Changing Our Minds: Why we should admit when we're wrong

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Manoush Zomorodi

You are about to hear an episode on the value of changing your mind. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, because in it we talk about the great thinker and behavioral economy. Daniel Kahneman. He recently passed away, and along with winning a Nobel Prize, writing more than a dozen books, he was known for his utter joy at being proven wrong. He loved it when someone changed his mind.

So in honor of the late Nobel Prize winning Daniel Kahneman, I hope you enjoy this episode. This is the Ted Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences, to bring about.

The future we want to see around. The world, to understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're gonna find, challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy and even change you?

Manoush Zomorodi

I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from Ted and NPR.

I'm anoush Zomirodi. And back in the early two thousands, politician Bob Inglis felt very sure of his beliefs. I was pure as a driven snow. You know, that's how I thought of myself. I mean, really, I thought that I was perfect.

Bob Inglis

And everybody else in the political process was a bunch of swine, really. It was a very sanctimonious, to tell you the truth. For twelve years, Bob was the congressional representative for Greenville, Spartanburg, South Carolina, the. Reddest district and the reddest state of the nation. And Bob saw himself as a true.

Conservative, somebody who believes in freedom, individual responsibility and accountability. And he had the stats to back that up. 93 American Conservative Union lifetime rating 100% christian coalition, 100% national right to Life, a with the NRA, zero with the Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal group, and 23, by some mistake, with the AFL CIO, the labor union. I was really hoping for a zero. And on the environment, I said that.

Climate change was nonsense. I didn't know anything about it except. That Al Gore was for it. And since I represented a very conservative district in South Carolina, that was the end of the inquiry. That was.

Al Gore had been very involved in learning about climate change. And so he really did become the first name that comes to mind when you say climate change. And, you know, I've seen that there's been this contest between faith and science within the evangelical church that probably dates back to the whole question of evolution. There's also some disrespecting, of course, that's gone on where scientists basically say to biblical believers, oh, you're a bunch of Bible thumping ignoramuses. I mean, that really is sort of the feel that many believers have gotten from scientists.

Manoush Zomorodi

But then something happened just as Bob was gearing up for election in 2004. That's the year that our son, the eldest of our five kids, had just turned 18. So he came to me and said, dad, I'll vote for you, but you're going to clean up your act on the environment. So his four sisters agreed. That's where I started thinking, well, gee, I really do need to pay attention to this and I need to find out what the story is here.

But, you know, you're congressman, you could have just said, like, well, we can agree to disagree. I'm sticking to what's on my platform and tough luck. But you didn't say that. Why not? Well, you know, some sons are trying to grow up to be like their father.

Bob Inglis

I'm trying to grow up to be like my son. You know, he's good looking, he's smart, he's fun, he's funny, he's all the things I'd like to be, so nice. And he's got four wonderful sisters who are also people I'm trying to grow up to be like. And so, you know, I knew that my son loved me and he was going to vote for me no matter what. But I think he was really saying, dad, I love you and you can be better than you were before.

That's what made it possible for me to listen to them. And of course, I'm also aware that societies that can't listen to their young people are the ones that get stuck and then the world passes him by.

That was step one for me in Miss metamorphosis on climate. Bob Inglis continues his story from the Ted stage. The second step for me was getting on science committee. I got the opportunity to go to Antarctica and saw in the ice core drillings at the South Pole the evidence. This pretty clear, long stability followed by an uptick in CO2 that coincides with the industrial revolution.

We have warming. So I saw that evidence in Antarctica. Third step in my change. We had the opportunity to go to the Great Barrier Reef and see coral bleaching. And I was inspired by an Aussie climate scientist.

I figured out that he was worshiping God in the creation, not worshiping the creation, but worshiping the God behind the creation. Subsequently had plenty of time to talk with him and he talked to me about changing his life to love God and love people, people that he would never know, could never know because they'll come long after us.

Manoush Zomorodi

So you have this major transformation. I mean, but thats not easy, right? Like when a politician changes their stance or does a 180 on a topic are an issue thats not usually seen as coming to a new understanding. That is called flip flopping in politics. Yeah, yeah.

Bob Inglis

And that its a real problem, isnt it? I mean if we cant do 180s on things, then that means we're just stuck. You know, I'm of the opinion, when the facts overtake you, it's better to be overtaken than to double down disputing the facts, because facts are seven things. It's sort of curious, especially in my faith tradition, that, you know, we talk about people having conversions and that's a positive thing. But in politics, you can't convert.

