Episode description:

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation and
the media with host Eric Schurenberg, long time journalist,
now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

Over the years, he’s interviewed a number of people from the so-
called bridge-building community. They’ve been researchers like
Matt Levendusky of University of Pennsylvania, Journalists like
Amanda Ripley, bridge builders like Monica Guzman, all
convinced that things would be better if Americans could just stop
demonizing their neighbors. Let’s stipulate that’s a worthy goal.
Still, all of these movements face a similar problem: How do you
scale listening skills? How long do the effects of civil
conversations across political divides actually last?

I’ll put those questions to today’s guests, Malka Kopell and Palma
Strand, the founders of 13-year old Civity.org. Kopell describes
her background as a community organizer, but she’s also been a
program officer at the Hewlett Foundation and founding managing
director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at
Stanford. Strand came to Civity after a career it law, teaching law
at Creighton University and the University of Marland and
clerking for, among others, Supreme Court justice Byron White.

The Civity insight is that relationships are key to building trust and
trust is fundamental to getting things done in a diverse society.
Civity’s recipe is to train local leaders—from mayors to city
councils and nonprofit directors —to build relationships before
tackling contentious issues.

It sounds great, but perhaps still subject to the issues of scale and
persistence facing all bridge builders. But let’s let Civity’s
founders explain themselves why they believe their approach
works.

Now, here’s Malka Kopell and Palma Strand.

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
01:03 Main Questions About Civil Conversations
02:16 Introducing Civity and Its Work
03:21 Types of Leaders Trained by Civity
04:40 Founders’ Backgrounds and Epiphanies
08:31 What Makes Civity Different from Other Approaches
10:00 The ‘Conversation Before the Conversation’
12:46 Relationship Building in Civic and Business Spheres
15:02 Addressing Scale and Reach Challenges
17:39 Engaging the Middle and Open-minded Communities
21:34 Storytelling Guidelines and Listening Skills
23:47 Media’s Role in Societal Divides
26:44 Media Narratives and Real-Life Community Stories
29:23 Journalistic Approaches to Divisiveness
31:20 AI’s Impact on Society and Connection
33:49 A Simple Civic Workshop for Neighborhoods
35:45 Focusing on Differences and Complexity in Conversations
36:20 Micro Interactions and Building Trust in Daily Life
38:36 The Power of One-on-One Conversations
39:28 Optimism vs. Pessimism About Society’s Future
40:39 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

 

Transcript

Eric Schurenberg (00:00.969)
Good. All right. Tom, give us a countdown.

Eric Schurenberg (00:06.429)
Okay. We’re starting again. All right. Palma and Malka, welcome to In Reality.

Palma Joy Strand (00:07.166)
Ha ha ha

Palma Joy Strand (00:17.23)
It’s great to be here.

Malka Kopell (00:17.433)
Great to be here.

Eric Schurenberg (00:19.405)
so glad to have you. So for listeners who aren’t familiar with Civity, give us the elevator summary of the work you do. And Palma, I’ll ask you to speak up first.

Palma Joy Strand (00:30.126)
All right, well, we work with local leaders to kind of support them by giving them kind of some language, skills, and strategies for building relationships across difference themselves and working, you know, creating spaces for the people that they convene, facilitate, gather together for those people to connect across difference. And that’s because we know that connecting when people in communities are connected across difference.

communities are able to solve and address a lot of issues that if those relationships are not there, things just get stuck. So that’s what we do.

Eric Schurenberg (01:08.895)
Hmm. Okay, Malkett, give me an example of the kind of leaders who get civity training and tell me how many people have been exposed to this kind of civity workshop or training, both in the US and globally, if there is a global competition.

Malka Kopell (01:26.661)
Well, we w we work with all kinds of leaders across all three sectors, public, business and nonprofit. we work with leaders that have titles, like you know, mayors and city managers, and we also work with leaders that perhaps other people don’t know about, who do things in their community every day and have the opportunity to move things forward. and

We’ve been working on this for, you know, over a dozen years. I don’t know how many people we have reached, but I’d say, you know, hundreds a year. so when we work with networks, we can we can scale that that amount. And we work in the United States primarily. we work locally, but we’re a national organization. And we recently worked with a

feminist group in Turkey. So I guess we are international now.

