Outrage Overload: How to Keep Your Cool in a Heated Society, with David Beckemeyer

Speaker A: 00:00:02

Hey there, and welcome to Stories for the Future, a podcast where we bring people together to explore different viewpoints and move beyond simple yes or no answers. I'm Veslemøy Klavenes-Berge, and I'll be your friendly guide on this journey.

Come along as we have honest conversations with experts, creative thinkers, and wonderful everyday people who are helping us build bridges and imagine exciting new possibilities. All of us together. Did you notice that I had a new intro?

Once again, I think it will probably change a number of times in the near future, and the reason for that is that I'm trying to move gradually closer to explaining what this is all about.

As I shared with you in last week's short episode, I have widened the lens of the podcast to include more areas where the world feels polarized and divided.

So, still talking about how we can find common ground and move away from black or white thinking, but with a wider lens, I have shuffled the order of my guests a bit in order to mark this change. So after listening to this episode, I think you will see exactly what I mean.

I'm so happy to introduce you to David Beckemeyer, the host of the Outrage Overload podcast. David has deep insights into political polarization and media literacy, and he's passionate about helping us move away from toxic outrage.

Drawing from his deep knowledge of social psychology and communication, David shared tips with his listeners about understanding outrage in media, and he brings us practical ways to build bridges and create more understanding in our sometimes very divided world.

Speaker B: 00:01:57

So I just have to say what a fantastic guest to have. Just after I have kind of pivoted my podcast a little bit. Welcome so much, David.

Speaker C: 00:02:08

Well, it's my pleasure to be here and I'm really glad. Glad we connected.

Speaker B: 00:02:12

Yes, me too.

I know you're based in California, so given everything that's happened the last months and maybe half year with everything, also in California, but also in the US I would just like to ask this general question, and you can answer it in whatever way you like, but how is it going?

Speaker C: 00:02:35

You know, it's funny, I'm getting to the point where I ask that question to a lot of people as well, because, yeah, there's a lot going on.

Speaker D: 00:02:41

Right.

Speaker C: 00:02:41

So, yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for asking.

Yeah, so I have the feedback from listeners, and so I sort of feel a lot of the stress and concern and fears, you know, from that side. Then, of course, we all have our own personal lives people may know about. There was a big fire down in Southern California.

We lived there for a number of years. And still have many friends down there, some lost their homes, so there was kind of that.

And I know even people, even though we're sort of 500 miles away from that, even people that live where we live now are sort of panicking and thinking about getting out of California.

I know we can't get homeowners insurance where I live, even though we technically are in a place that's not suspect of fires and at least by the, you know, how they rate home. So it's like. Yeah, exactly, there's a lot going on. But yeah, you know, we're hanging in there.

I think even with the podcast, you know, I still struggle a little bit about feeling like, you know, we talk about bridge building and depolarization and, and is that, you know, sort of, you know, are we fiddling while Rome burns? Like, should we be screaming around, running around with our hair on fire more?

And you know, and so I, I, I have to reassure myself and I have to reassure listeners that this work is important and it's maybe more important than ever.

Speaker B: 00:04:09

Exactly. And you mentioned your podcast. I'm really, really curious about your podcast. It's called Outrage Overload podcast.

ad your first episode back in: 2020

Speaker C: 00:04:39

Right, it's evolved some, but I mean the main mission is pretty much held out. So you know, because a lot of people say, oh, all these things have changed.

Don't you have to sort of flip your podcast upside down now and go to a whole new thing? And really we've made some small adjustments which really still the main message.

t getting higher. Sort of the: 2016

al life. And then you had the: 2020

People disconnecting and losing friendships and breaking friendships and, and almost everybody has a story like that or sort of, you know, like Uncle Frank is not allowed to Thanksgiving anymore and stuff like that. Right. Everybody seems to have a story or I don't talk to my, my brother in law anymore. Or something like that. Everybody's got stories like that.

And, you know, and it was. So that was kind of there in my life and, and in my circle and, and I kind of got to a point where I'm like, what is going on here?

Like, how are we making politics so salient in our lives? How are we breaking family relationships, longtime friends over these things? And I, and I saw that.

So I saw all that, but also participated in it, right? Because I was out there getting in Twitter fights, too. I'm out there watching this news media and getting angry all the time, too.

And that was another factor in all this to say, okay, what is going on here? And I'm signing a science nerd. So I thought, well, maybe there's some people looking at these problems, right? Maybe I'm not the only one.

Speaker D: 00:06:29

Right?