You gotta stick with whatever the mistake is that you said when you first ran, and you know, you can stick to it even though the evidence is mounting up that you're wrong.

Manoush Zomorodi

Admitting you're wrong can be painful. Many see it as a sign of weakness and sticking to your beliefs. These days, that shows you've got guts and a backbone. But what if we understood how flexible thinking can spark our curiosity and bring people who differ together, or at least feel more compassion towards each other? So today on the show, changing our minds, why reevaluating our ideas and beliefs can be good for our brains and relationships, and even bring us a little joy.

For Bob Inglis, the last step in his transformation was proposing climate legislation. He introduced the Raise Wages Cut Carbon act of 2009, which would impose new taxes on fossil fuels. And as a Republican from South Carolina, it was a pretty controversial move. Probably not the best idea in the midst of the great Recession. I think for many of my constituents they thought this is just too much.

Bob Inglis

I mean, you've gone too far here, Inglis. We just, you've broken trust with us because we're not sure who you are. So for those who don't know, tell us what happened when you ran for reelection in 2010. Well, it wasn't even close. You know, after twelve years in Congress, in a republican runoff, I got 29% of the votes vote, and the other guy got the other 71% of the vote.

So a rather spectacular face plant in politics, I suppose you don't usually lose by that margin after twelve years in Congress. So it was quite an abrupt end. How did you feel about that? Did you think to yourself, well, you know, this is the sacrifice I have to make, or did it sting as much as it sounds like it would have? Oh, it's awful.

It's quite a sting. I mean, to lose in a primary, especially is painful. It's one thing to lose in the general election. You know, if you lose in the general election, there's a party to come home to. They'll invite you to the next Lincoln day dinner.

They'll let you speak. They'll say, yeah, you put on the good fight and you were our champion and you came a little short, but still, we love you. You lose in a primary, there's no party to go home to. It's sort of like a divorce or something. It's just a terrible feeling because you, you know, people who have hugged you around the neck, told you they love you, they're praying for you.

You go to the next county convention and they got the other guy's sticker on their lapel. And it's so, it's, it's really, it's why I think so many politicians, this is left and right, are so worried about losing in a primary. Cause it is way more painful than losing in a general election. So tell us then what you did after not winning the primary. You weren't a congressman anymore, but you decided that you wanted to focus on climate.

Manoush Zomorodi

So tell us about what you decided to do. Well, a foundation came to me and said, you know, English, you're an unusual zoo animal. You know, I mean, you're like an actual conservative who says climate change is real. Will you speak and write for us? So that's what I've been doing ever since.

Bob Inglis

And it's now this thing called republicen.org that urges conservatives to engage on climate. There are a lot of conservatives who just haven't heard it in their own language yet. And if they could hear it explained in the language of conservatism, they can say, well, now I'm seeing a solution that the pits. I see you're not trying to regulate my very breath. You're trying to do just what Milton Friedman would have told us to do.

There's a great clip of him on the Phil Donahue show in the 1980s. Doctor Friedman is our guest and we hope you'll join us. The way to a pollution then Doctor Friedman, there is a case for doing. Something about pollution, but the way we've. Been going about it is the wrong way.

Is there a case for the government to do something? Yes, there is a case for the. Government to do something about it. If you don't want to regulate it, Friedman says, you tax it. You tax pollution, pollutants emitted by a.

Car and make it in the self. Interest of the car manufacturers and of. The consumers to keep down the amount of pollution. In that way, conservatives will be able to say, oh, this is our story. This is our song.

Bob Inglis

It's rock solid conservatism. To act on climate change, you got to send the right messenger because most politicians are waiting to follow. They typically don't leave. So we need to create a constituency that they can follow because this is a problem and it's for real. And we're literally all in this together.

You know, at the end of your time in Washington, can you imagine the emptiness of knowing that you stood for nothing, that you risk nothing, that all you did was follow fearful people to where they were already going rather than trying to lead them to a better place? If you're not willing to lose your seat in Congress, there's really very little reason to be there.

So here's the thing. It's not too late. Speak out. Speak up. Tell them the very good news, that we can bring America together to solve these challenges and to lead the world.

Thank you very much.

