Daring to Disagree: Seeking Truth and Courage in Divisive Times With Margaret Heffernan

Over a decade ago, Margaret planted a seed with her Ted Talk, Dare To Disagree. I watched it, rewatched it, and shared it with my community and her wisdom has lived with me over the past decade intersecting with my situation today.

Connect With Margaret Heffernan

• Connect with Margaret Heffernan >>> Website | Linkedin | X | Facebook 

Get Margaret's Books (Affiliate Links)

• Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together
• Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril
• Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes

Additional Resources

• Read: Talking to the Angry Mob on the Street: A Citizen's Reflection For The Non-Crazies To Speak Up

Additional Takeaways

• Daring to disagree is essential for growth.
• Optimism can lead to problem-solving.
• Community engagement helps combat feelings of isolation.
• Understanding others' lived experiences fosters connection.
• People are more likely to change their minds through intimate conversations.
• Building social cohesion is crucial in times of crisis.
• Local actions can have a significant impact on broader issues.
• Expectations about timelines for change should be realistic.
• Identity plays a critical role in societal dynamics.
• We must collectively define what we want to be known for. America's identity is tied to its wealth and societal values.
• The concept of a zero-sum game limits our understanding of global wealth.
• Blind spots in society can lead to complacency and tyranny.
• Reliable information is crucial for a functioning democracy.
• Narratives can be powerful tools for change, but they can also mislead.
• Respectful dialogue is essential for changing minds and fostering understanding.
• Patience and persistence are key in social change efforts.
• Misinformation can undermine democratic processes and social cohesion.
• Building community and alliances is vital for addressing injustices.
• Positive narratives can inspire collaboration and action.

Podcast Episode Unedited Transcript

Jason Scott Montoya (00:00)
Welcome to a Listen to Learn episode of the Share Life podcast. I'm Jason Scott Montoya and today I'm here with entrepreneur, author, speaker, storyteller, and professor of practice at the University of Bath in England, Margaret Heffernan. Margaret, say hello. Thanks for joining us. You know, over a decade ago I saw your TED Talk, Dare to Disagree. I watched it, rewatched it, shared it with everyone I knew. And you had so much wisdom in that and I just, I've.

Margaret Heffernan (00:15)
Bye.

Jason Scott Montoya (00:29)
come back to it as it intersects. I'm an American and the election just finished and a lot of things have changed and a lot of things are the same. So I privately voted for Biden in 2020. I'm a Republican. I'm 40. I'm in a swing state, Georgia. And I had concerns about Trump's 2020 attempts to stay in power, the storming into the Capitol on January 6th.

For me, it was a traumatic event that I watched unfold and kind of anticipated and dread. So fast forward to the Republican primaries this past year, and it was clear that the party was still Trump's. And so I decided to speak out. I decided as a Republican to dare to disagree. And over the last year, been public about that, having lots of conversations with people. And...

through that process, I had to overcome some of my own dread, one of which was just being public about something so controversial when my group was, when it was an antagonism to my group. And then also the real world risks that I saw in the next Trump presidency. So I wanted to just get your feedback. You're over in England. What's your point of view? as I look at the mission ahead,

Margaret Heffernan (01:34)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Scott Montoya (01:56)
How do you see it and what wisdom insights do you have? What encouragement? Am I under or overreacting? Thoughts, I'll throw it to you. Thank you.

Margaret Heffernan (02:03)
Yeah.

Well, I think, you know, the, the, the reaction in the UK, broadly speaking has been shock. I think people were, they did sort of think Trump would win, but they hoped he wouldn't. I think was the general opinion. I think it's radically, well, I don't know. I think it's certainly challenged people's sense of what the United States is now.

Jason Scott Montoya (02:13)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (02:36)
I think it's left people very frightened for sure about the safety of the world. So I think people are shocked. think they're recalibrating. They're hoping it might not be as bad as they fear, that the very extreme rhetoric in Trump's rallies.

Jason Scott Montoya (02:42)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (03:04)
or one thing, maybe the reality will be different. I mean, for myself, I very disappointed. And I think there are lots of different ways you can think about this. You can think about what does it mean? And there's been a gigantic amount of analysis around that.

Jason Scott Montoya (03:28)
Yeah

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (03:32)
What does it mean about what the United States is now? What does it tell us? I think that's one issue. I think there's another issue, which is what is it that the Democrats clearly got wrong and why? And then I think there's the personal issue, which is if, as you do and as I do, you feel this is both disappointing and alarming.

What can I do to try to be more positive and persuade people to think differently?

