Binghamton University hosted author Mónica Guzmán Tuesday as part of The Common Read Experience. Inspired by her book, “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times,” Guzmán’s afternoon workshop and evening keynote focused on the importance of civil dialogue in an era of political polarization.

The workshop centered around curiosity and the necessity of avoiding assumptions in civil dialogue to foster a productive space. Guzmán’s introduction to the workshop interrogated the way people prescribe answers before asking questions and prompted attendees to think about the way they implicitly pass judgments through a thought exercise.

The thought exercise asked participants to evaluate the room around them through a series of questions, focusing on the cognitive processes of asking and understanding versus answering and judging.

“We already know what we need to know about this room,” Guzmán said. “Why get curious? But you can get curious. You can always aim curiosity at the thing you don’t understand.”

Participants then paired up for the next exercise as Guzmán continued the workshop, asking one another questions about a childhood memory. The exercise intended to practice noticing the details in the memory rather than trying to take away a meaning or an assumption about the other person. If the listener wanted to fill in a blank, rather than trying to derive the answer, Guzmán suggested asking further questions.

This emphasis on curiosity was meant to establish a good foundational practice for civil dialogue that could be implemented in political conversations, where asking and understanding, Guzmán said, should be valued over making judgments about the other person’s perspective.

“I think that what’s happening right now, writ large, is the consequences of past calcification, past inability to hear civil dialogue,” Guzmán said.

Another part of the workshop focused on establishing safety and trust in civil dialogue conversations and addressing the concerns of the people one converses with as a part of bridge-building. She said using questions of concern allows people to reveal their values and what they care about, showing that people tend to have the same values, they just “stack them in a different order for different issues.”

For Guzmán, while people might appear to have polarizing values, common ground can often be found through curiosity and asking questions.

Separating the participating group into pairs once more, Guzmán said to choose a political stance — like pro-life and pro-choice — and attempt to understand the meaning behind someone else’s position.

The keynote speech focused on similar ideals of civil dialogue, curiosity and the critical significance of hearing differing opinions. Bill Groner ’77, a lawyer and public speaker, hosted the interview with Guzmán and asked her to elaborate on approaching conversations that might be volatile, difficult or charged. She said that when repairing relationships with people and apologizing, one should embrace a full, committed apology.

“Begin by inviting the other person,” Guzmán said. “Don’t just say it and then steamroll on, say it and be like, ‘What do you think? Can we talk? Do you want to think about this?’”

Guzmán said that approaching civil conversations from a position of humility was a necessary step to forming a space of open discussion but warned that sometimes these conversations could be painful. In cases where conversations were harmful, she said participants should “just try to receive” and then “walk away.”

“What she said about if the conversation ends there, it’s just talk, is so critical,” said Aiko Juarez ‘24, a first-year graduate student studying social work in the College of Community and Public Affairs. “If nothing is done after the conversation, then what’s left?”

Editor’s Note 2/21: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Binghamton University Center for Writers hosted this talk. The article has been updated to correct this mistake.

The article has also been corrected to clarify that the event was part of The Common Read experience, not the Common Ground Reading Series. Pipe Dream regrets the error.