Manoush Zomorodi

That was Bob Inglis. He's the head of the nonprofit Republic en. You can find both his TED talks at Ted dot, npr.org dot today on the show changing our minds. I'm Anoush Zomirodi, and you're listening to the Ted radio hour from NPR. Well be right back.

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Manoush Zomorodi

Before we get back to the show, I want to ask you to please consider becoming a member of Ted Radio hour. Plus, you'll get extra advice, stories and expertise from Ted speakers every other week, and no ads ever. And you'll be supporting public radio. Listener support is crucial to keeping us going. Go to plus dot npr.org Ted or give it a try right in the Apple podcasts app.

It's the Ted radio hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomaroddy. On the show today, changing our minds. Okay, so let's talk about rethinking our ideas, our principles. Adam, what have you found?

Is it good for us? Can it even make us happy? Well, Manouche, I don't think that rethinking always makes you happy. But failing to think again is a recipe for misery. I can't tell you how many students I've had, for example, who decide, you know, at age three and a half, I must be a doctor or a lawyer.

And they don't bother to question that until they're long through med school or law school. They're like, but I hate this, but this is my identity. I think they're really misunderstanding what it means to think again. Right? So changing your mind does not mean you've abandoned your principles.

It means you've evolved, or the world around you has evolved. This is Adam Grant. He's an organizational psychologist and I host. The Ted podcast work life. Adam has written many books on human behavior.

Manoush Zomorodi

His latest is called think again. And it's something that he has struggled with himself. You know, I've had a hard time with admitting I'm wrong pretty much my whole life. No, I think I've gotten better at it recently I hope, although I might be wrong about that. You know, I think, manouche, I have these memories.

Like, I remember being on the phone with my best friend. I think it was a commercial during Seinfeld, and we were arguing about a movie quote. I knew I was right, so I played the tape. I had it on a VHS tape. I played the tape, and I was wrong.

Manoush Zomorodi

Oh. And I couldn't believe it, and I couldn't admit it. And finally he said, shut up, Adam. I won't talk to you until you admit you're wrong. And then he hung up on me.

And I think that was the beginning of my journey to try to figure out why is it so hard to rethink our opinions and our convictions? And, you know, fast forward a couple decades. I wrote a book about it. Here's Adam Grant in his Ted talk. You might have heard that if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it'll jump out right away.

Adam Grant

But if you put it in lukewarm water and then slowly heat it up, the frog won't survive. The frog's big problem is that it lacks the ability to rethink the situation. It doesnt realize that the warm bath is becoming a death trap until its too late. Humans might be smarter than frogs, but our world is full of slow boiling pots. Think about how slow people were to react to warnings about a pandemic, climate change, or a democracy in peril.

We fail to recognize the danger because were reluctant to rethink the situation. Rethinking isnt a hurdle in every part of our lives. Were happy to refresh our wardrobes and renovate our kitchens. But when it comes to our goals, identities, and habits, we tend to stick to our guns. And in a rapidly changing world, thats a huge problem.

Manoush Zomorodi

I mean, we think about today and we think, oh, well, when you stick to your belief in ideas, that means you stand for something or you have a spine. Youre not a flip flopper. Well, I think the problem is people confuse flip flopping with rethinking. Right. Flip flopping is changing your mind because it's convenient or not even changing your mind, just telling people what they want to hear without reconsidering what you really think.

So when people flip flop, they're thinking like politicians. They're saying whatever they need to say to appease an audience. Manoosh. One of my biggest frustrations is with the amount of time that I have spent and also that a lot of people spend thinking like preachers, prosecutors and politicians. So originally, this research goes back a couple decades.

Basically, when you're in preacher mode, you're defending a view that you already hold. When you're in prosecutor mode, you're attacking somebody else's views. And when you're in politician mode, you only listen to people if they already agree with your views. All three of those mindsets can make it hard to think again because you've concluded that you're right and other people are wrong. So they might need to open their minds, but your cognitive work is done.

And I think one of the most interesting explorations of these tendencies happened in a study back in the late 1950s. There was a psychologist, his name was Henry Murray, and Henry Murray was one of the great personality psychologists of his time. Murray was a researcher at Harvard who was interested in something that he called stressful interpersonal disputation, which is essentially, if. You have not just an argument with someone, but you really feel like your worldview is threatened, how do you deal with that? So Murray designed an experiment.