Jason Scott Montoya (04:13)
Yeah, yeah, I guess the question I would have to you in that regard would be, to your point, like there is a reality now. We have to kind of figure out what is that reality. And there's a revelation, I think, for many of us in the sense of that, what I would have said for myself is in 2016, it was sort of a fluke or a one-time thing. And I think what we're seeing now is that actually was the beginning of something.

coming out and what that might be, I think is up in the air. And you mentioned the idea of being positive. So what's the difference and how do we respond with being overly optimistic and positive in the sense of not looking at the reality, but also not looking at the reality in a way that we make it a lot worse than it actually is and navigating those two extremes? Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (05:07)
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I am an optimist and I think that, I mean, I think that, I mean, I'm an optimist for all sorts of reasons, but one of them is that I think that if you're optimistic, you're more likely to fix problems. If you're a cynic, then you give up, right? And if you give up, then you hand over

Jason Scott Montoya (05:14)
Yeah.

Yeah

Margaret Heffernan (05:36)
the rights you have to intervene to people that you probably don't trust. So as an optimist, I think about what I can do. And there was a very wonderful piece in The Guardian in the UK this weekend, which you can definitely find online, by Rebecca Solnit.

Jason Scott Montoya (05:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (06:07)
who talks about, you know, taking, well, finding practical opportunities to care, take care of what you love. So that's people, it's communities, it's public institutions, it's private organizations. So to move towards those people, organizations, institutions that you really care about and contribute to them and protect and defend them. Now I think

Jason Scott Montoya (06:07)
Okay.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (06:36)
The thing is there are probably many of those and so you can't do them all. So I think you have to decide what's most important to me. And everyone will make their own decisions. So it's very unlikely that any institutions or organizations will be bereft of support. But you'll drive yourself crazy if you try to support and protect all of them.

Jason Scott Montoya (06:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good insight, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (07:02)
And I think two things. So I think to do very different things happen when you make this decision. The first is that you leave this state of overwhelm when there's so much to do, there's so much to fix, there's so much to protect that you just feel paralyzed. So when you can decide, okay, I'm going for this because this is the thing I care about most.

Jason Scott Montoya (07:20)
Mm

Margaret Heffernan (07:30)
or it's the thing where I bring the greatest resources in the form of maybe knowledge, networks, that kind of thing. Once you can kind of focus down, it becomes a lot more practical. And when it becomes a lot more practical, also you find communities of other people who care about these things. Maybe for the same reasons as you do, maybe for radically different reasons, it doesn't matter.

Jason Scott Montoya (07:35)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (07:59)
but you start having things to do with other people and that becomes very sustaining. It stops you from feeling helpless and hopeless. And I think that's the first step is to think about, okay, I can't do everything. What am I going to do? And then find the other people who care about that. And now you're not alone because you can't do anything alone.

Jason Scott Montoya (08:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And so talk to me about that sense of aloneness, because I definitely, in some parts of this journey, have felt that as the election has gotten closer, I've sort of engaged in a community that has sort of come alongside me, And so that's been really awesome. But in a lot of ways, there was a lot of loneliness in some of the early stages of it. So talk to me a little bit more about that.

Margaret Heffernan (08:43)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I mean, I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately and

I feel something has changed in the sense that we tend to talk about communities and groups of people mostly in terms of numbers. And I sometimes wonder if this is the consequence of all this huge emphasis during electioneering of pollsters. So 43 % of people think this and 37 % of people think that and all this sort of. So what we've done,

Jason Scott Montoya (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (09:22)
And I think this largely began, at least in my experience in the Clinton campaign, is we started to see people as these kind of micro communities that we either identify with or not. But actually, we don't know those communities very well. And we think about them in terms of numbers instead of as people. Then we feel a little bit alienated from them.

I think what's more helpful, especially when you're talking to people who may not share your views entirely, is to just try to understand their lives. So there's a political scientist in the United States whose work I like a very great deal and whose name I always get wrong. So I'm just double checking it.

Jason Scott Montoya (09:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (10:22)
And I think it's, let me just double check. He wrote a wonderful book called Politics When People Are Thinking, or Democracy When People Are Thinking. And what he's done, he spent about 30 years, so his name is James Fishkin, and he spent about 30 years bringing diverse communities together around particular issues and getting them to talk to each other.

Jason Scott Montoya (10:32)
Okay, interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (10:52)
And the kind of rules of engagement, if you like, are you can only talk about lived experience or in some instances where this has been done, you can introduce the vetted evidence of experts. But really the focus is on lived experience. When people talk on very contentious issues, whether it's immigration or taxation or

Jason Scott Montoya (11:11)
Okay.

Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (11:21)
the rights of particular groups. If they're speaking only from lived experience, you start to get a much deeper understanding of why they have the views they have. You certainly are more likely to find out what you have in common with them. And finding a space of commonality means you can start to have a very, very different conversation.

Jason Scott Montoya (11:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (11:48)
than when you're thinking about them as numbers of people that you're hostile to. But the work that Fishkin has done, which I think is particularly impressive and encouraging, is that in these situations, and it may be voting about some local referendum, it may be voting about some, I don't know, local campaign, new laws, things like that.

Jason Scott Montoya (11:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (12:15)
The thing that's most impressive is that he monitors his stuff with great academic rigor. And what his research shows is that people really do change their minds. And what changes their minds is not everybody thinks this and you're stupid, which tends to consolidate the way people stand. But the more intimate conversation

Jason Scott Montoya (12:22)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah

Margaret Heffernan (12:42)
change people's minds because they go away and think about it and think, well, yeah, can see if you came from there, you might think that. But now that I see you as a different person and you see me as a different person, maybe there's a space in which we can agree.

Jason Scott Montoya (13:02)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (13:02)
And in various, so this has been, I mean, he's done this in all sorts of areas. You can see it in some practical situations. So in my latest book, Uncharted, I wrote about the Irish government, which used this technique in two places. One was to try to decide about gay marriage. And the other was to try to get some sense of what did the public really think.

think about abortion. And in both of these cases where the evidence was limited to lived experience and vetted expert witnesses, it's clear that there was a lot of mind changing as people dug into the problems and came to understand them more deeply. And that when all of that information was shared and made publicly available,

Jason Scott Montoya (13:34)
Yeah

Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (13:58)
the public discourse was very much more thoughtful.

Jason Scott Montoya (14:03)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (14:03)
And when these things were indeed put to referenda, they tended to do two things. One is they generally followed the same results as the groups that had come together to deliberate. And the other was that it meant that the people whose views did not accord with the results

Jason Scott Montoya (14:22)
Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (14:30)
could live with the results because they felt, okay, it was a really good process. I think my point of view was heard. And so I may not like it, but I can live with it because I understand the people who supported it. And I know them well enough that I don't demonize them. So how we make these laws, how we talk to each other matters a very great deal.

Jason Scott Montoya (14:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel heard, so yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (14:59)
And I think it doesn't play to the strengths of mass communication. It doesn't play to the strengths of the internet. It doesn't play to the strengths of big theater and noise. So it takes time, effort and money. But I think this outcome that it means that if people feel heard, they can live with things even if they don't like them, becomes more important than ever.

Jason Scott Montoya (15:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that I think in some ways my concern over the next four years is we're going to do the opposite of what you're describing as a country, where half the country is going to sort of force their agenda on the other half without that listening and bipartisan and sort of cross group bridges. But I'm certainly hopeful that maybe that might.

I guess the opportunity there is, how can we play that part as a society or as citizens in our own little bubble? And that's kind of what I've been doing since the election is just having lunch with friends and stuff that are coming from these different sides and hearing what they're saying and telling them what I'm thinking and creating that space, right? It's a very small thing, but it's what I've got, you know?

Margaret Heffernan (16:19)
Yeah, but I think that's really important. And I would say, for example, after the Brexit referendum here, one of the things I thought about a lot was how unequal the country had become and how that disenfranchised a lot of people and what could I do about that. So I put quite a lot of time and effort into

You know, I thought about, where can I make an impact? Where do I have knowledge? Where do I have resources? And I thought, well, one area I can do that is I can help people in my local community whose kids are applying to university and their parents have never been to university. I can help them understand the process better so that their kids have a better chance of getting into a better university. And

Jason Scott Montoya (16:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (17:16)
And that turned out to be surprisingly effective because people were making some very poor choices because they really didn't understand the process or the trade-offs. And it helped me to understand the process better. And it meant I was in a position to help a lot of people whom I wouldn't have known otherwise. And that's great for them and for me. And we're still, you know, we still care about each other. So that was a very practical thing. I think.

Jason Scott Montoya (17:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (17:45)
The other thing that I've done and that's, I mean, was pretty, it was sort of in parallel. I'm not sure. I can't remember the exact timing, but the other thing I decided, I guess around 2018 probably was that the climate crisis scares me to death. I really don't see in the light of the way that we're living what young people have to look forward to.