Speaker C: 00:06:29

And of course I'm not. Right, of course I'm not the only one. But then I saw that there was a lot of scientific research into these, into this problem.

There's a lot of people that recognize this as a big problem. And, and so that's what then, okay, I'm kind of a science nerd. I can start a show that kind of can dive deeper.

So I thought I ended up arriving at a podcast because it was an opportunity to go a little deeper than just Instagram channel or something like that. So podcasts seem like a good way to.

We can go a little bit deeper and explore these things still in kind of layman terms, like, you don't have to be academic to really follow our show because there are already some shows that kind of do that, like they're sort of academic to academic.

But I wanted to do a show that was more bringing some of this academic research, bringing some of the practitioners that are out there looking at this space to a more, in a more approachable way that, that's more inclusive that anybody that's interested in these things can pretty much understand. We, we, we're not too. We don't shy away from getting a little bit in depth, but, you know, you don't have to.

We're not going to go through all the math of it and things like that, right? We're going to still talk about it in, in pretty much layman terms, even if, you know, we sometimes dive, dive in a little bit.

So that's what got me interested in this, and that's how I write it, a podcast. And then we haven't changed the message too much.

We talk about this political polarization and we can talk a little bit about A lot of different definitions of that.

And we talk about media and the media that amplifies this, that includes social media, but it also includes online media and it also includes things like political campaigns.

Speaker D: 00:08:04

Right.

Speaker C: 00:08:04

I mean, this idea of promoting through getting people riled up and using emotion is very common in the political arena and it even extends beyond that. So we're all being exposed to this and all the psychological phenomena applies to us.

Wherever you lie on the political spectrum, whoever you see as your political adversary, there's no. Nobody holds a monopoly on truth. Nobody holds a monopoly on being manipulated.

Speaker B: 00:08:31

Exactly. So from your perspective then, and I've listened to your podcast and you have a lot of really, really interesting episod, some fantastic experts.

So it's very, very interesting to listen to. But what do you see and have you seen any changes since you started the podcast? What is happening now with all this outrage in society today?

And I have to say, this is not only in the US it's all over. But maybe you are, it's tougher where you are at the moment, but what you see is happening right now where we are.

Speaker C: 00:09:10

Yeah, it's a good point that it's not just in the U.S. it's interesting that my show primarily kind of talks to about US issues and about. And speaks mostly to those topics.

But I have listeners from around the world because I think they're worried about what's going on here too.

Speaker D: 00:09:26

Right.

Speaker C: 00:09:26

And they're also, you know, sort of a product of all this stuff as well.

Speaker D: 00:09:31

Right.

Speaker C: 00:09:32

And being affected by it. Yeah. So I would say that, you know, this has been an ongoing thing in general.

Speaker D: 00:09:39

Right.

Speaker C: 00:09:39

We know from these experts. And I'm glad you point out the experts because like my show is about them.

Like, you know, I'm just a guy that's kind of trying to understand all this, but it's really, you know, bringing those experts on the show. But you know, this is not something new.

escalation since, as I know,: 2016

And then there's more, more escalation more recently through this last election cycle and, and people are definitely, you really have a very polarized perspective on the world right now.

Speaker D: 00:10:22

Right.

Speaker C: 00:10:22

I mean, we have people that are very afraid and concerned and, and you have people that are Sort of exuberant, like they love what's happening. They think finally we're gonna get to fix these problems.

Speaker D: 00:10:31

Right.

Speaker C: 00:10:31

So we have to keep that in mind.

Like, if we're on the side of being afraid, we have to realize there are people that are very happy with how things are going, and they think we're finally gonna solve these problems that we've had.

Speaker D: 00:10:41

Right.

Speaker C: 00:10:41

So we have to keep that in mind. So I think there definitely has been an escalation.

And over the last, like you say, sort of since this election and certainly since the inauguration, you here in the States, there's been even a greater escalation of concerns. But really it's not that new. Like, this is all like this. We probably should have predicted this. In fact, many people did predict this, right?

That as we escalate this animosity and this us versus them thinking it makes it just harder and harder.

And I'm sure you see this in sort of the climate world, that it's everybody talking, nobody listening, we're not empathizing with the other side's perspective very well.

And, and this media just feeds it, and we get these caricatures of the left and the right that kind of don't exist, but we sort of just frame everybody into one of those pictures. And then that just makes it worse because now we can't see them as humans. And it all just escalates, right.

This is all just a buildup of all these things together. So, you know, there definitely has been an escalation. That's why we've done a lot of review. And I've been, you know, I've been sort of sending out.

