Some conversations need to be uncomfortable because they're functioning at the front line, the

coal face, the fiery front of the culture wars or of politics or of interpersonal disagreement.

And then there are other conversations that don't need to be uncomfortable because,

not because they necessarily operate in the absence of uncomfortable ideas but rather because they are meta conversations

they are conversations about conversations have you ever been in a conversation with someone

and you realize we're getting nowhere and so you step outside of the

conversation and remark upon it so instead of having an argument with somebody you say so i think

what's happening here is that i'm doing this and you're doing that so can we stop doing that thing

and can we stop tussling this way and can we find another angle to come at this?

Much of what I would like to do and what I think we all need to do more of is having meta

conversations where we remove ourselves from the heat of the battle and we try to coolly

analyze what's really going on when we're talking to each other. One thing that has made that impossibly difficult is social media.

So we need to have more conversations about how we have conversations,

more meta-conversations about what we're really doing when we're talking to each other,

when we're hostile to each other, when we are being needlessly aggressive.

And because meta-conversations are by definition one step removed from the actual issue

that they're contemplating, they can be warm and fruitful and thoughtful and amicable

even as they discuss things that are dirty and grimy and troublesome,

and yes, occasionally very, very uncomfortable.

Today on the show, I'm going to be very uncomfortable. Today on the show, there are some guests who I would just have on the show every single episode.

If I could, I'd really just talk to them every week, have a once-a-week show.

It'd just be the Josh Sebson, Jonathan Haidt show.

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