Jason Scott Montoya (18:06)
Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (18:14)
you know, my generation has had the best that the planet has to offer. And my children's generation is going to pay for it in life, in economic and political instability, in violence, in wars. I mean, it terrifies me. And so I would say most of my discretionary time is spent running local projects which specifically address consumption, biodiversity.

Jason Scott Montoya (18:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (18:44)
energy consumption and so on. Now I'm under no illusions that, know, Margaret Heffernan in a small country village, you know, change the curve on climate. It certainly has allowed, I think has brought together a lot of people I wouldn't have known otherwise. I think it certainly keeps us positive that we can do productive, creative things.

Jason Scott Montoya (18:53)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (19:13)
I think when I talk about what I'm doing, gives people in other communities hope that they actually they can do stuff too. So I think there's a degree of contagiousness about it.

Jason Scott Montoya (19:20)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (19:24)
And I do feel at least, at the very least, I want to be able to look my kids in the eye and say, I did try everything I could think of. I'm sorry. And I think it means, you know, that if even later in the day countries, you know, plug their brains in on this topic, there's a whole huge community of people standing by, well-informed and, you know, ready to get to work.

Jason Scott Montoya (19:34)
Yeah

Margaret Heffernan (19:55)
But what I could not do is nothing.

Jason Scott Montoya (19:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So, and that's how I think I relate to a lot of what you're saying just in my own journey this last year. And I think the other thing you're kind of illuminating too is just the scale and time. And I guess for me, I was like hoping, hey, I could spend a year and then it's like, actually Jason, no, it's gonna be 10 years. You know, it's gonna be more than that. So talk to me about timelines and expectations because I think that helps intersect with optimism is if we have an unrealistic expectation.

Margaret Heffernan (20:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Scott Montoya (20:28)
then it'll kill our optimism, I think.

Margaret Heffernan (20:30)
Yeah. Well, yeah, so I guess it's, you know, so I think my optimism takes this shape. I think I can achieve things within the local community.

Jason Scott Montoya (20:44)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (20:45)
I think that means that our carbon footprint declines. That's good. I think it does a secondary thing, which is crucial, which is it builds social cohesion. So I now understand my community infinitely better than I did before, infinitely. And I think that the group of us working on this

Jason Scott Montoya (20:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (21:08)
have built the trust of the community, so they will now come to our events and things and know that they're not going to be harangued or hectored. And they're going to learn stuff which, in its own quiet way, may change some of their choices and behaviors. The social cohesion piece matters a great deal to me because as the climate worsens, the social cohesion is going to be under deep enormous pressure.

Jason Scott Montoya (21:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (21:37)
And so my strategy, so to speak, is to try to reinforce that really early because we're really going to depend on it. And you've seen this in Spain this week. So my expectations are I can help build social cohesion. I can help build diversity. I can help build trust within the community.

Jason Scott Montoya (21:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I'm not aware of what happened there.

Margaret Heffernan (22:04)
That's not going to be decisive, but it's all going to be positive.

Jason Scott Montoya (22:09)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's really good. And so I want to kind of shift to talk a little bit about, in your TED Talk, you talked about one of the challenges was identity, how the doctors saw themselves and they saw themselves as people that were helping other people and here they were doing this thing that was harming people and killing them. And I think, know, kind of what you first said, like the shock about America and even my own shock in terms of like, who are we as a country?

Margaret Heffernan (22:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Scott Montoya (22:37)
I think identity is such a big part of this. It was kind of happening. Trump really leaned into the identity politics. And here we are sort of asking ourselves, like, who do we want to be when we grow up? What's the story we want to tell? So what can you talk dive into the identity piece?

Margaret Heffernan (22:55)
Well, I don't, mean, the short answer is I don't know. I think, and I've thought this for a long time. I think that certainly all the time that, you know, I've been alive. America's identity was it was the richest country in the world. And that made it ipso facto a success.

Jason Scott Montoya (23:15)
you

Okay. Interesting.

Margaret Heffernan (23:20)
I think America always regarded its as its report card. And to the degree that we were the richest country in the world, we were the best country in the world. I always thought that as China crept up in terms of economic output, that that would do bad things to the American psyche. And it turns out I was right.

Jason Scott Montoya (23:27)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, hmm. Yeah, that's interesting.

Margaret Heffernan (23:49)
I think it's extremely difficult for the United States to accept that it is one of many great countries in the world. There are countries where, yeah, there are countries where people are healthier. There are countries where people are happier. There are countries where people live longer.