I sent out a newsletter to those that subscribe. So that's kind of, maybe you could say my super fans and I send out often.

I'm putting little notes at the beginning of those these days that are sort of like, note to note, note to readers, you know, that here's where we're at, here's some things we're thinking about. So we've, we've began focusing a little bit more on resilience and that kind of thing as well.

We've always had that as part of our mission, but we've maybe amped that up a little bit, that we're trying to focus on resilience and practical actions. That's, you know, people are looking for.

Speaker B: 00:12:19

Yeah, but what, what kind of impact do you see this, this. You call it toxic polarization or toxic outrage. What, what, what impact does it have on society?

And you mentioned, like, Just the family relations and. But what other.

I, I can just try to imagine, I can't really imagine it, I think, but I'm thinking about schools, workplaces, other areas where people meet. What kind of impact does it have?

Speaker C: 00:12:53

Yeah, it's impacting things quite a bit. As I mentioned, the idea that we've brought some of our politics, like, it just becomes so forward in our identity.

Speaker D: 00:13:04

Right.

Speaker C: 00:13:04

So even if we may not really realize it, we often are judging people based on that, even in all these other interactions, like you mentioned, at work and out in public and online. And it's almost like we want to know where they stand politically first, and then we'll decide how we're going to interact with them. Right.

And so then that just carries forward all over the place and it can create animosity, it can create resentment. That idea of this, us and them, which is so solid now, you know, does carry over all these things.

Speaker D: 00:13:37

Right.

Speaker C: 00:13:38

So.

So, yeah, you mentioned school boards and things like that and what, what we think of our, of how, how our schools should be, and we start bringing this stuff to the table there. We start bringing it to the table in our local community.

But I think the, the biggest sort of mental health impact for folks is we're so wrapped up in it that we're having trouble sleeping, we're stressed out all the time. This has, you know, obviously, you know, we know that it goes from the mental health side to the physical.

Speaker D: 00:14:06

Right.

Speaker C: 00:14:06

If you're stressed out all the time, you're not sleeping well, these have physical effects later. That carries over into your everyday life. You're, you're, you know, you're nervous, you're scared. You're. You get in fights.

You're, you know, you're, you're hostile with people that you shouldn't be. You're not listening. You know, all these things do carry over into just our practical lives.

So some of the things we talk about are just helping do some of that. Just kind of reduce, try to reduce some of that stress and then you can just think more clearly.

Speaker D: 00:14:34

Right.

Speaker C: 00:14:34

Because this is the other big problem with this.

When we're just agitated like that, we know that our brains aren't very good at now doing sort of the heavier critical thinking stuff, which is what we have to do more than ever right now.

Speaker A: 00:14:45

Right, Right.

Speaker B: 00:14:47

So when you mentioned resilience, I saw this very funny thing. Not funny, but I thought it was interesting that you're actually a boxing coach. Are you? Yeah.

So I was thinking, is that a way to, like, how do you cope with, with all the stress. So for me it's, it's a physical activity and going out in nature are some, some ways, you know.

But have you learned anything from your experts as well that you have interviewed? How do you actually cope? Because your mental health is so important to, to, to keep healthy in these times. So how do you actually do that?

Speaker C: 00:15:26

Right? I mean even if you want to be an advocate or anything, right. I mean you're going to have to like be healthy.

You got, you know, it's sort of the, put your oxygen mask on, you know, first thing, right? So you do have to take care of yourself. So yeah, some of it is, you know, often seems like platitudes or whatever.

But these are really important things, right? I mean you do have to get that physical exercise or just physical movement at least, right? We know there's a lot of science about this, right?

It's not just woo woo stuff that, you know, people say this is real science. We know even, even having a productive dialogue is more effective if you're doing it while you're moving.

Speaker D: 00:16:00

Right.

Speaker C: 00:16:00

So we often recommend having conversations while you're walking. Right. And you're moving together too, which is another thing that has, there's some aspect of that aspect of it as well that plays into it.

But yeah, some of it is, is, yeah. So you know, I coach boxing and you know, and it's a great, it's a great workout and you don't have to do boxing, you do other workouts.

But boxing is a great workout. It, it engages your mind and your body which is really important to sort of combine that. So that's just one example.

There's lots of things you can do, Tai Chi, all kinds of stuff, but some kind of physical activity and even if it's just a walk and even the habit of doing it is really critical for us now, right? Have some of these things that add stability to our lives. Like Every Tuesday at 9 I do this and every Thursday at, you know, at 8pm I do that.