Manoush Zomorodi

The subjects were 22 Harvard sophomores. He actually handpicks them based on a range of psychological profiles hes interested in to participate in these experiments that would go all the way through college. And if you're one of these students, for the first month, you answer some questions, you take some tests, basically write out your philosophy of life. You wax poetic about your guiding principles, your core values, your deepest held beliefs. And that's a great way to get people into the mindset of preaching right, the virtues of their existing opinions, being ready to prosecute anyone who disagrees.

And then after that month, you show up to submit your portrait of you, essentially, and you're told you're gonna be paired with another student who's gone through the same exercise. And you'll each get, I don't know, maybe a day or two to read. And then you're gonna have a filmed debate about your worldviews. But there's a catch. You don't know that the other student is actually a law student who's in cahoots with Henry Murray and his colleagues, and he has been trained to spend 18 minutes just demolishing your worldview.

It's brutal. Okay, wait. When you say demolishing your worldview, basically saying, like, here's what you think and here's why it's wrong kind of thing. Yes. Like, that's what we're talking about.

Yeah. So I come in as the law student, and I say, you know, Manouche, I read your worldview. It reads like it was written by a six year old. Your beliefs are completely contradictory. I think your morals are completely out of whack.

And let me tell you why. Several of the beliefs that you claim were core to who you are are ignorant and stupid, and you should be embarrassed. How did you get into Harvard? Wow. Okay, so how did these poor young students respond?

Most of them did not like it. Manoush? They did not like it? No. One of the students said he felt unabating rage.

There was another who said, quote, they've deceived me, telling me there was going to be a discussion, when in fact, there was an attack. How could they have done this to me? What is the point of this? That's how I would have responded. Yeah.

So, I mean, this is just a devastating thing to put a teenager through, let alone any human. But here's the crazy part. A few of the participants liked it. Liked it? How could you possibly like that?

You read through some of these transcripts, and one participant, looking back, basically said, quote, it was highly agreeable. There was another who said it was fun, quote, fun. What? Okay, so, but what is the point of all of this? Like, what does that kind of weirdly positive reactions say about these students?

I mean, I think there were some participants in this experiment who felt like the highest form of learning was to have somebody really hold up a mirror and help them see all their own blind spots so that they could learn to see a little bit more clearly. Real intellectual chemistry exists not when you agree with someone, but when you enjoy your disagreements with them. Okay, I have to say that this study gives me a little bit of a stomach ache, because I do think. And the reason being is, I think if you come to a place where you feel quite certain about your ideas or you find arguing about core beliefs fun, you are coming from a place where you feel pretty secure in your place in the world, in your intellectualism, in your right to be in that room. Right?

Manoush Zomorodi

We're talking about 1950s white dudes at Harvard. And now I think we're at this place where we are trying to figure out, how do we have these conversations where we challenge each other about our beliefs, when there are some people who have never been asked what their beliefs are or other people who will resort to violence if you question their beliefs? Or I hear a lot of conversations where there is no argument, because that's considered to be unkind. And we're in a world where a lot of people are talking about kindness and bringing people into a conversation, it's hard, right? Like, we're at a moment where we're really struggling to make people feel good about having their ideas challenged.

I think that's true. I might quibble, though, with one of the premises. Okay. And I'm open to that. Go ahead.

I don't think you always have to be intellectually secure to be open minded. You just have to be curious and humble. Right. You have to know that you don't know everything, and you have to wanna learn more. But I guess that requires you, then, to not make your ideas your identity.

Manoush Zomorodi

Yes. That's a huge part of what thinking like a scientist is about. Right? When I say, think like a scientist, sometimes people think, oh, wait, so I have to go buy a microscope or own a telescope? No.

For me, thinking like a scientist is about not letting your ideas become your identity. Saying what I believe is not who I am. Right. And I should say that that is one of the main points in your book, that instead of being, like, a preacher, prosecutor, or politician, we should think like a scientist. But to me, that could mean I have to come up with a hypothesis, an idea of what I think is right.

Manoush Zomorodi

But then I need to prove it, right? No, no, no. Don't do that bad. Okay. Tell me.

You definitely want to come up with hypotheses, but then good scientists are as motivated to disprove their hypotheses as they are to support them. Ah, yes. And I think what a scientist is after is actually discovering the truth, not selling it.

Manoush Zomorodi

There is one person you mentioned who has made this kind of thinking, or rethinking, I should say a habit. And it really made me chuckle, because it's a Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman. And I would think that that is someone who is probably right, if not all of the time, then most of the time. But he responds to having his ideas challenged exactly as you just described. Kind of like the students in the study.

