>for an increasing number of issues, in the end, the beliefs themselves are so polarized they leave no room for compromise. That's quite true. But what is ofte

>for an increasing number of issues, in the end, the beliefs themselves are so polarized they leave no room for compromise. That's quite true. But what is often going on in this sort of a situation is a self-perpetuating pattern in which poor listening, anger, fear, attacking the other side, and rigidly clinging to extreme positions all reinforce each other. What mutual listening can do in many cases is change this into a much better self-reinforcing pattern in which people calm down, become more understanding, and become more fact-oriented and realistic in their thinking, and this in turn makes it possible to reach a good agreement such as on governmental policy. I am not saying this always works, but I think it should be one of our standard approaches, and everyone ought to know and practice it, as appropriate.