How to Keep Your Thanksgiving Dinner Civil
Some tips from behavioral economics to help you have an actual discussion rather than a shouting match, even on politics.
Bloomberg, November 20, 2018
So I had this interesting idea for a column: What if we went to the universe of behavioral finance, and use what we learned to have better political discussions? That is a surprisingly complex idea, with lots of moving parts. More specifically, how should you speak to people of opposite political persuasion than you at Thanksgiving Dinner?
I took that basic concept and used it for fodder for multiple versions of the same column. I kept rewriting it, and each version evolved into something else, ranging from pretty straight forward middle of the road to full on Snark-fest.
How to Keep Your Thanksgiving Dinner Civil
How to Change Someone’s Mind?
How do you talk politics to your crazy Uncle Murray
How do you speak to Fox News viewers?
What I would describe as the most straight-forward, least offensive version was published this morning at Bloomberg Opinion as “How to Keep Your Thanksgiving Dinner Civil.”
The most surprising and snarky version was “How to speak to Fox News viewers.” That evolution was a surprising Jiu Jitsu of sorts, one that took the Left to task for how they ignore Science when lecturing the Right. Perhaps I will publish that version on Thanksgiving Day . . .
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I originally published this at Bloomberg, November 20, 2018. All of my Bloomberg columns can be found here and here.