Like he enjoys being challenged or even being wrong. Yeah. I had this surprising experience with him a few years ago where I went to give a talk at a conference. I finished the presentation. I got off the stage, I'm walking out, and I see Danny Kahneman in the audience, and he pulls me aside as I'm walking out, and he says, that was wonderful.

I was wrong. You know, those are situations in which you're surprised. I've really enjoyed changing my mind because I enjoy being surprised, and I enjoy being surprised because I feel I'm learning something. Adam, you got to interview Danny Kahneman for your podcast. And when he describes that moment, realizing he's wrong, it sounds like it brought him so much joy.

Manoush Zomorodi

But wait, just to clarify, what was it that he was so wrong about? Oh, it was. It was. I was presenting on my research on givers and takers, and I think he had made a prediction about who was going to be more successful in the short run versus long run. And then.

And the results were different from what he expected. Just like a scientist. Yeah, I mean, he's right. He has a hypothesis. He finds out the hypothesis is, if not false, at least incomplete.

And he's like, wow, this is a moment of discovery. I have never thought that ideas are rare. So being less identified with your ideas is also associated, I think, with having many of them, discovering that most of them are no good, and trying to do the best you can with a few that are good. I think the mindset that Danny brings to the table as a scientist is really different. Right.

The joy of engaging with this kind of interpersonal and intellectual challenge is not that I get to win and make you lose. It's that we're both going to discover something. And that's really shifted the way that I deal with some of the most heated conversations in my life, sometimes even online. Every once in a while, someone will say, well, let's just agree to disagree. Uh huh.

Manoush Zomorodi

What do you think of that? I don't believe in that. If you say, let's agree to disagree, you're giving up. You're saying, we are incapable of having a thoughtful discussion about this issue. And so when someone says, let's agree to disagree, I know it's time to stop arguing, to win and start asking questions to learn.

And I'll ask, where did I lose you? Where did this conversation go off the rails? What could I have done differently and recognize that I don't know what would change your mind? I'm really curious to find out. And the best thing I can do then is try to help you find your own reasons for change.

So I did this with a friend who's strongly opposed to vaccines. Oh, wow. Yeah. A couple years ago, I swore that we would never talk about vaccines again. I was worried that it was going to damage our friendship.

And, you know, I thought he was being stubborn and pigheaded. He thought I was being naive and pollyanna and gullible, and those are generally not good perceptions, you know, to sustain a 30 year friendship. Right. But then COVID happened, and I decided that, you know, as someone who cares about him and his family, I owed it to them to at least see if he was open to the possibility. You know, I'm not someone who thinks that every newborn should get every vaccine ever developed.

But it seemed like the best way out of this pandemic, according to the science that I had read. Let me just start by saying he has not gotten vaccinated, nor have his children. But I had a much better conversation with him than I had ever had before. And all I did was I went into the discussion and I said, I'm really curious. What are the odds that you'll get a COVID vaccine in your lifetime?

And he said, it's got to be pretty low. I was stunned. I was like, what? I thought you were going to say zero. What do you mean, pretty low?

And he said, well, no, you always have to weigh the pros and the cons. I mean, if I were 80 years old, I wouldn't be worried about long term risks. If there's a variant that has a hundred percent fatality rate and is highly transmissible, you know, of course you go for it. And what was so powerful for me about that conversation was, for the first time in the three decades that I've known him, he committed to at least being open to rethinking. And, you know, all of a sudden, I didn't see him as an anti vaxxer, and he didn't see me as a preacher or a prosecutor.

Manoush Zomorodi

Right. So I think that's what I'm looking for more of. When somebody starts to launch an assault on your worldview, it's not that difficult to ask, how did you arrive at that view? I'm really curious, or I've never heard this perspective before. Was there a time when you didn't hold it?

I think as people reflect on those questions, they're a little bit more likely to recognize that their beliefs are malleable, and that also, you're probably more than your worst opinion. You're externalizing the topic, you're sticking to the topic, and not whether you're a good or bad person for thinking what you do. Which, I have to say, brings me back to your story, Adam, when you were a teenager, and you were so sure that you remembered this movie quote correctly, and to me, it sounded like you were embarrassed, like you dug in even more because you wanted to save face. But now I think you're saying, like, let's just take that element of shame. Out of the equation, at least in the short run.

