海角大神

For years, Jeanne Safer has received letters from people whose personal relationships have been upended by political differences. She鈥檚 heard of engagements being called off, siblings who are no longer on speaking terms, and a pending divorce because the wife wouldn鈥檛 let her husband watch Fox News in the basement of their three-story home.

The reason they鈥檝e reached out to Ms. Safer, a psychotherapist, is because she herself is in a politically 鈥渕ixed marriage.鈥� For the past 39 years, the liberal New Yorker has been married to Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor at National Review. Now she鈥檚 parlayed those experiences into a new book, 鈥淚 Love You, But I Hate Your Politics: How to Protect Your Intimate Relationships in a Poisonous Partisan World.鈥� Ms. Safer鈥檚 book isn鈥檛 a 鈥淩epublicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus鈥� tract so much as it is a guide to what true love entails.

海角大神 spoke with Ms. Safer by phone about the ideas in her book. (This conversation has been edited and condensed for space.)

Why do people take politics so personally?聽

Because you want the people that you love to be like you and to like you. We are compelled to change people鈥檚 minds because otherwise we have to accept enormous limitations on the effect that we can have on other people. But if you think about it 鈥� this is my great revelation 鈥� it鈥檚 like trying to make somebody fall in love with you who doesn鈥檛. You can鈥檛 do it! You aren鈥檛 going to persuade somebody who has a different view of the world, and once you realize this you can then begin to have actual discourse. It鈥檚 in a way, it鈥檚 radically respecting the other person鈥檚 selfhood.聽

I learned this from personal experience because I鈥檝e been married to a conservative commentator for 39 years. And I change people鈥檚 minds for a living, that鈥檚 what I do. So of course I thought, with total arrogance, that I could certainly change his 鈥� an intelligent guy like this. And for the first, I would say probably for the first 10 years, I really gave it the old college try.

With you and Richard, what is the difference of values between you?聽

If I thought that we had fundamentally different values, I couldn鈥檛 be with him. I think this is the main idea in my book. I have a chapter called 鈥淲hat is a core value?鈥� And to me a core value is not your political philosophy.

There was one person I interviewed who really embodied this, a young woman, and her father was a dear friend of mine. He died a very terrible death. He had five brothers and sisters, all of whom were progressives and she totally identified with these people. He had one brother who had moved to the South, converted to evangelical 海角大神ity, and was in the military. Guess who was the only person who showed up to help her? And he left his wife and his five children far away and came. Not one of the progressives 鈥撀爏he knew them well 鈥� lifted a finger. And this was not lost on her.聽

They had been fighting on Facebook about all kinds of stuff. She made a heartfelt apology to him. She said, 鈥淚 have misjudged you.鈥� So she found out that they really did share core values even though they had a lot of things not in common, the things that were the fundamental human values.

So, to understand where people are coming from, you have to have mutual respect?

You don鈥檛 start trying to understand the other person, you first start understanding yourself. Your own prejudices, your own resistance, the way that you are obnoxious. For instance, if you take an article from your point of view and you stick it in the face of the other person at the breakfast table, or send it to them on e-mail or whatever, and you expect that this is going to be a way to have a dialogue. It has never worked yet.聽

Has social media made it more difficult to have real dialogue?

I have eight commandments. And one of them is, 鈥渁void social media.鈥� Do not read what the other person says. You know what they鈥檙e gonna say. Consider it like their diary. Stay away from that and, whatever you do, do not 鈥渦nfriend.鈥� It is a disaster. People are devastated. It鈥檚 very hard to fix. And if you have something to say to somebody, I say go analog. That is, write him a letter. Call him on the telephone. Or go and see them. And I counsel people to do this. And I think I saved a few relationships that way.

So it is possible to preserve relationships in this fraught era?

I did not expect this because I鈥檓 not the biggest optimist. I can give you some examples of some of them where I really thought it was hopeless. I often told them what to do. You know like, if you love your sister and she鈥檚 on the left and you鈥檙e on the right, don鈥檛 just keep yelling, 鈥淭rump is everything.鈥� Think about the fact that you were dear friends when you were children.

I said, 鈥淲hat are her good qualities?鈥� And the brother said, 鈥淪he has a great sense of beauty and she lives a life of the mind.鈥� And I said, 鈥淗ow about telling her that?鈥�

He鈥檇 alienated everybody else in the family. Why don鈥檛 you tell her that this is something too precious to lose. And I wrote three months later and he said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e avoiding politics and we鈥檙e doing much better.鈥