The Way Out

How to Overcome Toxic Polarization

By: Peter T. Coleman

Narrated by: Matthew Josdal

The partisan divide in the United States has widened to a chasm. Legislators vote along party lines and rarely cross the aisle. Political polarization is personal, too - and it is making us miserable. Surveys show that Americans have become more fearful and hateful of supporters of the opposing political party and imagine that they hold much more extreme views than they actually do. How can we loosen the grip of this toxic polarization and start working on our most pressing problems?

The Way Out offers an escape from this morass. Social psychologist Peter T. Coleman explores how conflict resolution and complexity science provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences. Deploying the concept of attractors in dynamical systems, he explains why we are stuck in this rut as well as the unexpected ways that deeply rooted oppositions can and do change. Coleman meticulously details principles and practices for navigating and healing the difficult divides in our homes, workplaces, and communities, blending compelling personal accounts from his years of working on entrenched conflicts with lessons from leading-edge research. The Way Out is a vital and timely guide to breaking free from the cycle of mutual contempt in order to better our lives, relationships, and country.

©2021 Peter T. Coleman (P)2021 Tantor

interesting information but a difficult listen

I don't know if it's the prose, the delivery, or (most likely) the combination of the two, but I had a very very difficult time listening to this book.

The writing is overly academic and the delivery is both dry and pretentious in a way that makes my attention look anywhere else for more appealing engagement.

There are two kinds of books about our societal ills-- those that offer mechanistic insight and those that describe the many symptoms. This book tries to be the former but it's made mostly of the latter. This was especially apparent because the book I listened to before it, "High Conflict", was such a good example of mechanistic insight.

I also, as "classical liberal" / political moderate found the book to have enough of a left bias to make me roll my eyes the same way I do at Fox News headlines. When dissecting political polarization, I think it's better to have an author that can do a better job of avoiding such biased thinking.

If you are looking for a fairly academic examination of the problems around political polarization in terms of the ways problems manifest, you might find this book helpful. If you want good insight into where the problems come from and how you can personally help mend things, try "High Conflict" instead.

Fairly interesting, oversold physics relationship

I agree with another reviewer who called the author out on implying that physics had anything to do with conflict resolution. These comparisons are only metaphors and the author should have made that clear. I've long thought that physical processes were a useful way of thinking about societal issues, but I think the author gets somewhat too technical. Again, another review made a good insight that one shouldn't use a more complex phenomenon to explain a simpler one.

Where the author uses the idea of an attractor, I've often used the metaphor of 'stability', which is often demonstrated by a marble in a bowl. Whenever you disturb the marble from the center, it rolls right back to where it started. Put the marble on the lip of the bowl, and it won't stay there. It will either roll down to the center, or roll off the edge to another point of stability. The countertop, for instance. In the physical world, it's gravity that moves the marble to the stable point; in society, there are a whole host of forces, which is why the bowl is a metaphor only.

Excellent Message - Tedious Presentation

Would love to see this done with more examples to engage readers. It is more like a textbook than a “good read”; still, the message is so important that I’d highly recommend it…at least until an update version with more charismatic style comes along. Read it and start talking and writing today!

Well done

Excellent summation of how polarization happens and how we might be able to find our way out - large scale and counterintuitive focus is helpful for complex prob like polarization

incredible book, terrible narrator

I'm kind of a compassionate communication and meaningful conflict junkie. I heard about this book on Hidden Brain while on a road trip and immediately got it to listen to on my long drive from NC to CO. the information is beautiful, well researched and elegantly presented. the narrator though.. oh man, it's really hard to take him seriously or listen to him speaking, especially after listening to the author speak on conflict on a podcast with such a compassionate and receptive voice and manner. I think the narrator does a disservice to this incredible work. The narrator makes something so interesting feel tedious.

Overall worthwhile

Overall this book was a worthwhile read. I will present my negatives first but please read through them to get to the useful positives.

Initially, my impression was not favorable. The person who reads the book has a very melodic voice which is more appropriate for reading a story book to a child. I did get used to it after a while but my initial impression was not favorable. The first couple physics references the writer used were the “uncertainty principle” and the “conservation of energy.” The “Heisenberg uncertainty principle” has to do with the physics of subatomic particles. It refers to not being able to accurately determine the velocity and position of a mass at the same time. The mass, however, is close to Planck’s constant which is 10 to the -34. It doesn’t apply to our macro world. As far as the conservation of energy (energy and matter) the author once again incorrectly applies a concept from physics. This conservation law applies only to closed systems. This further reinforces the public’s misunderstanding. The irony is that these physics references were totally unnecessary. I don’t understand why any writer would use concepts that are more complex and less understood to try to explain concepts that are already simpler and more easily understood. Another technical criticism I have has to do with his use of “e to the fourth power” - where e is actually four different entities. I realize that these four different values refer to four different words that start with the letter e but that does not excuse this error from a mathematical perspective. Additionally his use of the word infinite is improper. Something that is exceedingly large yet finite, is not infinite.

Now for the positives (and there are many): the concepts of attractor landscapes, paying attention to context versus content and the difference between clock problems and cloudy problems were the most useful for me. Looking at a landscape with broad and deep valleys (as attractors) and steep mountains allowed me to visualize our country’s great divisions much more easily. The idea that often times we focus on the content of a disagreement when its context and the relationship of the people deserve much more attention is consistent with my experience as well. I found the idea of cloudy problems being different from clock problems helpful in understanding why solutions often do not work.

The first half of the book helped me understand our current political situation. The second half of the book is where the author tried to outline a way out of our situation. He advises more to what an individual can do as part of a group. I doubt that I will follow through with any of these. Unfortunately, I’m probably more like most people. I see it as requiring too much effort for very little if any likely return. Hopefully, many younger people will disagree and help reach a better place than where we are now.

All in all I recommend this book.

Should be given to every Politician (needs attachment)

This was a great book and I really enjoyed it. I will take some of the lessons I learned from here throughout my life to help minimize the polarization in my community and family going forward.

At first I thought P. Coleman would be just another smug liberal - he surprised me and was unbiased, reflective I’m himself and was rational book. Bravo.

The most glaring negative of this audiobook is that there is no accompanying PDF and there are a lot of references to tables and charts that you cannot see. Please fix this Peter Coleman and Audible if you truly want an effective tool as well as ethical product (Not providing a reference and making the references in a book makes it very difficult to understand at times). Hence the three stars for performance (the voice/narration was great and not reflective of the three stars - again give an accompanying pdf to understand.

In sum, give this book to every partisan politician (most of them). I myself will purchase a copy or two and send to my local representatives.