Yeah, I think the. The goals are really different. The goal is not to prove myself, it's to improve myself. And we know that it takes curiosity to learn. What we forget is that it takes courage to unlearn.

So I guess what I'm hoping people will do is realize if learning is how you evolve, unlearning is how you keep up as the world evolves. I want to keep having versions of myself that look back and say, I am much wiser than I was before. And that requires a balance of knowing that the information you have today is probably more accurate and more likely to be true than what you had yesterday, but also knowing that it's always incomplete and that tomorrow you're probably going to discover something new. That's organizational psychologist Adam Grant. He's a professor at the Wharton School of Business.

Manoush Zomorodi

His book is think again, and he hosts the Ted podcast work life with Adam Grant. Oh, and back to that saying about the frog slowly boiling to death. Turns out its a myth. Adam says they jump out of the pot as soon as it gets too hot. We humans just havent bothered to rethink that old story on the show today, changing our minds im Manoush Zamoroddi and youre listening to the Ted radio hour from NPR.

Stay with us.

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Manoush Zomorodi

It's rich, creamy, and an excellent source of calcium with vitamins a and d. Also planet oats unsweetened varieties have 0 gram of sugar. Its great in coffee, cereal, smoothies, you name it. So next time youre at the grocery store, save the overthinking for the podcast and reach for the one that has it. Planet oat oat milk or visit planetoat.com for more.

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But convincing other people to change their minds, thats another matter. Our next guest says that we need to change how we interact rather than call people out or cancel them. In fact, she has a better phrase. Well, I use a lot of one liners, so im not quite sure which one you mean. But the title of my book is calling in the calling out culture.

This is Loretta Ross. Shes a longtime civil rights activist and organizer. That's the one. So define it for us. What is call in culture?

Well, calling in is really a call out done with love. So it's the same thing. But instead of using anger, blaming and shaming as your method of achieving accountability, you use love, grace and respect, which. Sounds so dramatically different than the reactions we mostly see today, especially online. Well, let's keep in mind that the original definition of calling out was inviting someone to a duel.

I mean, isn't that how Alexander Hamilton got killed? Right. So it's not at all a new behavior. What is new is that you can summon a lynch mob with a tweet. Now, all of us know what calling out is, our cancel culture as it's called.

Manoush Zomorodi

Here's Loretta Ross on the Ted stage. You think somebody has done something wrong. You think they should be held accountable for it and you think they should be punished for it. So one of those calling out examples is, I can't believe you just said that. You're racist, sexist, toxic, manipulative.

With this approach, you've guaranteed one thing with this blaming and shaming. You just invited them to a fight, not a conversation, because you're publicly humiliating them. Now, some people actually think call outs should be used to hold powerful people accountable. And there's a lot to that. I mean, that's what the human rights movement has always done.

But most people are calling others out out of fear or they're feeling that they need to belong to something. And some people think that they'll feel better about themselves if they put somebody else down. Most of us want all of this violence to stop, but we don't know where to begin. And most of us stay silent because we're afraid that we'll become the next target. So even if something feels unfair.

We're silent. I try to point out to people that if you use respect and radical empathy as a way of having people invited into a conversation instead of a fight, you're more likely to achieve your goal. Chances are they're going to give your words a fair hearing. Then if they feel they're automatically being attacked, they'd have to go on the defensive. It's just logical for me.

Manoush Zomorodi

You know, Loretta, you say it requires radical empathy, but in your talk, you hint that you didn't always think that way. Well, I'm not sure if I have any special empathy. Actually, I don't even like most people, so I don't think I'm naturally empathetic. It's a learned and acquired skill for me. Okay, so let's go back to that place where you first learned those skills.

Tell me about it. The center for Democratic Renewal started out in 1979 as the national anti Klan Network. And it was founded right after five anti Klan protesters were killed in Greensboro, North Carolina, and two all white juries acquitted the people who did the murders, even though it was caught on videotape. Six Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen are freed this morning after an all white jury in Greensboro, North Carolina, declare them innocent. And so my boss at the time, Reverend CT.

Vivian, said, we need an organization to monitor these hate groups to make sure that people don't keep getting off. And it was in that job that I started, assisting in the deprogramming of people who had left hate groups. And this wasn't just some wild experiment. This was something your boss, C. T.

