Dear {{full_name}},

Why Are We So Afraid to Learn?

I don't know a single person on the left who will watch Fox News. I don't know a single person on the right who will watch CNN. Suggest it, and watch what happens. The Fox viewer gets angry. The CNN viewer gets angry. Not curious. Not amused. Angry.

That reaction is the whole problem, and it's worth sitting with for a second, because it's strange when you think about it. Nobody gets angry when you suggest they read a book by an author they disagree with, or try a restaurant they're skeptical of, or watch a movie in a genre they don't usually like. Worst case, they don't enjoy it. But suggest an hour of the other side's news and it's treated like an act of aggression.

So why?

I think it's because we already suspect what we'll find. Not propaganda, not lies — a few facts we didn't have, an argument that's more coherent than we assumed, a person who seems reasonable making a point we can't easily dismiss. That's the actual threat. Not that the other side will turn out to be monsters, but that they won't. That we'll have to hold two things in our head at once: they're wrong about a lot, and they're not stupid, and some of what they're saying has a point. That's uncomfortable. It's much easier to stay where the whole story already makes sense and everyone agrees.

We've built media ecosystems that protect us from that discomfort entirely. You can now go years without hearing the strongest version of the other side's argument — only the weakest, dumbest version your own side likes to mock. That's not an accident. It's profitable, and it's easy. But it also means most people arguing about politics in America right now aren't actually arguing with the other side. They're arguing with a caricature of the other side, and they've never once checked whether the caricature is accurate.

So here's the suggestion, and I mean it seriously, not as a gimmick: pick one week. If you watch CNN, watch Fox instead, exclusively, for a week. If you watch Fox, watch CNN. Read the op-eds. Watch the panel discussions. Don't do it to collect ammunition for the next argument. Do it to actually listen.

I'd bet you find plenty to disagree with — maybe more than you expected. That's fine. But I'd also bet you find a fact you didn't know, a framing that makes you think, or a moment where you go "okay, I get why someone would believe that." That moment is the whole point. It doesn't mean you switch sides. It means you've started arguing with the real thing instead of the version you invented to make yourself feel right.

We can't fix what's broken in this country by getting better at yelling at each other from further apart.

The only way through is being willing to find out we might be missing something — or even wrong about something. That takes more courage than picking a side ever did.

One week. 

Try it.