Jason Scott Montoya (24:06)
Kind of that exceptionalism. Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (24:17)
There are all sorts of countries with great claims to fame. There are many, many great things about the United States. And so we have to think about individually and collectively, what is it we really want to be known for?

Is it that we are the richest, regardless of religion or value or ethics or legal system or whatever? Is that it? And if it isn't it, what is it?

Jason Scott Montoya (24:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (25:00)
But I think as long as America defines itself as the richest and involves itself in making sure that nobody else is as rich as we are, that will create a certain culture, a certain kind of society.

Jason Scott Montoya (25:00)
Yeah, I think that's so good, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (25:24)
And is that who we want to be? Do we want a country that we love because it makes us rich or do we want a country that we love because everybody's healthy and safe? It's a choice. So I guess that's the way I think about it in terms of identity. And I think that

Jason Scott Montoya (25:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (25:54)
I mean, I guess the thing I think is that...

You know, if China with its gigantic population becomes as rich as America, America doesn't lose. This is not a zero sum game. Absolutely is not. If as a consequence of being richer, let's not forget that millions who used to die of hunger in China, if as a result of being able to feed its people,

Jason Scott Montoya (26:06)
Ha

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (26:28)
and to give them an increased living style or standard of living, that doesn't mean there's any harm to the American standard of living. They aren't stealing money out of our pockets. When Apple makes an iPhone in China that creates jobs in China, it creates jobs in the United States and it puts a very fancy piece of technology in everybody's pockets.

Jason Scott Montoya (26:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (26:58)
America does not lose from that.

Jason Scott Montoya (26:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (27:03)
So I think we have to get over this kind of zero sum game mentality and think what do we want to be famous for? And.

Jason Scott Montoya (27:09)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (27:17)
And what do you know, the world is a safer place to the degree that people are healthy, safe and happy. What can we do to contribute to that is my view.

Jason Scott Montoya (27:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think the other side of the identity piece that comes to mind when you say all that is our blind spots. I think with America, we think we're so awesome and great and we're the hero in all these sort of historical events. And we don't think we are blind to the fact that we can descend into tyranny. We can dissent our elections, the peaceful transfer of power, these democratic foundations that allow for that prosperity.

just happen magically. And just because we have a history of fighting tyranny doesn't mean we can't descend to that and to ourselves. So I'd be curious what your thoughts are on terms of blind spots and sort of becoming the thing that we thought we never would.

Margaret Heffernan (28:14)
I mean, think all, you know, everybody has blind spots. All societies have blind spots. I think all Western democracies seem to have been a little bit complacent. You know, certainly my generation has been incredibly fortunate to have lived through 50 years of peace. This is a historic aberration.

Right? There's been no other time in history where the world had so much peace. And I think what that means is we grew up thinking that was normal. It's not normal. It has to be protected and fought for. And I also think that what it's meant is that people who haven't grown up with war tend to not know really how terrible it is. And so they've become sloppy.

Jason Scott Montoya (28:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (29:14)
And now we're living through a period where, as long as the war is somewhere else, you know, it's okay. I'm not physically in danger. Americans are not physically in danger from what's going on in Israel, from what's going on in Ukraine. But wars have a nasty habit of spreading. And they're also fantastically expensive. So I think we've perhaps been had a blind spot about

Jason Scott Montoya (29:21)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (29:46)
about our ability to be really good at creating and protecting peace, that actually it takes effort. It isn't just a natural condition.

Jason Scott Montoya (29:54)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (30:00)
And I think we've been, if I'm concerned about social cohesion on a sort of parochial level, I would argue that the United States, and is not alone in this at all, the United States has been complacent about building global cohesion.

Jason Scott Montoya (30:01)
Yeah, that's really good. Yeah.

So I think one of the dynamics that kind of ties into this, what you're talking about is we've lived so long in peace that we have these deep-suited perspectives based on that experience. And I think now when you infuse misinformation into that and disinformation, which would be intentionally deceiving people, now you have a whole nother layer that I think in some ways can try and...

You talk about willful blindness, know, this idea of I don't want to see the war, so just keep it over there or close my eyes. What are your thoughts on that dynamic between those two and just the misinformation shift in social media and how that seems to be a big part of this?

Margaret Heffernan (30:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm.

