Zachary Elwood is the author of two well-researched books on depolarization, Defusing American Anger and How Contempt Destroys Democracy. He’s also written op-eds for The Hill, Newsweek, and other outlets and hosts the podcast People Who Read People.
I recently spoke with Zachary to discuss his books, how technology amplifies anger, whether the recent assassination attempt on Trump tells us anything about America, the role of humility, and more.
The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Ryan Self: You’ve written two books about depolarization. Obviously, this is a topic very near and dear to your heart. Why are you so passionate about depolarization?
Zachary Elwood: I see it as arguably the biggest problem, not just in America, but for humanity. Just our tendency to go down these high-conflict spirals, which I think leads to all sorts of bad outcomes. I think it makes us, as a group, dumber because it makes us more us-versus-them in our mindsets. It makes us less able to solve actual problems. It makes us focus on fighting instead of solving problems, right?
The very nature of conflict is that it makes people not really see the overall conflict as the problem. It just makes them focus on the other side. I think we need more people to see the conflict dynamics themselves as the problem and focus on that as the root cause, instead of focusing on the various things we see on the other side that bother us.
RS: Along those lines, a common theme in your books is that understanding someone’s perspective is not the same as agreeing with them. Why is it so important to understand what the other side believes, even if you strongly disagree?
ZE: That is really the main objection that I and others in this space hear. There is this instinctual sense, which I think is common in any conflict dynamic, that even trying to understand the “other side,” trying to understand one’s perceived enemies, is in some way helping them, right?
I think that’s most of our instincts. It’s an instinct I used to have. Why should I even try to understand these people? I’m making excuses for them. I’m helping them in some way. I think even internally, it can feel like you’re doing something bad.
I think many people just don’t actually see the better versions of the other side’s beliefs. They focus on the worst, most extreme versions. They don’t see that there’s a large set of pretty easily understood concerns and frustrations that are held by rational and compassionate people on the “other side.” And a lot of times that’s just about your own fear of the other side, right?
It’s not necessarily about supporting one’s group. It’s more about overstated fears and frustrations, about their perceived enemies. So I think trying to understand our “enemies” or our opponents is very important for creating better, less polarizing dynamics and bringing down the temperature and even reducing the various stances that both sides perceive as extreme and unhelpful.
RS: Contempt is part of the title of your book, How Contempt Destroys Democracy. Can you talk about what contempt is and how it shows up in our society?
ZE: I struggled with the title a little bit because I wanted to make it short. It’s not just about contempt; it’s not just about anger. It’s also about overstated fears that we have of the other side. It’s all the mix of negative emotions. Basically, having an exaggerated, misplaced feeling of threat from the other side. I think that’s key to seeing it.
I think contempt is hard to define, but I think the standard definition is basically seeing someone or a group as not worth considering, being so inferior morally that their ideas are not even worth engaging with. That they’re beneath consideration as an equal kind. I think we see that all around us. I think you start to see how that cycle drives people to behave in more us-versus-them ways.
For example, so many people who voted for Trump, and I’ve witnessed this personally, a big part of their feelings is about feeling disrespected by the other side. I think that’s true on both sides. It’s also not to say that there aren’t legitimate, non-emotional stances that are driven by actual things happening. But just to say the emotion can be a big part of why people feel what they feel. It can even shift your stances in various ways.
If you think that Trump and his gang are mortal threats to you, that’s going to shift your views on some stances, even in ways that aren’t obvious. That’s why I chose contempt for the title. Because I do think many people in the polarization space, including polarization researchers, focus on contempt as a driving force of toxic conflict in general.
RS: I think that sounds about right. Once I started thinking about contempt, I started to notice it everywhere, even in myself. We all have to work on our own versions of contempt, looking down on people as if they’re beneath you. I think the kind of self-righteous moralizing, morally superior language that pops up, especially on social media, really drives a lot of that.
ZE: To have contempt is the easiest thing in the world. Realizing that helps you see that it’s so easy to be angry about something, to have contempt about something. I think seeing that helps you be more sympathetic even to other people’s contempt, too. I think there’s this meta-level thing. It’s like we should also be cognizant of the fact that we live in high-contempt times and should cut people some slack for even showing contempt towards us, right?
RS: Speaking of social media, in your books, you include a lot of tweets and social media posts. What role does social media play in this polarization?
ZE: My opinion, it plays a very large role. I think it’s obvious that humans can get into high-conflict cycles very easily on their own. But I do think that technology, the internet and communication technology in general, have just sped up everything. Everything’s visible, so all the things that apply to communication in general are just amplified and ramped up. It’s like putting social interactions on speed, which I think brings out the worst aspects of social interactions.
Anybody can insult anybody online, anytime. You can perceive all the insults to you or your group at any time online. This relates to the proliferation of cable news. There’s so much more content, which means somebody needs to create content to serve those demands. So there’s a proliferation of people creating polarizing content as society grows more polarized.