And these little habits, even stuff like that can, can play a role like have a habit. That's something you do for you and you make time for it. So you know, it, you know, can be exercise or maybe it's something else.

Maybe you're going to work on a puzzle, you're going to set aside time for something else. Those are all important things. Getting good night's sleep is really critical.

A lot of stuff starts with sleep and you know, come up with a sleep routine like that's and there's lots of, you can look online, there's lots of, you know, practical aspects of how to, how to come up with a sleep, sleep routine. Turn off the devices or at least put them in sleep mode or whatever so you're not getting rattled with notifications all night.

Find an alternative to doom scrolling right before you go to bed. Like you know, maybe read a book, maybe listen to some music, maybe do something else. All these things can be helpful.

In general being more proactive in how you consume news and things like that is really important.

Speaker D: 00:17:44

Right?

Speaker C: 00:17:44

Try not to be a passive consumer where the whole doom scrolling idea because now you're being fed by algorithms and the algorithms want to get you agitated, right? That's how they keep you engaged.

So you know, one thing you can do, just some practical ideas you can try all these things, they don't work for everyone but things like, well I was going to go, you know, scroll on Instagram for a while maybe what I'll do instead, I'll, I'll put 10 minutes towards, you know, some topic I'm kind of interested in. Like I heard about this topic, maybe I drilled down, I go deep instead of wide today.

So I'm going to go actually research and look into this topic and you know, just see, see what's out there about it. Hopefully from good sources.

There's a whole nother aspect of critical thinking and good media literacy but, but you know, it's not that hard like you can do it especially if you devote some time to it. So something like that, like set aside 10 minutes for that instead of 10 minutes for doom scrolling.

Speaker D: 00:18:34

Right?

Speaker C: 00:18:34

Things like that, all of that stuff can help. I mean there's quite, quite a long list but a lot of it does.

I mean you talked about getting out in nature, getting in the sun, just getting more sunlight, getting your circadian rhythm sorted out is good, that helps for the, for sleep as well. Touching ground people talk about, right?

The idea of touching ground again same kind of thing like getting out there in nature is really important too and making time for that stuff and again some of it is establish some good habits.

Speaker B: 00:19:01

Yes, I think you're so right.

And when you like in this then comes media because there was, there has been this almost like a self care advice that turn off the news because it's just, it's just bad news anyway so. And I have a thing with that because I think now more than ever it's really, really important to be aware and to follow what is happening.

But also media is so, media isn't media or media isn't necessarily facts. So do you have a practice for yourself? You said something about it.

Not like watch it passively, but how to choose where you get your news from and how much and what are your thoughts about that?

Speaker C: 00:19:57

Yeah, I mean, we are definitely in a challenging information landscape for sure. I mean, if you, you know, in the net, there's probably more good information than there's ever been.

There's good journalism, there's good content, but pulling it out from the sea of everything else that's flying around our lives is really hard. And there's no easy, super easy answers in the sense that I could just tell you, oh, go to this publication and you'll always get good content.

It's, it's more difficult than that, which makes it a heavy lift for us as consumers to get, you know, to be informed. And you know, I want to say something about, yeah, the idea of tuning out or not tuning out, you know, if you need to tune out, like, tune out.

I get it. Like, I used to get mad about people that would say that. And I still, it still bothers me a little bit. But again, you have to do self care.

And if tuning out is the best answer you have right now, I'm not against that, especially taking breaks. Like maybe you're just going to tune out for a week or whatever.

And one thing, when you tune back in a couple of practices, there is one like, be mindful of it. Again, more so be mindful the fact they are going to try to agitate you, right?

They're going to try to get you excited because that's whether you're watching tv, whether you're reading headlines, you know, consuming any kind of content on social media anywhere else, they all survive on getting your attention, right? They're all trading your attention literally for dollars in advertising, right?

So just be aware of that, that they're going to use those manipulative techniques. And if you're mindful of it a little bit more, you can kind of see it when it's happening.

And one of the best questions I tell people to ask, especially if they're starting to feel that, right, you can, your face is, oh, you're getting mad.

And when you can feel that, that's almost the indication that you need to sort of step back for a second and ask yourself this one question is, are they giving me the whole story? Is this, is there more to this story? Those, those questions are just key to, to staying, you know, not being agitated about things.

You shouldn't be agitated about, right. Or you don't need to be as agitated about maybe is a better way to say it because something. Sure you're going to find out, wow, it's pretty bad.