Well, I think two things. I think there are times where, frankly, the world is so horrible that to be able to function, you do have to turn away from the new cycle entirely, because otherwise it just becomes disabling. But I also think that democracy absolutely depends on people having reliable information. And clearly, haven't, we've been slow to recognize

Jason Scott Montoya (31:20)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (31:39)
how phenomenal the internet is on spreading bad information. We have been reluctant financially to invest in what it takes to protect audiences from misinformation. The firewall around China takes over two million workers to maintain. If you want

Jason Scott Montoya (31:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (32:08)
a safe environment for reliable information. Yes, Facebook, it means you have to have people monitoring it. Yes, Twitter, it means you have to pay money to people to monitor it. No, technology will not take all the costs out of it. All new technology has upsides and downsides, and we've just discovered one of the downsides of the World Wide Web.

So the question is, are we going to say it's more important to make money out of the web than to fix its flaws? That's a question for the people we've just elected.

Jason Scott Montoya (32:49)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (32:50)
So I do recognize it's a problem. I recognize that I think it's fixable. I think it's expensive to fix. I'm very troubled by the financial journalists who are now describing the United States economy as having all the characteristics of an emerging economy. In other words, extremely volatile and not necessarily

Jason Scott Montoya (33:17)
Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (33:21)
a great place to invest.

Jason Scott Montoya (33:24)
Yeah, which has global implications.

Margaret Heffernan (33:25)
So yeah, so if we really want to remain a trusted force in the world that people want to invest in, we have to start thinking about the information systems on which people base their lives. Now,

I'm not sure that the government we've just elected cares very much about that.

Jason Scott Montoya (33:55)
Yeah, you talking about in England?

Margaret Heffernan (33:58)
No, no, no, in the US. I'm an American citizen. I voted in the election. I think there's a talk about blind spots. think there is an ideological belief that fair markets are the best markets. Sorry, that deregulated markets are the best markets. I think the global financial crisis, to name but one, would indicate otherwise.

Jason Scott Montoya (34:00)
okay, okay, got it, got it, yeah.

okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (34:25)
I think we have a deregulated information market. It doesn't mean I'm in favor of censorship. It does mean I'm in favor of health checks.

Jason Scott Montoya (34:33)
Yeah. Now you have a history in storytelling in the broadcast world. I think stories have a solution here. I'm curious what your thoughts are as a creative storyteller yourself in overcoming some of these challenges from just a cultural standpoint, outside of maybe the regulation aspect.

Margaret Heffernan (34:38)
Mm.

Yeah. Well, I think it's tricky. mean, you're quite right. You know, when I use stories a lot in my work, because I can quote you as much data as you want, you're not going to remember it. You're just not. So I tell stories because people can relate to them and because they relate to them, they remember them. I'm also very wary that you can tell false stories and people remember those.

Jason Scott Montoya (35:19)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (35:27)
So I think, you know, narrative is a very powerful technology that you can use for good or ill. So I think the problem with narrative is that if it feels true, we tend to believe it's true.

Jason Scott Montoya (35:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (35:45)
And narrative favors consistency, but human beings aren't consistent. It's actually one of our greatest strengths that we're not consistent. That we may do something half our lives and it always works for us. But there may come a point where we stop doing it because it doesn't work for us. So we're very good at change, which means that people are inconsistent. So...

Jason Scott Montoya (35:52)
Okay.

Yeah.

Something changes.

Margaret Heffernan (36:14)
There's a problem with narrative, which is we think, for example, well, if somebody had a totally traumatic upbringing, they're going to have a bad outcome. Well, that may be true for a certain percentage of people. It isn't true of everybody. So I love narrative. I embrace narrative, but I'm also wary of narrative because it can sell a lot of bunk, right?

Jason Scott Montoya (36:26)
Mm

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess there's also a layer of it. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this sort of, I get a sense there's a, in terms of how particularly Trump approaches things and the Republican party has shifted, is this sort of emotional domination, kind of the bullying layer. And I think that ties into the narrative. And he creates this sense of invincibility and undefeatability and some stuff that he's done or that has happened to him, you know, and reinforces that narrative.

Margaret Heffernan (37:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jason Scott Montoya (37:16)
And I think for those that aren't in his camp, it can certainly be demoralizing, but it's also hard to overcome people that are in that tribe to actually reach them. That makes sense.

Margaret Heffernan (37:31)
But you see, I don't think there's any value trying to correct the false narratives in the same that I don't think there's anything, any value at all in arguing with climate deniers. The overwhelming evidence is that the vast majority of people in the United States, in the UK and around the world appreciate that the climate crisis is real and it's manmade. So I have a choice now. I can either start

Jason Scott Montoya (37:37)
Okay.

Yeah, OK.

Margaret Heffernan (38:00)
the narrative of what can be done about it, or I can spend all my energy fighting with climate deniers. I don't think the second option is worth it. So I'm much more interested.