Eric Schurenberg (02:28.693)
Okay, well. you just preceded the president’s visit to Turkey by Hope you laid the groundwork. So you two have been together for about a a little bit over a dozen years. What were you doing before that? And was there some epiphany that convinced you that this approach was what the world needed? Palma?

Palma Joy Strand (02:33.902)
We did.

Malka Kopell (02:34.041)
Yes, we did.

Palma Joy Strand (02:51.648)
Well, I’ll s I’ll start. So, yes, we have been working together. Actually, we’ve been talking about it for more than a dozen years, almost 20 years now. and both of us had, and I’ll let Monka tell her story about her background, but both of us came from a place that led us to Civity. mine was I’m an academic, I’m a actually a a law professor and conflict person. but I came to Civity by working in my own community. I when my kids were younger, I was do

Doing a lot of community work around the public schools in my community of Arlington, Virginia. And I had this kind of legalistic frame of, you know, well, there are these organizations and these rules, and this is how it works. And as I kind of participated in, you know, the community trying to grapple with some really challenging issues of, you know, quality of schools and who was going to attend, I realized that.

You know, while there was this kind of framework of formal rules, that really what mattered was whether people were in relationship with each other. That when people were in relationship, particularly across differences like race and economics and in geography in a lot of places, things would didn’t get easy, but things could move forward. People could be like, okay, so I, you know, I kind of know that person. They’re they’re kind of like me, they’re kind of different, but

There’s somebody who’s in my community and I can work with them. And things could move forward, but when those kinds of relationships didn’t exist, things just they just ground to a halt and and things could get even more, you know, acrimonious. And and so I I reached out, I was doing some work with on a civic engagement guide with the Hewlett Foundation. Malcolm was a program officer, and we started talking about, I was like, you know, this relationship thing is

Really important and people don’t really talk about it that much. So I’m gonna I’m gonna pass it over to Malka because this is when the conversation started and she can talk about her background and how she came to it, which is quite different.

Malka Kopell (04:54.253)
Yeah, well I’m a I’m a community organizer and I’ve been doing that almost my whole professional life. and I fac I for years and I still do facilit I facilitated sometimes a multi year public policy conflict resolution and com and problem solving, community problem solving processes. I come from a

a head, very head discipline public policy. That’s how I came to this work. And actually it was my conversation with Palma, which turned into many, many, many, many conversations that really allowed me to see the importance of bringing the heart into the work, which I think I was doing, you know, without thinking, but to really be intentional about it. And we we work with a lot of head people.

who are working on very important issues, trying to move things forward in their community, and many of them are coming from a head place. But when we when we give them the opportunity to pair the head with the heart, they really have a much better chance of getting, you know, getting their goals met.

Eric Schurenberg (06:07.283)
Okay, all right. So prioritizing the heart in actually kind of getting policy enacted and getting people to work together across differences. The the whole field is crowded right now. And by that I mean the peace building, bridge building field right now. In reality, audience alone has met Braver Angels and More Uncommon, Harmony Labs, in the realm of peace building, plus on the media side, the Center for Media Engagement and NewsGuard.

others specifically aimed at helping Americans get on the same page in their news diet. So what makes civity different? Is that is a secret this kind of blend of heart and head? What else is different from what’s already out there?

Eric Schurenberg (06:56.213)
Palmet, actually.

Palma Joy Strand (06:56.236)
Malka, you want to start? Or I’ll start? Well, I think there are probably three differences. one is that we train people. So we don’t just bring people together, we train leaders. So our our goal is to have that training ripple out. so we we do we do train. and a lot of the I would say that a lot of the kind of bridge building is not non relational, but not intentionally relational.