I should maybe be scared about this or I should be upset about this. But many things you'll find out, they kind of left out this other detail and it's not quite as bad as they're making.

I shouldn't be that scared about this thing right now, you know, this kind of thing. And, and you know, you'll find that probably more often the case that, you know, and so I, you know, there. It's okay to be scared and it's okay to.

In some things you probably. Maybe we should be more mad about.

Speaker D: 00:22:31

Right.

Speaker C: 00:22:32

And so I don't necessarily say outrageous by itself, just always bad, but just swimming in it. And that's where the outrage overload idea comes in. Just kind of bathing in it all the time. We know this is not good.

And it also takes away the effectiveness. Outrage is, is essentially kind of a tool that humans invented for enforcing norms.

Speaker D: 00:22:52

Right.

Speaker C: 00:22:53

So things are kind of going along and we all get outraged about something and we kind of, you know, take it upon, you know, take it upon ourselves to go try to do something about it. You know, you could think some environmental things even, right? Like, oh, this river is polluted. I'm really mad about it.

Let's get together and try to do something about this river. But if you're just everything, like, I can't pick out one thing because I'm mad about everything all the time, that activism idea goes away, right?

I can't actually.

It doesn't help me, doesn't help us activate against real problems because we're just swimming in outrage and being outraged about everything all the time. So there is a place for outrage.

And I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't be outraged sometimes, but we have to be more mindful about it and we have to limit that overload part of it, right? Where we're, you know, it's also, you do outrage culture and, and, and cancel culture and all that can start to play into this as well.

Speaker D: 00:23:43

Right.

Speaker C: 00:23:43

So, you know, those, those can all be parts of it and you can be more rational about it in terms of how you respond to some of these things.

And so that's a big one is how when you're consuming the news, I definitely encourage people to try to use better sources that are a little bit more, that are more recognized. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, try to get a mix. But There is no super easy answer, right?

I mean, everybody kind of wants, what's the one publication I can go to? And the problem is even a good publication like a New York Times or whatever puts out a lot of good stuff. They also put out some not so good stuff.

And we also have to be careful of kind of mixing news and opinion, right? So, yes, something like Washington examiner does actually really good. Does okay news, like their news stories are pretty good a lot of the times.

Speaker D: 00:24:31

Right.

Speaker C: 00:24:32

But their opinion stories are terrible.

Speaker D: 00:24:33

Right.

Speaker C: 00:24:34

So we have to kind of realize when we're looking at opinion and when we're looking at real news.

Speaker B: 00:24:40

Yes, definitely.

I was thinking when you said it's not healthy to swim in outrage all the time, but it makes today really, really challenging then because it is reason to feel outrage almost all the time. And outrage was a thing that human invented to kind of put the rules into place.

And to some degree you would like to feel outraged like five times every day. But you kind of have to raise the bar a bit then, or how do you do that?

Speaker C: 00:25:21

Yeah, yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. Again, it does have a little bit of a burden on us to kind of sort out our rules for that, you know, and some of that is.

Comes back again and seems like platitudes, but knowing your values, right? And understanding those and keeping referring back to those, like, what are the things like, that I really value and how can I.

Because, you know, and, and when am I sort of violating my own, you know, important, you know, things, right? If I'm not consistent with my values, that's going to make you feel really bad about yourself, right?

So understand, the better you can understand those, the better that you can make these kind of decisions about. You know, is this like. Yeah, this is kind of bad. How's it, how's it aligned with my values and how much energy do I need to put in this?

And it's going to be hard because, like you say, things are being thrown at us every day, right, about what we should focus on. And you could probably pick quite a number of them.

But, but, you know, I think knowing your, your values and what, what's important to you can really help, help in that. And the biggest thing that can really lead you down a bad path is if you feel like you're being inconsistent in those values, right?

So if you, if you do let something go or you feel like you could have done more, these are the ways that it can kind of spiral because now you feel bad about yourself. And you'll do. And it kind of spirals in a bad way.

So, you know, figuring out how to do that, which we don't like those kind of questions because we love just to do the distractions of life.

Speaker D: 00:26:49

Right.

Speaker C: 00:26:49

Let's watch, you know, the Housewives of New Orleans or something instead of thinking about what our values are.

Speaker D: 00:26:56

Right.

Speaker C: 00:26:56

Because we don't like to do those kinds of things. It's very personal. It can be very hard.

But I think this is a time when you need to reassess all that, like, what are the things that are important to me? What do I really value in my life?

And, you know, put the energy, try to put the energy in those things or even assess this new outrage and see how it fits in and how much priority you want to give it. Because it can be hard to let some things go.