Jason Scott Montoya (38:08)
Okay.

Yeah.

So it's better to shape the new narrative. Yeah. The alternative.

Margaret Heffernan (38:18)
Well, to shape the new narrative about what we can do, which is true, than to get into a, you know, as they say, get into a fight with a pig. All that happens is the pig has a good time and you're covered in mud. Right? That's what I think of documents with climate drives. I'm not going to change their minds. I'm going to get extremely exhausted.

Jason Scott Montoya (38:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (38:44)
I'm not going to achieve anything. Am I going to come away angry and dispirited? I won't have got anything out of that. When I start having discussions with people about all the things we can do about reducing our carbon emissions, positive stuff happens. The number of people I can collaborate with increases, and we feel much more energized about the work we're doing. So I really don't think you can.

Jason Scott Montoya (38:53)
Yeah, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (39:14)
It's worth the effort to try to persuade somebody that they're wrong. I think you have to persuade them of something that's better.

Jason Scott Montoya (39:28)
Yeah, yeah. And I do think that's a big failure in our society is a lot of people are in pain and wounded or struggling and there wasn't a story, there wasn't an alternative and somebody toxic came along and gave them that. And I think it just made it worse, but for them it was something. They were stuck and they needed something and that's what they had. And I can relate to that personally just in terms of my own toxic.

Margaret Heffernan (39:48)
Uh-huh.

Jason Scott Montoya (39:57)
people I've interacted with in my past. But I also, yeah, go ahead.

Margaret Heffernan (39:59)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think for Hillary Clinton to call parts of the electorate deplorables or for the president to describe them as garbage, you know, this is really unhelpful. It's deeply disrespectful. It's, I mean, I think really appalling. I think you have to accord people respect.

Jason Scott Montoya (40:25)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (40:28)
You may disagree with everything they do and say, but if you really believe that all people are created equal, then you have to treat them like equals. And I don't believe you're going to change their minds if you don't.

Jason Scott Montoya (40:40)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, there's just a lot of dynamics there. So one of the things you talk about in the TED Talk is love and how love plays a part in this. And you say, you you wouldn't do these things because it's so much work without love. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. Maybe that's a way we can kind of wrap things up here and figure out where we go from here.

Margaret Heffernan (40:56)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Well, I guess what I feel is, you know, I work with lots of people whom I'm sure I disagree on very, very many topics. But what I try to do is to find what's good in them and what I can respect in them and speak to that. And to the degree that I do, and I may disagree with them on certain things, I think they're much more likely to consider my views.

Jason Scott Montoya (41:22)
Yeah

Margaret Heffernan (41:43)
if they feel that I respect them as people.

And it's interesting because I've certainly had the experience of many people coming up to me, you know, and saying, wow, you really changed my mind on X. Not because I had a fight with them, but because I talked about, you know, what I'd seen or what I knew and they went away and they thought about it. And over time, they started to see examples of what I was talking about. Now I am firmly have the belief.

that nobody's going to change their mind in front of you. You know, if you say you think all cows are brown and I say, I don't think so. think some are kind of brown and white. Some are black and white. Some are kind of really white. You're going to say, no, I don't agree with you. But you know, if we've had a cordial conversation about this.

You're going to start seeing more cows that aren't right? Because it's in your mind. And that's what's going to change your mind. Simply plotting the possibility that there might be other colored cows makes it more likely you're going to see it. But it's not going to happen in the moment. And it's unlikely that they'll come back and say,

Jason Scott Montoya (42:52)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

the

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (43:16)
Wow, you know, Jason, you were right about those cows. They're all kinds of different colors. I had no idea what was I thinking. But that's okay. It's okay they don't come back with this great mea culpa. But if you've had a respectful conversation, you may get some. There's a fantastic book.

Jason Scott Montoya (43:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (43:39)
I don't know if it's out in the US, but it's in the UK. It's called Conflicted by a guy named Ian Leslie. And he tells a beautiful story about a young woman who I think has had car breaks down or something anyway. She gets a lift with a truck driver in the US. And he has, and I don't remember the details, but he has some kind of racist bumper sticker on his car.

And they have a really, really lovely conversation and he's really nice and he's really helpful and he's really kind. And at the end, when he drops her off to wherever it is she was trying to get, she said, you know, I've really loved our conversation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just have to say for such a nice guy, I think your bumper stickers really, it's really upset me. And I, you know, I'm just saying that because I don't think that's the kind of guy you are.

Jason Scott Montoya (44:32)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (44:33)
Anyway, you know, several months later, she runs into him, the bumper sticker's gone.