So that, you know, there’s still a lot of focus on head and head is, you know, we’re head people, head is important. And what we do is we really bring that that intentionality around relationship. and that and that does make us special. And I think the other thing that really makes us special, we started this work you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years ago. And a lot of the differences that are that we focus on are kind of pre

And underlying you know, everybody talks now about the red-blue divide and political differences, but but differences of race, differences of economics and religion and you know geography, and these are deep-seated differences that that we focus on as well as as political divides, which are often grounded in those other in those other differences. And so I I think that that focus on these these you know very deeply rooted

differences in American life are are are part of what make us make us special.

Malka Kopell (08:28.485)
Sometimes we call our work the conversation before the conversation because we’re working with people, the leaders that we work with, the established and emerging leaders, they’re working on on, you know, the they’re working on the conversation. They’re working on climate change, they’re working on affordable housing, they’re working on community resilience. but before they can sit down with other people and hash those things out, they need to see.

each other as human beings. And that is the piece that we work on intentionally to make that other conversation go better.

Eric Schurenberg (09:07.975)
I would just add from my history in the corporate media world that it was very hard to get things done with if you didn’t have a relationship with people. Even in that most headiest of head spaces, which is sort of corporate America, it still facilitated a lot of effectiveness just to be able to be seen and recognized by by people you had to work with.

Palma Joy Strand (09:35.587)
You know, it’s it’s actually interesting. I think that because we talk to a to lots of people about relationships and and I would say, you know, vast overgeneralization that business people get this. They know that relationships are important, but people in the civic and and sphere are less it just l a little less comfortable. It’s you know, I don’t know whether it’s a history of wanting to be fair or, you know

kind of even, you know, even balanced. I I don’t know what it is, but it’s it’s a little bit it’s a little bit of a different conversation in the in the public sphere than it is in the business sphere.

Eric Schurenberg (10:13.525)
Tell me more about that. Why is it a different conversation?

Palma Joy Strand (10:17.898)
I think it’s just I think it’s it’s in business, people know that the relationships are how things work. just like you said, Eric. Just exactly like you said. It’s like, you know, that’s that’s how things work. And I think that, you know, there are a lot of rules of fairness. People are n are against favoritism and you know, cronyism, which I totally get. But this idea that relationships and particularly relationships among people, you know, ordinary citizens, I I I think there’s there’s sort of

a a technocratic aspect to the way that that people have been perceived or presented with public decision making that that you know relationships are like n not part of the equation and so bringing them into the equation in a way that is not about cronyism not about but just about wow we’re all members of the same community here we we need to see each other because

because you know our community well being depends on all of us. that’s that’s a different conversation. just a different conversation.

Malka Kopell (11:23.365)
Yeah, I mean interestingly, we work with a lot of elected officials and and they know the value of relationships in getting elected. Yeah. But they don’t always have what some time w one person called it the per feel that they have the permission to build relationships once they’re in office. and so that’s yeah, we you know, it’s a lot of the stuff that we talk about, people

Eric Schurenberg (11:27.701)
Mm.

Eric Schurenberg (11:33.139)
Yes.

Malka Kopell (11:48.749)
know or they do in certain circles but not in others or they do with their family and friends. And so what what we really focus on is helping people see the power that they already have, the things that they’re already doing and bring it intentionally into bring those intentionally into the civic sphere.

Eric Schurenberg (12:07.037)
Okay. Palma, your answer alluded to people sharing a common bond. But it’s you know, we’re all members of the community, we all want the best of the community and and that kind of thing. That reminds me of the the conversation that we had on in reality just recently with Matt Lewandowski of University of Pennsylvania. And he was research. w thank you. Thank you.

Malka Kopell (12:33.154)
I listened to that.

Palma Joy Strand (12:36.493)
Yeah.

Malka Kopell (12:36.507)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Schurenberg (12:37.519)
Palma Joy Strand (12:39.886)
You’re surprised. Wait, what?

Malka Kopell (12:40.803)
It sounds so surprised.

