Last month I was walking through the woods by my house at sunset when a nearly fully grown juvenile barred owl swooped over my head and landed on a branch in front of me. I was awestruck by this gorgeous bird and began doing what I’ve always done with wild animals who do not flee from me: I talk to them. We looked at each other for a long time before I decided to move on. The last thing I said to the owl after a nearly 10-minute one-sided "conversation" was, “Good night. I love you.”
Moments later, I felt a blow to my head, after which the stealthy culprit swooped to another branch to stare intently at me once more. I crouched down to grab a stick to hold above me in case the owl came after me again and slowly backed up to return home, where my husband, a veterinarian, could tend to my bloody talon wounds.
I’d heard about barred owls attacking people, but I never imagined I would be a victim. After all, I’m an animal advocate and humane educator. But I had misread everything. I was chagrined to realize that I’d been under the illusion that we were enjoying each other’s company.
Dangerous Assumptions
Just as I had misread the owl, I sometimes misread people, mistakenly assuming we’re on the same page. I often think I’m being understood, and that I’m understanding, when I’m not. This is probably true for most people. After all, it’s hard to ignore the escalating and dysfunctional levels of polarizing discourse in our culture, where mistaken assumptions and miscommunication are ubiquitous, adversely impacting our ability to come together and effectively nurture a truly healthy, inclusive, collaborative society. As playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Every time we make assumptions, there’s a good chance we’ll be miscommunicating and misperceiving, limiting the opportunities for real communication.
There are so many assumptions that prevent effective communication. We may assume that someone is religious because we are believers (or vice versa). Or we may inquire about someone’s astrological sign because we think astrology is a legitimate science, foisting this belief system on others without a second thought. When we meet someone who grew up in the same neighborhood we did, we may ascribe similar values and political beliefs to them. And when we meet people from different backgrounds, we may assume their values differ from ours and treat them with less openness.
I have friends who, thinking they are being generous, believe that supporters of the presidential candidate they abhor are simply “duped.” Other, less generous, friends think such supporters are either “selfish” or “stupid.” Some of my Christian friends think nonbelievers like me are “going to hell.” Some of my atheist friends think those who believe in God have a “mental disorder.” These are the actual words and phrases some have used in my presence.
Such assumptions arise effortlessly as we project our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions onto others. Unfortunately, this habit narrows our perspective and limits our ability to truly understand the complexity of others’ lives and minds. Every time we make assumptions, there’s a good chance we’ll be miscommunicating and misperceiving, limiting the opportunities for real communication. When we jump to our inevitable conclusions, we trade the possibility of true understanding for a false sense that we have communicated effectively.
Changing the Conversation
There’s a way out of this failure to communicate. It starts with something so natural to humans, and so obvious, that it hardly seems worth mentioning except for our seeming unwillingness to embrace it widely. We must cultivate and act upon our innate curiosity and desire to learn. In so doing, we eclipse a darker human propensity for "us vs. them" thinking, which leads us to perceive "the other" as a threat.
To communicate effectively with people who have different perspectives and beliefs, we must be eager to learn about those perspectives and beliefs. That means asking questions with friendliness and a true desire to understand rather than debate. It means striving to understand why someone holds a belief or position. What fears, experiences, or values drive their thinking? It means that when we hear something that challenges our worldview, we resist the urge to argue or correct and instead lean in with curiosity. In this way, we become better able to cultivate empathy, a foundation for understanding. In an increasingly polarized world, understanding becomes not just a moral imperative, but a practical one. Without it, divisions are likely to grow.
One of the lovely side effects of bringing genuine curiosity and openness to others is that we are likely to discover points of agreement. As we find those places where we can agree, division dissipates and the ties that bind us strengthen so that we can find places to collaborate. Coalitions to solve problems are usually more successful when diverse groups of people come together across divides to achieve shared goals. Whenever we allow side-taking, rather than collaborative problem-solving, to be our endpoint, we miss the opportunity to make our communities, nation, and world better.
The Role of Fear
One of the obstacles to making curiosity our default mindset is fear: fear of animosity and violence; fear of what society would become if others’ perspectives took hold; and sometimes even fear that we might be persuaded by a different perspective, which could threaten our existing identity and relationships. These fears are readily fostered in our society and sometimes within our families and communities. They may also be reinforced by our experiences. Since my encounter with the owl, I now enter the woods at dusk with some trepidation. Gone is my unadulterated joy and openness in the presence of these birds. Yet, my new fear is also a reminder that curiosity is indeed the gateway to understanding.
How to Move Forward
Had I spent a little more time cultivating my curiosity to better understand barred owls, I would have learned about their territorial nature, a trait we humans share with owls. I would have known better than to talk at a bird who had just flown low over my head and was perched staring at me, less curious than baleful. I wouldn’t have made the bird feel threatened by my refusal to leave their territory. I would have understood and been able to put my empathy into action by quickly moving along.
What would putting empathy into action look like with our fellow humans? A good first step might be to stop fomenting hostility, derision, and insults, whether spoken aloud about "others" within our perceived in-groups or on our social media. Whenever we make fun of, express hatred toward, or trivialize the perspectives of others, we perpetuate polarization and reinforce divisive thinking. This is not to say that we should make nice when someone intentionally says or does sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, or bigoted things. What it means is that we demonstrate respect for others’ divergent perspectives that stem from different lived experiences, sources of information, and long-held values and beliefs.
One might think these commonsense suggestions would be widely welcomed and adopted, but we’ve become so habituated to polarization that we often unconsciously stoke it. It’s not as if most people want to offend and be subsequently attacked, but nonetheless we regularly project our beliefs onto others and fail to consider the impacts of doing so. I projected my desires and perspectives onto the owl without endeavoring to understand the owl’s perspective. Reflecting upon the experience has made me wiser about how I might show greater understanding not only in situations with wild animals but also with my own species. Perhaps we can all learn something from an owl attack.
