anand into a peculiar vacant lot in Seattle covered with stuffed animals. This story demonstrates how sustained attention to knowledge gaps can lead to meaningful discoveries. The investigation ultimately revealed a resident’s creative protest against urban development policies.

The second step, “collecting knowledge,” emphasizes that curiosity requires foundational understanding. Guzmán explains this principle through her work at The Evergrey, a Seattle newsletter she co-founded. The publication regularly solicited questions from community members about local issues, recognizing that people need basic knowledge to formulate meaningful inquiries. The author notes that curiosity peaks when individuals possess intermediate knowledge of a subject—not too little to engage meaningfully, but not so much that questions become unnecessary.

In discussing the third step, “rejecting easy answers,” Guzmán describes a collaborative journalism project addressing the situation of unhoused people in Seattle. Multiple news organizations joined forces to collect and answer community questions about the crisis. This initiative demonstrated how rejecting oversimplified explanations can lead to more nuanced understanding of complex social issues.

The final step, “embracing complexity,” builds on research from Columbia University’s Difficult Conversations Lab. The study found that when participants read nuanced articles about contentious issues before discussing them, their conversations proved more productive than those who read simplified, adversarial presentations. This research supports Guzmán’s argument that engaging with complexity enhances rather than inhibits understanding.

Guzmán connects these four steps to the broader goal of bridging societal divisions. She advocates for intellectual friction—the challenging of ideas through exposure to different perspectives. She references philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s metaphor of “polishing our brains against those of others” (70) to emphasize how productive disagreement and genuine curiosity can lead to deeper understanding across social divides.

Guzmán discusses the transformative power of conversation through a combination of personal experiences and expert insights. The chapter opens with Guzmán’s childhood memories of sobremesa—a Spanish term describing post-meal conversations—at her grandmother’s home in Monterrey, Mexico. These early experiences sparked her lifelong fascination with how people connect through dialogue.

The narrative transitions from Guzmán’s childhood puzzlement over adults’ enjoyment of conversation to her professional development as a journalist. A pivotal moment occurred during a workshop with Pulitzer Prize winner Jacqui Banaszynski, who taught Guzmán to trust in conversation’s natural flow rather than relying on rigid interview scripts. This lesson transformed Guzmán’s approach to journalism and interpersonal communication.

Guzmán identifies two key “superpowers” of conversation. The first is its self-fueling nature—conversations generate their own momentum when participants remain engaged and curious. She explains how this works through a cycle of knowledge acquisition and gap identification: Each new piece of information reveals new questions, driving the conversation forward. The second superpower is conversation’s ability to create bonds between participants. Even brief exchanges, such as Guzmán’s interaction with a non-native English speaker named Mandi at yoga class, can establish meaningful connections.

To illustrate how these principles work in digital spaces, Guzmán presents the case study of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz. On her Facebook page, Schultz facilitates productive discussions about contentious political topics by first building community through lighter conversations, such as sharing pet photos. This approach helps participants see each other’s humanity before tackling difficult subjects.

The chapter concludes with an examination of different types of curiosity, drawing on psychology researcher Jordan Litman’s work. Litman distinguishes between deprivation-based curiosity (D-curiosity) and interest-based curiosity (I-curiosity). D-curiosity stems from an uncomfortable need to fill a knowledge gap, while I-curiosity emerges from genuine interest and drives deeper exploration. Guzmán argues that I-curiosity about people, rather than just ideas, leads to more meaningful and sustained conversations.

Guzmán introduces a framework for evaluating whether a conversation can successfully bridge divides between people with different viewpoints. She presents five key factors she calls “dials”: Time, attention, parity, containment, and embodiment.

The author establishes the importance of these factors by sharing her research from February 2016, when she tracked her daily conversations during a fellowship at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. Her data indicated that longer conversations yielded more meaningful exchanges and learning opportunities, with most interactions lasting under five minutes and only 4% extending beyond an hour.

Each dial serves a specific purpose in assessing conversation potential. The time dial measures whether participants have sufficient opportunity to develop trust and explore perspectives. The attention dial gauges participants’ focus level, considering modern tendencies toward multitasking. The parity dial evaluates whether participants have equal standing in the exchange. The containment dial assesses the size of the audience, noting that larger audiences can prompt performative rather than authentic communication. The embodiment dial measures access to full human expression, including facial expressions, gestures, and tone; in-person communication allows the participants to draw on the full range of their embodiment for the purpose of expression, compared to digital communication.

To demonstrate the practical application of these dials, Guzmán presents two scenarios involving politically-opposed cousins discussing election security. The first scenario examines a social media interaction, rating low on all dials due to time constraints, divided attention, power imbalances, public visibility, and limited expression. The second scenario depicts a phone conversation, rating higher on most dials due to privacy, equal footing, and voice communication, though still lacking full embodied expression.

The chapter introduces the concept of “traction”—the quality that enables productive bridging conversations. Guzmán references research from Columbia University’s Difficult Conversations Lab indicating that exchanges maintaining three positive moments for each negative moment prove more resilient. She presents four key skills forming the Traction LOOP: Listening for meaning beyond words; observing non-verbal cues; offering contributions that advance mutual understanding; and pulling new information through strategic silence and questioning.

The author emphasizes that while productive bridging conversations may appear spontaneous, they actually follow identifiable patterns that can be cultivated. She compares effective dialogue to a winding river, avoiding both stagnation and overwhelming emotional currents. This metaphor comes from her friend Boting Zhang’s experience facilitating discussions between Trump and Clinton voters after the 2016 election.

Guzmán concludes by noting that while humans possess natural abilities to connect and learn from each other, understanding these conversational tools and patterns can help overcome divisions and enhance mutual understanding.