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Talk to Your ‘Enemy’ provides students a space to learn and practice new ways to approach old problems, such as human and civil rights violations, oppression and inequality, and competition and war. They learn to perceive complex, unresolved human conflicts through an empathic lens designed to unearth the underlying needs motivating violence, such as safety, dignity, equality, and sovereignty. The emotional skills they practice in this class will equip them to discover and develop solutions by going beneath the level of the conscious mind; this approach will likely be new to their academic experience, which traditionally focuses on developing intellectual skills and overlooks somatic intelligence. They will learn to trade the rigid, polarized, and antagonistic dynamics that lay the foundation for the gridlock of war for the flexible, responsive, and inclusive orientation to human disagreement that allows for inclusive and collaborative peacebuilding.

In a world characterized by polarized and antagonistic approaches to political discourse, students need to know that there is an alternative, effective way to approach meaningful differences of perspective. Nonviolent approaches to communication offer us a way to speak honestly, respectfully, and peacefully with those we disagree with, using tools such as mindful presence, active listening, empathic reflection, and depolarization. Students will practice applying these tools through in-class exercises and experiential activities in the community, reflectively write about their growth and development as practitioners of nonviolent communication, and present a final portfolio of how they plan to apply what they have learned to a specific project moving forward.

Talk to Your ‘Enemy’ is valuable to students studying any discipline. Still, it is particularly useful to politically minded students who want to create social change by engaging with political opposition, facilitating dialogue across differences, and transforming conflict into collaboration. Students who want to connect their in-class learning with community activism and outreach will improve their ability to persuade and motivate others by creating connections that honor human dignity, cultivate openness, and encourage receptivity to meaningful values and different perspectives. Differences in political viewpoints among students will be welcomed and utilized as opportunities to practice empathy, connection, and nonviolent communication across divergent positions.

This course pairs well with another honors seminar, Depolarizing Politics/Depolarizing Communities, which examines polarization on a macro level, including political parties and media that create and emphasize divisions. Depolarizing Politics/Depolarizing Communities examines external sources of polarization. In contrast, Talk to Your ‘Enemy’ examines internal sources of polarization, methods for depolarizing thought processes, and micro-level communication.