And I think it's a great story. It's a true story. And I think it says something about how people change their minds, which is they accommodate themselves over time or accumulate evidence over time to a different way of seeing. But it isn't experienced as an argument. It's not an I'm right, you're wrong argument. It's a conversation about

Jason Scott Montoya (44:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (45:11)
my experience of life and my experience of you.

Jason Scott Montoya (45:16)
Yeah, now I think in a way though, you were bold to speak, right? So what would you say to the person that wants to say that thing about the bumper sticker? And maybe they're holding back and they should say something in respectful and loving way.

Margaret Heffernan (45:32)
Well, it's hard to tell because I'm not in the truck. I can't gauge the level of danger that there is. I think everybody has to make their own judgment. What I would say, again, is there's a huge amount of evidence to suggest that simply positing a different perception

can make a whole world of difference to how they see themselves or how they see the world. And I've seen this, I see this a lot in meetings, for example, where somebody suggests something, you know, mad, bad or dangerous. And everybody, either because they don't want the fight or they, you know, they don't want to spend their political capital that way or whatever, they haven't done their homework, they'll just go along with it. And then somebody will say, you know, I'm quite worried about this proposition because

Jason Scott Montoya (46:06)
Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (46:30)
you know, I think there problems with this and this and this. And then suddenly the whole room decides, yeah, she's right, he's right. And they'll all say, yeah, it is problematic. Now what's happened? Isn't that the information around the room has changed? It's just that when one person dares to speak up, other people dare to too. So that's the opportunity you lose when you stay silent.

Jason Scott Montoya (46:41)
Yeah

Yeah.

you

Margaret Heffernan (46:58)
That's the thing. So, you know, it is important and I advise people a lot, you know, when they have things going on in their company that need talking about, it is important to be careful how you do it. It is important to be safe. I was advising a young man recently who knew that there were really obnoxious pay differentials between different nationalities in a company. So some nationalities were paid a lot more than others.

Jason Scott Montoya (47:25)
Hmm.

Margaret Heffernan (47:29)
which is illegal. And he wanted to do something about it. He thought it really created a very bad atmosphere and it's fundamentally unjust as well as against the law. But I said to him, the thing you must not do is take this on alone. You know, first you really have to check your facts. Secondly, you really have to get some allies alongside you.

Jason Scott Montoya (47:45)
Yeah, okay.

Margaret Heffernan (47:53)
And then you have to think about who are the real decision makers here who might have an impact. But be careful, right? You could lose your job doing this. That means you don't get a reference. That means it's going to be really hard to find the next job. So as invigorated and righteous as you feel, you're not going to help people if you don't take care of yourself so that maybe you can win the argument.

Jason Scott Montoya (48:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (48:23)
rather than just have the fight.

Jason Scott Montoya (48:26)
Yeah, yeah, that's good. And I think just the importance of planting the seeds, like you said, building community to come alongside and working together towards the vision.

Margaret Heffernan (48:41)
Yeah. And the other thing is it really takes time. It really takes time. And so it takes patience. It takes patience and kind of faith that as you put that into the system, the system changes. And definitely there are dark nights of the soul when you just think, why am I doing this? You know, I'm exhausted and I'm not getting anywhere. But if you give up, know what happens.

Jason Scott Montoya (48:42)
Yeah. Well, Margaret, Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I watched Selma this weekend and just, yeah, just seeing Martin Luther King go through that very thing, yeah.

Margaret Heffernan (49:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, so it's, you know, there's a very famous graffiti artist in the UK called Banksy who has a fabulous piece of graffiti, which basically says, when you get tired, don't give up, but have a rest. Have a rest and then go back to work.

Jason Scott Montoya (49:34)
Yeah, I like that. That's great.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Margaret, for sharing your wisdom and encouragement. Your website is mheffernan.com. You mentioned you might be starting a Substack soon. Tell us how people can connect with you. Which of their books would be a good one to look at right now?

Margaret Heffernan (49:54)
Well, the best way to connect with me right now is via the website. The Willful Blindness is absolutely on point. And so is the most recent book I wrote, is called Uncharted, How to Navigate the Future, which explores some of the things we've talked about today, Jason, in a lot more detail.

Jason Scott Montoya (50:08)
Yeah.

Awesome, great. Well, I'm gonna check those out and we'll see what I learn. Thank you so much. All right.

Margaret Heffernan (50:20)
Great. Thanks so much. Thanks for a wonderful conversation. Good luck. Bye.

Jason Scott Montoya (50:25)
Yeah, yeah.

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