Paul Graham, in his essay Keep Your Identity Small, dishes out some wonderful advice about how to have better discussions, be a more rational person, and, ultimately, how to be a better person. The problem, as he describes it:
I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people’s identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of their identity. By definition they’re partisan.
Most people let their membership in some group become a part of who they are. “An attack on a Democratic proposition becomes an attack on its constituency, which is a direct attack on me.” “Saying that some part of the Koran or Bible is stupid or illogical becomes an attack on the believers, which is a direct attack on me.” Identifying with something also limits your ability to understand the other side. This why we hear things like “all those other people who believe other things must be retarded, or paid off by the enemy.”
This is by no means limited to religion or politics though. People identify themselves with all sorts of different things. In a negotiation, or even a brainstorming session, people identify with the ideas they generate, even if they’re terrible or impracticable. It always amazed me how fast this happens too: something you only thought of 9 seconds ago is suddenly an extension of you. If it’s dismissed or derided, you take it personally.
The solution:
If people can’t think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.
In the negotiation realm, one of the classic steps to brainstorming ideas and solutions is to segregate the idea generation phase from the evaluation phase, and to ensure that no attribution is made to any idea. This tactic was created precisely to help prevent people from strongly identifying with any particular idea, and it almost always produces better results.
By limiting what goes into your identity, you can make clearer, more rational decisions. You can have civil conversations where you genuinely try to understand where the other side is coming from. You might even change your beliefs.
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