There are all these feedback mechanisms at work. When you’re more remote from people, more distant, you’re more likely to behave in ruder ways and say things you wouldn’t say in person.
RS: I definitely think it just amplifies the worst human instincts that are there and just blows it up.
ZE: Yeah, which is interesting, because so often the focus is on the product features. You hardly ever see anybody talk about the basic, foundational fact that just speeding up communications can have a detrimental effect. I have just never seen anybody talk about the kind of “medium is the message” kind of idea about how the medium affects things.
We just hear about Facebook implementing these features, and that was bad. But maybe the whole thing is, if we’re going to succeed as a species long term, we need to process that as a society and talk about the ways that these things derange our interactions.
RS: Here’s one example showing the way social media works, especially with algorithms. Hours after the first Trump assassination—which was obviously very jarring, a man died—I saw a tweet from a progressive pastor who has 56,000 followers. The first tweet was very responsible and measured. It was something like, “now is not the time to make jokes and spread conspiracy theories, now is the time to condemn political violence.” And that one got some traction. It got 700 likes, which is super impressive for me, but compared to his typical content, not so much.
Then hours later, he sent another tweet that was like, “If you believe God saved Donald Trump, but didn’t save the kids at Uvalde, Santa Fe, Parkland, then you’re worshiping partisan politics and not Jesus.” Very accusatory, injecting this other inflammatory topic. And that one got like 160,000 likes and tens of thousands of retweets. You can see the measured, responsible tweet got a good engagement, but the accusatory, scolding tweet got tens of thousands. That’s how it works.
RS: Recently, there was a third assassination attempt on President Trump. How are you processing that event, including the reactions to the event, when it comes to polarization?
ZE: Toxic conflict creates more of this tendency to, in my opinion, overreact to what are one-off events. I see this even in the depolarization/bridge-building space. My fundamental belief on whether it’s violence against Trump or violence against anyone is that we live in a huge country. There are a lot of people in America, so even in the least polarized times, you would have people doing violent things. I think it’s a mistake to overreact to the actions of single person. I think that’s what polarization leads us to do.
America is a big place with a lot of individuals, and obviously some of them are quite sick and unwell and deranged. One-off events do not tell us something about America. I think that’s a mistake. It becomes this us-versus-them dynamic, where people are trying to tally up the offenses and be like, “my side is better for XYZ reasons, because that’s how I’ve done the math.” It’s just counterproductive.
You’re never going to make conclusive evidence about what this tells us about America, or what this tells us about Republicans, or what this tells us about liberals. You’re just creating your own bias to math, and it’s counterproductive. You’re just speaking to the choir. In many cases, you’re not making a conclusive thing.
Getting back to your question about the assassination, I think we just need to keep in mind that we live in a big country and bad things are going to happen. Bad people are going to do bad things of various sorts, and we really need, if we’re going to be mature about it, to get out of this high-conflict spiral. We really need to question our instincts to be like, “this tells us everything we can know.” Or “this is the reason that I support Trump, because people are attacking him.”
We need to look at the country and our conflicts and take a step back and try to look at it from a bird’s-eye view. That’s what I see. And I can say that about things that have happened that are associated with offenses from both sides.
RS: I think that’s wise to take that approach. I saw a journalist whom I respect, the morning after the Trump assassination, had a post that was like, “who is responsible for more violence, the right or the left?” I don’t think those are helpful questions.
ZE: How do you do the math? Because there’s so many ways to tell it. You’d have to figure out how to weight the things that were not murderous related to, say, the George Floyd protest. There’s all these ways you can do the math and how people will do the math will be related to how their biases are formed.
Even if you could somehow do the math, in any conflict there’s going to be one side that is worse on various things than others. There’s never going to be some totally equal dynamic. Focusing on, “who’s worse on this front?” is completely counterproductive.
RS: Yeah, it’s not helpful. So with your work, you’re not saying that we should avoid hard and heavy topics. Perhaps the opposite. Part of what depolarization means is understanding each other, and that requires us to have these difficult conversations. In your book, you tackle some heavy topics like guns, gender identity, immigration. Why was it important for you to write about concrete examples like that?
ZE: I think that’s a fundamental challenge in this. Because when I was thinking about that first book, Defusing American Anger, I wanted people to see that the highly negative emotional dynamic is a key part of what drives our polarization, our contempt for each other and our more extreme stances. So seeing that emotion cycle as key is very important.
I also think what’s top of mind for people is obviously the specific issues. So in order to even get people to see that it’s worthwhile to dig into this emotional contempt cycle, you have to get them to see the better versions of the arguments on the other side as a way in. Because if you think the other side is horrible and evil on these various range of issues, you’re not even going to have an interest in examining the underlying cycles and dynamics. That’s why I felt it was important to delve into those issues. Even though that was the hardest part of the book, and even though that was what led to it being, I think, quite, quite long.