Eric Schurenberg (12:44.749)
Matt his work researched as as you now know, ways to emphasize those common bonds across differences. And his work definitely found that person to person interventions were a lot more effective than other means of bridge building, like emphasizing, you know, patriotism.

shared sports support, t sports team support. and that’s definitely a plus for the civity approach as far as it goes. But there are significant limits that a number of researchers have pointed out. One obvious one in sort of person-to-person relationships is scale, both in reach and and time. So even if personal contact is powerful, the number of people that you can

reach in person is always going to be dorked by the number of people who are exposed through mass media or other kinds of sources of information to demonize portraits of different people who have different beliefs. And and then you know over time, even those who attend these kinds of interventions are going to return to the same toxic social media ecosystem that they grew up in.

How do you at Civity handle the issue of scale?

Malka Kopell (14:13.787)
Yes, I I would say that the and we’ve been very intentional about this. The the way that we scale is is actually not by bringing people together. People are already in in our society there there’s al they’re already in networks, especially if you look locally. There are people that they, you know, that they work with. There are people that they see sitting on the, you know, the

Soccer stands, there’s there are people that their kids, other parents at of of in in their kids’ school, they’re already in networks. They have the opportunity to use these skills to connect in their networks. And so what we do to scale is we train people. We train people to to go out there into their world, into their initiatives, into their civic life and connect. and we you know we we

purposely make what we do in our workshops is a combination of you know kind of framing and what you know why this is important, how how this works. But it’s really primarily practice. We give people the chance to connect with each other in kind of all different kinds of steps, everything from finding common ground to putting difference on the table and connecting across that those differences. And and so that they do it.

We don’t do it, they do it. And they come out of the workshops in in some cases, they tell us transformed, that they were able to actually do this themselves, but of course they can. And and and that makes it easier for them when we say, Okay, you can do this yourself, go out and do it.

Eric Schurenberg (16:01.755)
one of the things that strikes me about what you’ve just described is that the people who would attend a workshop or make themselves vulnerable enough to learn something new in this regard are people who may be already inclined to reach across division, political division or or

The really truly polarized people living in their own bubbles don’t come to civity workshops. And if you’re not reaching the most committed partisans, are you really making a difference?

Palma Joy Strand (16:39.704)
So, you know, it’s interesting. I think people tend to focus on the extremes. And we actually tend to focus on the middle. not the middle like politically, you know, the the center, but but

Palma Joy Strand (16:57.762)
That’s my air conditioner.

Palma Joy Strand (17:02.988)
Yeah, no, that’s my air conditioner. I and you’re like muting and unmuting me, is that

Palma Joy Strand (17:10.144)
Okay, I was just like it was flashing on and off a lot. I was curio okay. Okay, thank you. I’m sorry. Yeah.

Eric Schurenberg (17:19.759)
Tom, would you would you like Palm to just start over at the top of that answer? Which

Palma Joy Strand (17:27.224)
okay where was I?

Eric Schurenberg (17:29.009)
You you were s you were saying if people focus on the extremes.

Palma Joy Strand (17:33.145)
So people focus on the extremes. And I think that there’s often a, you know, there’s this group over here, or this group over here, or that group over there that that, you know, they’re out there doing their thing and they are not reachable. And but there is a huge group of people that we’ve found who are are open. and and actually I would say that probably the majority of people are open and are often a little anxious because things have gotten

you know, being out there in the public sphere has gotten sometimes feels a little dangerous, you know, and so people are holding back. and but that people are not really thrilled by that. People want to connect. I mean, what we find is that when people are given a structure and a space to have a real, genuine connection, not a I agree with you, we’re gonna reach some kind of solution, but just who are you as a person and who am I as a person?

