How to Stay Curious When You Deeply Disagree With Someone
When someone’s worldview feels harmful, frustrating, or painfully different from our own, curiosity can feel almost impossible.
Many of us want to respond with compassion, but instead feel judgment, defensiveness, or anger. This article explores how curiosity can interrupt that cycle — and why it may be one of the best ways we can make relational change in a polarized world.
When Ignorance Meets Arrogance
I was recently struck by a quote from Buddhist teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo:
“We need to learn to have compassion for people’s ignorance.”
Throughout the week, I found myself reflecting on this and just how difficult this is for me to do. Rather than compassion, my first instincts tend toward judgement, othering, and inner frustration.
Why don’t they see what I see?! How can this be what they think? Haven’t they ever [insert any of my own experiences]?! If only they would…
And before I know it – I’ve met the perceived ignorance of another with arrogance of my own.
But what if both of these are two sides of the same coin? What if an expansion of Kaira Jewel Lingo’s quote might look something like:
We need to learn to have compassion for people’s ignorance and arrogance – including our own.
Because in a world of so much uncertainty – where so many of the systems around us work to invisibilize our humanity – it’s natural to reach for certainty in our own ways. To draw circles around what we know and who we know as a way of creating stability – as a way of not putting ourselves in a position to be hurt or feel invisibilized even further.
Each of us creating our own internal lists of “what we know is true” and coming off as ignorant to others with different life experiences and worldviews. And vice versa.
This dynamic feels like a bit of a death spiral pulling us toward more polarization, separation, and closed-off relationships. Feeling more sure of where we stand…but further apart from those around us. (I certainly feel this with the family member I wrote about last week.)
So what might actually interrupt this dynamic?
What Curiosity Can Make Possible
Dorcas Cheng-Tozen met with a group of us this week, and shared the incredible story of Daryl Davis:
In his approach to members of the KKK, Daryl didn’t meet the ignorance of others with his own arrogance. Instead, he had compassion for their ignorance and met them with curiosity – showing up, asking questions, taking care of himself, and staying true to the relationship.
He embodied curiosity to the point that something new opened up: what had been seemingly impossible became possible.
And while this is a very specific example, each of us has a similar opportunity with our coworkers, neighbors, and family members. To meet other worldviews with curiosity; to gently hold our own certainties of “what is true” and choose to ask questions instead; to meet perceived ignorance – and at times, our own arrogance – with compassion.
Questions to Ask When You Disagree with Someone
As opportunities arise, try engaging with others who have different worldviews from you through questions:
Can you say more about…?
How did you come to think that?
What did you mean when you said…?
Curiosity does not guarantee agreement, repair, or change. But it can help us to remain open and in touch with our softness, create more understanding, and sometimes reveal a path that judgment alone never could.
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