Polarization is not a result of disagreement. It is a result of disconnection. When we disconnect from each other, when we see each other no longer as human beings but as threats, we polarize. And the first, most forceful disconnector is interruption.

Delusion takes some doing to undo.

First, we need really to get that interrupting is a violent act. To begin with, we need to understand what interruption is. We have to recognize all of its

pernicious and artful forms.

And then we have to examine it at a ‘cellular’ level. We have to see the untrue assumptions that drive it, take them apart and start over with true ones.

Keeping the promise of no interruption is a tough job.

Tough because this promise is an unspiralling galaxy of a thing.

We do need to accept that the power of persuasion at its worst lies in its design to interrupt. It is supposed to interrupt us, our independent, cogent, thinking selves. And it does.

We can create a thinking environment even in the dwellings of extreme disagreement. We can, quite simply and profoundly, promise not to interrupt. We can honour the three ingredients of that promise: to start giving attention, to stay interested in where the person will go next and to ‘share the stage’ equally.

It worked. Nick said that the biggest change was immediate: there was less fear in the room. The promise of no interruption does exactly that: it defuses the fear. In its place, gradually, is safety. And from safety grows better thinking and clearer conveying of thought and feeling. And from that grows understanding, and from that the threat of polarization shrinks.