Speaker D: 00:27:20

Right.

Speaker C: 00:27:20

Even if, wow, it's like, I only have my tank can only get so full. You know, there's sort of a burnout tank as well.

Speaker D: 00:27:26

Right.

Speaker C: 00:27:26

And that tank can only get so full. So I think knowing your values is probably the biggest way that can help.

And again, that's a tough question because again, we like being distracted by fun stuff that rather than think about those, those questions.

Speaker B: 00:27:38

Right. Yeah. So for me now, currently, I have a question. I, I, I'm asking so many people these days because of this slight pivot I'm making in my podcast.

And I have.

So for this last season, I've been talking a lot about the energy transition and then giving space to people coming from very different angles, like seeing things from different perspectives. So that is something that I want to keep, I want to hear many different voices.

And I mean, if you grew up in Beijing, your views, your world views and experiences are totally different from mine who grew up in Norway. So it's having multiple perspectives on is really important. But still, how do I balance that with not giving air time to ideas that I think.

And you talked about values that I think that can be harmful to the world.

So I tend to kind of compare it to, to history and looking, looking back and thinking that I would feel really bad if I gave time and a platform to harmful people. So how to balance that, do you think?

Speaker C: 00:29:08

Yeah, I mean, we suffer with this a lot on my show as well.

Speaker D: 00:29:11

Right.

Speaker C: 00:29:11

So making those editorial choice choices.

But, you know, I think for one thing, just the fact that you're asking that question, you know, and the fact that you're taking it seriously is really an important factor. That, that's a good, that should Be a good message to, to your listeners that just the fact that you take that question seriously.

I take that question very seriously on my show as well. And it can be. Can be difficult. I don't have a debate show, I don't want a debate show. So I don't really want to get into that kind of thing a lot.

But like you say, sometimes you. But I still do want to present different perspectives, and I primarily want to let them give their perspective and not turn it into a debate.

Speaker D: 00:29:48

Right.

Speaker C: 00:29:49

And then, so how much do you qualify that and say, well, this is not aligned with, you know, consensus science or something like that, and making those kind of editorial decisions is quite difficult. And I think the best we can do is stick, you know, again, even on our show, kind of have some guidelines about that.

What guidelines do I want to apply here?

You know, there's no magic black and white answer that we can always put everything within certain, you know, a certain box or certain guardrails, but try to have those kind of guidelines for those guardrails. So you'll try to do your best. I mean, you're not always going to get it right. None of us are always going to get it right.

But I think just the fact that you're serious about it already means your show is going to be better. Your show is going to be more balanced and provide those perspectives. Like I say, I don't do a debate show or try not to.

But, you know, sometimes if somebody says something that's really out there, I might qualify it a little bit or ask them to probe that a little deeper or even say something like, okay, well, that's, you know, you're kind of in the 2% of the consensus views out there. Tell us why. You know, we're not saying. I'm not saying you're wrong. Maybe 2%. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're the one that's right.

But tell us a little bit more about why we should, you know, go believe that or, I don't know, maybe believe is not the right word. But. But you know, why this 2% view, we should consider that. Right. And. And so I might do that. But. But yeah, it's very difficult.

And again, I don't think there's any magic answer to it.

Speaker B: 00:31:15

No, yeah, I agree it is difficult. So I'm going to struggle with it for a while, I guess, but do my best.

So how do you think people like us, podcasters, independent journalists and other people creating content? How can we be of service these days? And how can we help shift this really polarized landscape. Do you think how do you see our role?

Speaker C: 00:31:50

Yeah, that's a great question. Before I jump into that, I'm going to add one other thing to the sort of bringing balanced perspectives in.

And one thing that I do is I have now a network of folks that I trust a lot that are on different places across the spectrum, political spectrum and otherwise. And I will, you know, refer behind the scenes and say, hey, am I getting off, you know, off track here? What's the best, best way to handle this?

Are too many of my biases coming out and things like that? So I do have a network of folks that I use to help check myself and I'm sure you could build the same kind of thing.

Speaker A: 00:32:24

Yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks. Yes.

Speaker C: 00:32:26

Yeah, so that's something that I do on that. But yeah. So how can we be of service?

I think a lot of it is informing and providing some of these tools and practical advice and also modeling some of this behavior. Maybe. I think each show might have its own way of doing it. Some shows might lean more towards the modeling.

Maybe they literally have very civil debates or something like that and demonstrate that those practices. That's not exactly what I do. I more talk about those things rather than demonstrate them.

