From David Brooks' NY Times opinion essay "Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations" (19 Nov 2020) a wise suggestion for thinking with those on the opposite side of an issue:

Find the disagreement under the disagreement. In the Talmudic tradition when two people disagree about something, it’s because there is some deeper philosophical or moral disagreement undergirding it. Conversation then becomes a shared process of trying to dig down to the underlying disagreement and then the underlying disagreement below that. There is no end. Conflict creates cooperative effort.

Brooks's overall list:

• Approach with awe. – "... Every human being is a miracle, and your superior in some way. The people who have great conversations walk into the room expecting to be delighted by you and make you feel the beam of their affection and respect. ..."
• Ask elevating questions. – "... some questions, startling as they seem at first, compel us to see ourselves from a higher vantage: What crossroads are you at? What commitments have you made that you no longer believe in? Who do you feel most grateful to have in your life? What problem did you use to have but now have licked? In what ways are you sliding backward? What would you do if you weren't afraid? ..."
• Ask open-ended questions. – "... start with 'What was it like ...' or 'Tell me about a time ...' or 'How did you manage ...'"
• Make them authors, not witnesses. – "... going over and over an event, seeing it from wider perspectives coating it with new layers of emotion, transforming it ..."
• Treat attention as all or nothing. – "... act as if attention had an on/off switch with no dimmer. Total focus. ..."
• Don't fear the pause. – "... hear the whole comment and then pause, sometimes eight seconds, before responding, ..."
• Keep the gem statement front and center. – "... If you can both seize that gem statement it may point to a solution. ..."
• Find the disagreement under the disagreement. – "... dig down to the underlying disagreement and then the underlying disagreement below that ..."
• The midwife model. – "... helping the other person give birth to her own child ... spending a lot of time patiently listening to the other person teach herself through her narration, bringing forth her unthought thoughts, sitting with an issue as it slowly changes under the pressure of joint attention ..."

(cf Shotguns and Rifles (1999-11-06), Big Lessons (2001-02-17), Superforecasting (2016-02-21), What Moderates Believe (2017-08-26), ...) - ^z - 2020-12-02