This is my first post on John Inazu's book Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, which was released today, April 2, 2024. Inazu teaches on criminal law, law and religion and the First Amendment at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an expert on religious freedom. And he is a senior fellow with Interfaith America.
In March, I went through Mustafa Suleyman’s The Coming Wave.
In February, I went through Nick Troiano’s The Primary Solution.
In January, I went through Michael Wear’s The Spirit of Our Politics.
The book of the month schedule is here.
When I read the title of Learning to Disagree, I thought it would be a how-to book of sorts. But the book takes a different approach.
Inazu is a law professor, and he structures the 10 chapters around the 10 months of the academic calendar year, from August to May.
That gives the book a nice narrative momentum, as he weaves examples from his real life with the main idea of each chapter. That makes it a very readable book, and Inazu's dry wit is well-deployed.
Instead of steps, tools, or tactics, the book works through themes (though it does have discussion questions for each chapter). I tend to look for an overarching thematic arc. I had to work a little to see how the themes of each chapter fit together into a whole.
But I think there is a meta theme to the book. It is Inazu simply saying, "Slow Down."
Slow down before you slam a person, or dismiss an idea, or make a declaration about this issue or that.
This may be one of the most important messages our modern culture can absorb. Our disagreements escalate far too often because our internet brains jump to conclusions, assume bad motives, and focus on attacking rather than understanding.
“We are not very good at disagreement: we view our adversaries not only as wrong but increasingly as evil, we resist notions of forgiveness, and we distrust institutions that try to mediate our disagreements,” Inazu writes.
"This book won't tell you what to believe, but it aims to change the way you engage with disagreement," Inazu writes in the preface. "The stories and vignettes are meant to complicate your assumptions, introduce arguments from 'the other side,' and illustrate how people can recognize good faith disagreements without surrendering their most strongly held beliefs" (xi).
Inazu doesn't shy away from tough subjects. Even on the back cover, he notes that he addresses "a range of challenging issues, including critical race theory, sexual assault, campus protests, and clashes over religious freedom." That's a real strength of the book: its specificity.
Inazu pledges that his book will take you from "stuck, broken disagreements to mature, healthy disagreements" and from "exhausted" by social media and national debate to a "more connected life while still maintaining the strength of your convictions."
So how does this work?
After taking notes in the back of the book, and going through them, here's my attempt to nail down 10 principles or recommendations of Inazu's book, which do have a somewhat concentric progression to them:
You don't always have to engage in the culture fight
Assume good intentions on the part of those who you disagree with
Sometimes there are winners and losers, but losing is not a reason to blow up the system
Standing up for what you believe is important, but context matters
Try for extended conversations rather than flame-out guerrilla warfare
Close family may not be the best partners for tough conversations, and strangers almost certainly aren't either
Hobbies and interests create ordinary moments and those moments precede and sustain friendships
Everyone has faith in something and everyone doubts their faith
"Whatever the truth of the world may be, it's not fully my truth, and it's not fully yours" (138).
Reconciliation requires forgiveness and repentance
An antidote to guerrilla warfare
Inazu uses his law school experience to demonstrate the complexity of disagreement, to elevate the importance of our shared humanity, and to stress the need for ongoing engagement with those who think differently, rather than guerrilla warfare.
Guerrilla warfare is kind of the default online, when we emerge from the jungles of social media and engage in comments sections with those we often know very little or not at all. We blast away in front of an audience, seeking to humiliate and destroy, and then move on.
Sustained engagement, an "extended conversation" (54), gives us time to process what has been said, and how we responded. It permits for graciousness and follow up, rather than feeling as if each moment and each exchange is critical. It is often built around relationship.
Inazu's book is a road map for constructive disagreement, for talking about our differences in a way that builds connections and draws us together. Much of this work happens in real life, which implies or requires that we do it without a screen mediating and distorting the faces of our fellow humans.
It is an attempt to get us out of the darkness and fear of the jungle, and seated instead at a table, face to face with those we need to negotiate with.
Ultimately, it's another worthy addition to the work seeking to help our society resolve our disagreements peacefully rather than through violence.
The role of faith
Next week I'll zoom in on Inazu's chapter about faith, which I thought was one of the more interesting portions of the book.
And two weeks from now, I think I may reflect on how Inazu's advice for learning to disagree compares and contrasts with how I've sought to navigate conflict in my own life over the past few years.
What would you like to ask the author?
I will be speaking with John Inazu about this book later this month. That interview will be the subject of this month's fourth and final post.
Maybe you've bought the book and are reading it. Maybe you haven't.
Either way, if you have a question about the book, or just about how to learn to disagree better, post it in the comments section, or flag it for me on Twitter at @jonward11. I'll add it to my list of possible questions for John Inazu.
Definitely a timely topic!!
This sounds like my kinda book.