If you see Trump as destroying democracy, it’s hard for you to want to see “what can I do to help the conflict be less toxic?” And similarly, on the other side, if you see liberals as destroying various things that you care about, you’re not going to really be interested in examining the psychological underpinnings of conflict in general.
That’s why I focused on that a good amount. I’ve had people say that was the most valuable part of that book. I should have promoted that book more, because more people need to read that stuff. I think that alone could be a good book, just going through the issues back and forth and getting people to see the more rational frustrations on both sides.
RS: I agree. I thought those sections were very helpful and just bring more nuance to both sides and understanding where people are coming from and what the underlying fears are. Those sections were extremely helpful.
On a similar note, how does humility play a role in depolarization efforts?
ZE: Yeah, I think it plays a big role. I think that’s the hardest part, though, because toxic conflict leads to more certainty about a variety of things. I think humility counteracts that. I think when you start to delve into seeing how rational and compassionate people can be on both sides and have very divergent narratives and frustrations, I think it does make you more humble.
It doesn’t mean you still can’t have very highly passionate stances. I think that’s important to see too. I think it just makes you more humble about how you speak about other people’s motivations. I think that’s the key part. Even if I think I know what’s driving one specific person, I don’t know what’s driving all these other people on this side, right? So I think seeing how these dynamics work, makes you more humble in how you speak, makes you less arrogant, which I think is a fundamental key to us behaving in better ways.
What I’m trying to get people to do is not forego their passionate political stances of whatever sort. That’s obviously never gonna stop. But I think how we speak about the “other side” can actually create the very dynamics that upset us. I think that’s the most practical thing I’m trying to get people to see: pursue your political passions of whatever sort, but be very aware of how you speak. It can either amplify us-versus-them thinking and more toxicity, or it can help reduce it, even while you pursue your goals.
I think that’s the that’s the most practical thing. You see so many people just amplifying the most extreme people on the other side by how they speak. I think both sides are riling up each other and amplifying that dynamic. I think we just need more people cognizant of how they speak and aware of the role of humility and persuasiveness in our political communication.
RS: I think something you said really strikes me. When you’re speaking online to your particular tribe, it can also polarize the other side. And this obviously is the whole thing that we’re talking about. You’re not just shoring up support for your side. You’re also getting people more entrenched because they see these scolding, moralizing, self-righteous tweets, and now they’re just more in their own tribal area, so it’s totally unproductive.
ZE: I think it’s, I think it’s really counterintuitive to how this works, because there’s a great study about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. They basically showed that one group hearing the other side criticize itself actually lowered their anger and contempt at the other side.
I think that says a lot about our instincts and how our instincts can be faulty. Because our instincts are like “we should never criticize others on our side, it helps the other side.” But actually being willing to criticize your own side signals to the other side that you’re a reasonable person, that you’re not one of these extreme stereotypes that they perceive.
RS: I think that’s such an important point. When you criticize your own side, it signals the other side, “Oh, this is not a monolith.” When you see the worst behavior on the right or the left, it’s a blanket assumption about everyone. But when people in those other tribes see, “Oh, there’s a diversity of thought here, maybe I should kind of rethink this group and not project onto the entire group.” I’m more likely to engage with them on a more equal footing when you see that.
As we wrap up, what tactic have you found most helpful in your depolarization work?
ZE: I think the most useful area is how you can pursue your political passions and even fight the “other side” while behaving in less polarizing ways. For example, the most popular thing I wrote on Substack that went semi-viral was “8 Tips for Activists Who Want to Reduce Polarization.” I think there is this hunger for people who are angry at the other side and want to do their political work but are also curious about wanting to reduce us-versus-them thinking.
I think that’s the quandary for many people. It can be counterintuitive: how do I fight for what I believe in but also bring down the temperature? I think that’s key to showing people the pathway for that. I think that’s what prevents us from moving forward. So many people don’t see how you can thread those two needles.
I think that’s important—creating more content like that. I’ve been kind of out of the polarization thing for awhile because I’ve been working on other things. But if I were working on polarization work full-time, that’s what my focus would be: showing people how you can pursue your political passions and your activism while doing the best you can to reduce animosity and contempt.
RS: That’s such an important point. It’s not that you’re setting aside your deeply held beliefs; you can still fight for them. It’s how you advocate for your beliefs is what its all about.
I think that’s a wrap. Thank you so much. I think this was a really good conversation.
ZE: Awesome.
I think another piece of this is the need to find or create more spaces for interaction that are social but nonpolitical. I worked for years as a server and bartender and one of the great things about that is experiencing how every kind of person loves good food and a good drink. You see people who might be at each others throats online in the abstract enjoying each others company in that context. But it takes intentionality to cultivate an environment that will feel welcoming to a wide variety of people, whether you are a business or some other kind of organization. People need more opportunities to interact with each other outside the space of politics entirely, to be reminded of larger shared human things. I think those who are involved in creating and maintaining social environments can be part of the solution here.
I would like to think that this is all so obvious that it needs no explanation. Sadly, it's not.