But that's one thing someone could do, I think you could do, but the other, I mostly spend time bringing a lot of these views, bringing the practitioners in as well that have been in this space and understand, you know, you talked about international, right. So many of the things that are now being brought in as ideas or techniques here in the US All.

A lot of that comes from international conflict resolution where, you know, there's been civil wars or there's been other, you know, bigger things than we have here in the US Right now that have had. People have had to work through and, and this, you know, conflict resolution approaches and technologies and theories come.

A lot of that comes from that and we're adapting that into our context here in the States now. So, you know, I think that's a big one is from.

For my show, what I try to do is present both the science of some of what's going on so we can maybe understand and, and try to come to terms with some of that and in terms of like the psychology and things like that. And then I.

Then I also talk to practitioners about some of the techniques and practices that apply in the space and, and some of the, you know, sort of bad roads you can find yourself going down and some of the things that don't work.

Speaker D: 00:34:19

Right.

Speaker C: 00:34:19

Try to, try to avoid some of these techniques. And I'm sure you've looked into a lot of conflict management type things and are pretty aware of that. But I think those two things can help.

And I think one thing that I try to bring on my show too is a little bit of a, I don't know. Well, I say lowering the temperature, so I'll use that.

One of, you know, some of these things that people maybe are getting overly excited about, you know, like cooling off a little bit about maybe this is not as bad as you think or the people aren't as bad as you think, or some, some of those perspective settings.

Because a lot of the, the, the science around this is showing that many of, many of the problems we're in is because we have these misperceptions of our political opponents. Right. And where we think they hate us more than they do, we think they have these more extreme views than they really do.

You know, we think all these things about them. And, and these are, most of these are off by a lot, like four to five times. Often. Often. Right.

And it's because a lot of it is because we're fed this caricatures on the media, all that kind of stuff. So we see, we see that, so we think that's, that's real life, but really it's not.

So that's one thing is kind of help people temper some of that and say, you know, just realize here's some more realities about this, like, you know, we're not falling off a cliff here, this is not happening, and be more, a little bit more realistic about it.

I think all those things can help and, and you know, these things are, have to be said more than once because, you know, nobody listens to a podcast like every word and remembers every word.

Speaker D: 00:35:50

Right.

Speaker C: 00:35:50

They're driving, they're cooking, they're doing other stuff. So we return to a lot of these same things often and maybe for some listeners, like, yeah, you said that two weeks ago. Why are we saying this again?

But, but I think a lot of it has to be said in different ways.

So I think another thing you can do is kind of attack some of these challenges with slightly different voices on it because they, that that might connect with different people and you know, in a way that works for them better.

Speaker A: 00:36:13

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:36:15

So so far, for listeners then, or for people, and what do you think that we can do, each and every one of us, to work against this outrage and polarization?

So for instance, instead of when you, when you meet Somebody, or for the first time, perhaps instead of focusing right away on, okay, which political party are you from? Do you have any kind of advice for people how to not always fall into this trap of wanting to stereotype other people and put them into a box?

So where can we start instead?

Speaker C: 00:36:57

Yeah, I mean, it's great if you can find a common interest.

You know, like maybe you both like video games or you like sports or, you know, any, you know, certain type of sports, maybe basketball, or you like college basketball.

You know, maybe even more narrow and the more you can start building that rapport around some of these other things that, that aren't related to politics is. Is one of the best ways. And so, you know, a lot of it's asking questions and I mean, and it can.

It can backfire sometimes because for some people, the first thing they want to tell you is some political thing that now you're kind of triggered and now you're upset about it.

But if you can, if you can try to find these other areas where you can start to build a rapport and, you know, maybe it's golf, maybe it's, you know, who knows what, right? But if you can build some rapport around these other things, this is. This is huge because now you can establish each other as human beings.

You can see them as human beings. You know, they have kids and they want good schools and they, you know, maybe you're into cars, whatever it might be. That can really.

That makes a big difference because now you're.

You're more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt when you do start talking about politics, because you're going to remember, oh, yeah, this person isn't the crazy person they keep showing me on tv. He's a regular person who has kids and does regular stuff and is just trying to get by, which is true of almost all of us, right?

I mean, those caricatures that we see, they may exist somewhere, but if they do, it's a pretty small subset. Most of us are just regular people that also have political views. You know what I mean? We're just doing regular things.

We care about a lot of the same things, and, and we have a real life. So that. That's one of the biggest things, is start to build that rapport around something else.

Video games are a great one, if you like video games, but all kinds of things.