Manoush Zomorodi

Vivian, deeply believed was possible and necessary. Well, Reverend Vivian had been an aide to doctor Martin Luther King, so he was always the font of a lot of wonderful lessons from the civil rights movement that I was too young to have participated in. And Reverend Vivian used to always say that if you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do. And when he first told me those words, I basically muttered under my breath, because you can't curse out a preacher. But I did not believe him, because if the Klan was okay hating me, I was all right hating them back.

I mean, that's the way the world works, right? I don't even have enough energy, time or resources to help the victims of hate violence. Now you help. You want me to help the perpetrators? Yeah.

Disbelief was my dominant reaction. But he was right. And it changed not only my life, but hopefully we changed the lives of some of those people. People like Floyd Cochran, who had been a spokesperson for Aryan nations. He'd been a Nazi since he was 14 years old, and he was 35 by the time I met him.

He didn't actually know what being in conversation with black people because he had not had that experience. Another time, Loretta found herself teaching anti racism classes to the wives and mothers. Of Klan's members because their husbands were in the Klan and they didn't want their children raised up in the hate environment. And I really admire their bravery. The fact that they disguised themselves as a quilting club so that they could talk about what was really going on in their lives told me a whole lot about what they had to deal with on a daily basis.

And they were not expecting to be respected or listened to or helped. They were so used to using hatred as their currency that they weren't expecting not to get that in return. And so I could see the transformations as they renormalized themselves into society take place right before my eyes. And then I found that once I got to know them, I couldn't hate them anymore. I thought I was going to change them, and they ended up changing me, even in more profound ways.

And so I had to find another motivation. And that motivation became love and respect. This ethos is what Loretta thinks is missing from how we interact with each other today. She says, we need more calling in, less calling out. One of my students once said, a call out is not an invitation for growth.

It's the expectation that you've already grown. This is the culture we're trapped in now. On the other hand, there is calling in. So when you think somebody has done something wrong and you want to hold them accountable, you don't react with anger or hate. You just remain calm and look at them and say, that's an interesting viewpoint.

Tell me more. And if you use this call in practices like I'm teaching, what you'll do is several things. First of all, you'll lead with love instead of anger and allow somebody else to grow. Secondly, it'll affirm your own inner empathy and your compassion. And then the third thing is that you can call in your friends, your families, your neighbors, your coworkers, all the people you might have given up on in the past because of how they've hurt you.

Manoush Zomorodi

So let's do a demonstration. Let's say there is. I mean, cause I have tried calling in a particular relative, and I have to admit that I don't think that I've done very well. First, you said relative. So you know this person?

Yes. Yes, I do. Won't engage, won't use the same kind of language of, you know, believes. Things are pretty black and white. They're right, everyone else is wrong and can't even have the kind of empathetic conversation that you're talking about.

So how do you begin to call someone in when it feels like you live on different planets and don't even use the same vocabulary? Well, I find that it's very useful in those kinds of situations to go underneath their words and ask about their values. I believe that it's very possible to use these strategies. So I'm gonna tell you about my uncle Frank. In my TED talk, I talk about my uncle Frank.

He ain't really my uncle, but, you know, he's still living, so I can't call him out. This person in my life seeks attention by saying the most outrageous things about somebody who's not present. He came to a family reunion and decided to talk about Mexican Americans stealing jobs. And most people buried their faces in their plate because this was uncle Frank. This is what he does.

But I decided to respond, but not with anger. I kind of organized a few comments and asked him a question. Uncle Frank, I know you. I love you. I respect you.

And what I know about you is that you'd run into a burning building and save somebody if you could, and you wouldn't care what race that person is. You wouldn't care whether they were gay or an immigrant. So tell me, how can I reconcile that? Good. Uncle Frank, I know you are with the words that just came out of your mouth.

You haven't called him in, you haven't called him out. You called on him to decide how he's going to be. And with this approach, he's less likely to become defensive because you haven't actually attacked him. And while he's organizing what to say, you've affirmed that he has options about how he wants to be, especially in his niece's eyes and his family's eyes. But most importantly, the third thing you've achieved is that you did not let his bigotry go unchallenged.