And and sharing a story and then actually having the opportunity to listen to somebody else and be listened to. That that people are like, you know, this is a person, this is a complex person. And and so we really focus on, yeah, I think I think most of the people who actually come to Civity workshops are either open or kind of inclined to be open, but we really do emphasize reaching out to people who, you know, that kind of great mass of people who are.

kind of open available and and we you know Malka and I have been practicing civity in our own lives on a kind of a daily basis for a long time and I have to say that you know approaching people with a kind of a I see you you’re a person it’s very rare to be rejected al almost always when you offer that kind of I see you you’re a person that person responds in kind.

And it’s and it’s very it’s kind of predictable in a good way, but it’s also really powerful.

Malka Kopell (19:33.327)
Yeah, and I I I want to add that yeah absolutely there’s a huge middle out there and there’s a lot of opportunity to build solidarity with the middle. And the people that come who come to our workshops, they know people, other people who may be less likely to w want to do this, but they can go first. I mean and for you know what we do in our workshops is we assign homework. You know, again, go out there, find somebody

Eric Schurenberg (19:33.461)
that’s go ahead, Martin.

Malka Kopell (20:03.215)
that you, you know, maybe you’re a little distrustful of or they’re distrustful of you. Take the first step and have a conversation and listen to them. Share your story and listen to them. Something that you’ve already just done in the workshop. We all know people. And there’s a there’s a lot that we can do with with the people who are already in our network.

Palma Joy Strand (20:24.706)
Yeah. And it does sometimes feel a little risky, you know, and we say that. Yeah, it this can feel a little risky because we’re used to either not going there or kind of sticking to the, you know, how’s the weather? What’s going on? but if i you know, if people and and again, you know, we give people homework and and we’ve done this ourselves, if you go a little bit more and not like sharing your deepest, darkest secrets, but just a little bit of who you are, people really respond to that invitation.

Malka Kopell (20:28.271)
Yeah.

Eric Schurenberg (20:54.319)
there is a real power to storytelling. It’s is how our brains are wired to make sense of the world. But I can imagine that there are stories that I could tell in certain situations that would be accidentally more divisive than than unifying. what kind of what are the guidelines that you that you advise people about on on sort of pulling back the veil on their own story?

Malka Kopell (21:23.149)
We we we we tell people that they should be comfortable, they should share what is comfortable to them. I mean there’s no there there’s no they should not feel uncomfortable in sharing. but I will say that what what we’re talking about people doing, it doesn’t happen, it really doesn’t happen naturally in the civic sphere. So even sharing

Something a little bit more about yourself, not too deep, but a little bit more, that is unusual. And and it it’s it it goes a long way. It also opens the door for the other person to do the same. And and I’ll just want to emphasize that listening is also very important part of what we’re talking about. It’s not just talking, right? and that and that creating it it’s we’re really talking about an exchange of gifts.

Eric Schurenberg (22:06.09)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Schurenberg (22:12.351)
Uh-huh.

Malka Kopell (22:18.263)
I am sharing my story, that is a gift. And I am opening the space and listening to your story, which is also a gift. And just even just even kind of drawing a, you know, kind of a line around that, go see this, take this, and do this, you know, it’s what what is risky is actually is it’s less about what you say than the fact that you’re introducing something personal in what what is often a a less personal situation.

Eric Schurenberg (22:47.187)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Malka Kopell (22:48.015)
But it it again, it goes a long way, even a little bit.

Eric Schurenberg (22:51.273)
Okay.

let me refer back to the previous episode with Matt Lewandowski, whose work was largely around political polarization. one of the things that he found most confronting in his research into emphasizing common bonds with among among citizens is that the incentives, you know, in politics, in social media algorithms, in media in general, drive

The most visible people in our society, so the politicians and the and the media personalities and so on to create and share divisive content, to lean into outrage and tribalism. Elites have tremendous power to steer the conversation, w you know, way beyond the their sort of personal connections. And

Lewandowski’s point was that if you can’t change those incentives and persuade the elites to tone it down, are you really able to make change? What do you think?