Speaker B: 00:38:39

Yeah, I think that's very good advice. So this is so interesting.

I've learned so much just from this conversation, and I will definitely continue to listen to your podcast and I just have one final question. Are you hopeful?

Speaker C: 00:38:58

Yeah, I'm glad you asked. I always ask my guests and it can be a little bit, you know, it's not always, it doesn't always get the result that I want.

Speaker D: 00:39:08

Right.

Speaker C: 00:39:09

Because you hope that they have some hope.

But I do find with academics often they kind of show, shrug their shoulders and go, ah, I have a lot of things I could tell you that are broken, but I don't have a lot of ways to fix it. But in general I'm cautiously optimistic.

I think some of the signs that you could speak to that say we want to get out of this is like in the US Here we have two parties, we have Democrats and Republicans. But the largest group now is independence.

Speaker D: 00:39:42

Right.

Speaker C: 00:39:42

People that. So there was a self proclaim as independent. They may vote.

Typically, you find in real life when you study this, most, most those people that claim to be independent typically vote one way or the other, but they're kind of, but they're not comfortable to give themselves that label because they're, they realize it's a polarizing perspective and they have more cross cutting ideas probably.

Speaker D: 00:40:04

Right.

Speaker C: 00:40:05

So that's one thing I see as a positive.

Speaker D: 00:40:07

Right.

Speaker C: 00:40:07

The fact that there's fewer people that are ready to identify as these two parties. And so maybe that's an opportunity for us to start to find, you know, more room to get along.

And I think the other things that give me some hope is again, like I mentioned in the beginning, how many people are looking at this problem and consider it, you know, a big problem.

Speaker D: 00:40:23

Right.

Speaker C: 00:40:23

So you've both got all the work happening on the academic side and research trying to understand it. And then you also have, I mean, I think, you know, something like 8,000 organizations working in this space have been identified.

And you know, and many of them are, you know, filled with excellent, you know, amazing experts really taking this problem seriously. So I think those are the things that give me some hope, you know, but it's a challenge.

I mean this is, we are at a point and as you mentioned in the beginning, this is not just the United States. You see this, you know, getting worse and worse around the world.

We know we're at a point that we really distrust each other, we don't like each other and we, and we don't give them the benefit of the doubt in the sense that we think they're out to sort of destroy us or destroy something. And with those perceptions, which are again typically misperceptions, but we hold those perceptions pretty strongly.

And with those perceptions it's hard to, you know, get past that. So. But that's where I get the hope is I think we. There's a lot. If you. There's other research also showing that a lot of people.

There's a category people sort of talk about this exhausted majority that is sort of people that, you know, are just kind of fed up with all the outrage and all the vitriol. And so I think that's interesting information.

The fact that so many people identify as independence and the fact that so many really smart people, way smarter than me, are looking at this problem and really seeing it as a big problem we have to work on.

Speaker A: 00:41:57

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:41:57

Yes. I think we managed to end on a hopeful note. Thank you. Yes, this was great. Thank you so much for taking the time.

And I will, of course, share your podcast, which I can highly recommend, and all other LinkedIn perhaps where people can find you. So. Yeah, and good luck with all your brilliant work.

Speaker C: 00:42:22

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Beshlemay. It's nice meeting, getting a chance to speak with you today.

And yeah, I love hearing from people, so don't be shy to reach out, like, you know.

Speaker A: 00:42:31

Yes.

Speaker C: 00:42:32

You know, I think a lot of people don't realize us podcasters are really looking for that kind of feedback and information. So don't be shy. You can reach me, I'm@outrageoverloadmail.com or yeah, you can find me David Beckmeyer on all the socials, too.

Speaker B: 00:42:46

Yes, share everything. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Speaker C: 00:42:50

Thank you.

Speaker A: 00:42:52

I think today's conversation with David perfectly illustrates why I've decided to broaden the scope of stories for the future. Exploring different viewpoints and moving beyond either or thinking is so crucial these days, and it's the same in so many areas.

I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And if you have any ideas for people that I should talk to, maybe it's you. I really appreciate it.

If you reach out, as always, all the links and information will be in the show notes. And in addition to that, I have started sharing a post for each episode on my new substack.

Speaker B: 00:43:34

So that is now actually the easiest.

Speaker A: 00:43:36

Way to get noticed.

When there's a new episode out, go to vklavenes.substack.com that is VK L A V E N E-S dot substack.com and you will get all the info, plus everything else I'm sharing on substack. Thank you so much for listening and take care.