Manoush Zomorodi

Loretta, I gotta say, that kind of response is admiral, it's also really gutsy, because asking those kind of calm, collected questions at a family reunion like that can be super uncomfortable. If you're not in an emotionally healed enough space to put your visceral reaction to their words in your parking lot and then get back to focusing on them, then you're not in a good enough place to do that calling in, because you're just constantly going to be reacting to their comebacks to their retorts. And so it's not obligatory that you try to call people in, but it's a choice that you get to make. You have no obligation to engage with another human being who's incapable of showing any empathy for anybody else. I'm going to call this off either permanently, because I don't ever want to talk to you again in life or temporarily to where the temperature has gone down and we're less heated, and we can have this conversation more civilly over coffee or something.

I love it. So I just want to show people that you have a range of options. Don't be trapped by patterns that you have a choice whether to continue or not.

So here's what worries me. Loretta and I saw this a little bit at the TED conference, and there were a lot of older white men in the audience, people who maybe before the last couple years, had never been criticized or called out. And when they heard your message, I think they really liked it. They're like, yes, this is what we should be doing. We should not be calling people out, starting fights, criticizing us.

Those of us in power, you should be calling us in. And I think that in some ways, it gives them a pass that they think, great. See, this black woman is telling us that it's okay for us to be angry or frustrated with this call out culture. But in some ways, no, I think for the first time, a lot of people in power are being held accountable. So how do you explain to some of those people that, you know, this is not giving them a pass, right?

Well, no, I'm never gonna give a jerk a pass to be a jerk. I mean, that's not his purpose. And if you think that's what it's about, then you're totally misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm saying that even people in power are human beings, and you're more likely to get what you want out of them if you treat them as a human being and not as a representative of an authority that you have problems with. Now, people should be held accountable when they abuse their power, when they don't be responsible to their obligations, and they don't respect the humanity of other people.

Yes, there are methods for achieving that accountability. But if you project on them your fear of power, your fear of authority, your fear of their identity, and you dehumanize them, you've totally decreased their chances that they're going to want to hear a damn thing that you say. Because people can smell disrespect. You don't actually have to say it. The fact that you don't see them as a human being comes through and certainly as a victim of anti black racism.

I can smell disrespect. You don't have to be in a Klan robe. I can smell it. I think to some people this idea of calling in might seem trivial, maybe, maybe inconsequential, but to you it's a culmination of all the work that you have done over the last few decades. Oh, there's a direct through line between my entire social justice career to where I've arrived at how we do the work is as important as the work that we do.

And I am truly concerned that if we don't learn to work better together, we will be overwhelmed by the tsunami of hate that people are profiting off of, whether they're running for political office or just laughing all the way to the bank. We have a chance to stop this very ugly turn towards humanity worldwide, but we have to recognize the nature of the threat and our capacity for doing something different. We don't just have to write ourselves as victims of this narrative when in fact we have a considerable power if we pointed all in the same direction. Because as I said, if a black woman can't hate the Klan, then everybody else is just a problematic ally.

And so it's my privilege to figure out a strategy for working with everybody who means well.

Manoush Zomorodi

Loretta Ross is an organizer and activist for reproductive and civil rights. She's also a visiting associate professor at Smith College. You can see her full talk@ted.com. Dot thank you so much for listening to our show today, changing our minds. To see hundreds more TED talks, check out ted.com or the TED app.

This episode was produced by Fiona Guerin, Matthew Cloutier and James Delahouse. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and Rachel Faulkner. Our production staff at NPR also includes Jeff Rogers, Deba Motisham, Katie Monteleone and Harrison Vijay Choi. Our audio engineer is Brian Jarbo. Our intern is Kathryn Seifer.

Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at Ted are Chris Anderson, Colin Helms, Anna Phelan, Michelle Quint and Micah Eames. I'm Anoush Zamoroddi, and you've been listening to the Ted radio hour from NPR. This message comes from NPR sponsor mint mobile. From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is everywhere.

So Mint Mobile is offering premium wireless starting at just dollar 15 a month. To get your new phone plan for just dollar 15, go to mintmobile.com switch. This message comes from NPR sponsor Capella University. With Capella's Flexpath learning format, you can earn your degree online at your own pace and get support from people who care about your success. Imagine your future differently at capella.edu.

Manoush Zomorodi

Is it possible to engineer our way out of the climate crisis? Some entrepreneurs want to shoot particles into the stratosphere to combat global warming. Experts say regulations on this technology aren't keeping up the world of solar geoengineering. On the latest episode of the Sunday Story from NPR's up first podcast.

Changing Our Minds: Why we should admit when we're wrong

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