Palma Joy Strand (23:57.913)
So we do work at the local level. And you know, we we do take a systems view that that culture is built from the bottom up as well as from the top down. And that people, when people interact with each other, you know, at the grocery store, in their jobs, on the street, that that that is building that is building a culture and these these interactions, you know, we were a participant a number of years ago in a mega study out of Stanford University. the challenge

strengthening democracy challenge. We submitted a intervention, a vir virtual intervention, eight minutes or less. So very, very short. And you know that there were 252. They they called for submissions. There were 252. They selected 25 to test our civity storytelling, which kind of gives people the experience that we give in our in our workshops, was selected and and

came out as number one in reducing social distrust, and number two in reducing social distance, and also reduce partisan animosity. So I think we forget that that we are as human beings, we’re kind of wired to connect at a person-to-person level. And that that when we have that experience, particularly when we have that experience over and over, particularly when we have that experience with people who are kind of a little different from us.

That starts to build this sense of of trust. But the other thing, and I I want to kind of get to this point, we’ve moved, I think, over the time that we’ve been working. We we do a lot of training, we do a lot of workshops. We’ve also started to really recognize the importance of the story that that people are you know being bombarded with this, you know, it’s not possible. We’re so divided, that’s just who we are, us versus them. You know, it’s like this kind of

weight of inevitable doom. And and what we find is, you know, there are a lot of people out there, and this is something you probably get this too, Eric. Like we talk to a lot of people out there in the country who are connecting, who are building, who are, you know, making things work. And it’s really important for those stories to be visible. and we’ve really sort of started

Palma Joy Strand (26:12.44)
Trying to highlight those stories. Well, you know, look at what’s happening here. Look at look at look at what’s going on over here. And there are other people who are doing this as well. It’s like it’s really important to lift up those other stories of possibility.

Eric Schurenberg (26:26.545)
Okay, good. Well that’s a a good segue to to the next question I wanted to ask, and which I must ask, and in in reality is the role of media in all of this. So as a professional journalist, I have to admit that even before social media platforms can’t blame it all on Twitter and Facebook, news newsmen, news editors were drawn to conflict. Maybe you could say this reflects

human nature, we’re drawn to stories that have drama and provoke emotions, and you know, particularly the most powerful emotions of fear and outrage. And digital media just makes it worse. How much do you blame media for the divides in the country? And to what extent do you see people unable to communicate because they don’t recognize each other’s facts?

And how do you overcome that?

Malka Kopell (27:27.803)
I I think, you know, going back to the story, I think there’s more than one story. So I think that, you know, I I I yes, the media is drawn to conflict and there is a story out there that that is actually being put out there intentionally, that we shouldn’t trust each other. And you know, and I and and and and that it yeah, and and the media is reporting on that and and that goes out, that story goes out. But there is another story.

Which is that which is a story, you know, we we talk up we’re talking a lot about the local. See who’s in front of you. See who you know. see, you know, with your own eyes, believe that story too. That we are in we’re all in it together, that we can make a difference, that we as human beings have the power to change culture. In fact, we’re the only ones who can because we’re the ones who created the culture in the first place. That is the story that we talk about.

And that we encourage you to talk about.

Palma Joy Strand (28:30.828)
Yeah. It’s also important, I think, to remember that news is news because it’s unusual. That most most pe you know, right? Most people ch chug along in, you know, kind of get along with their neighbors and get along and make things work and, you know, aren’t in violent clashes. And even when you have a member of your family or your circle who you don’t agree with, you

Eric Schurenberg (28:40.607)
Yes.

Palma Joy Strand (28:56.142)
kind of figure out how to navigate that relationship because relationships are important to us. And so I think that that that sense of what’s in you know spotlighted the the the aberrations that that that are the news become like the norm as opposed to what the norm is actually the norm is is something that it it’s kind of hard to remember because the media is the media is what the media is. But

But it’s it’s important to lift up that other like this is what real life really is for most people most of the time.

Eric Schurenberg (29:29.471)
That is a good point, Palmet. The the headline, Neighbors on Elm Street shovel each other’s driveway is never gonna be

Palma Joy Strand (29:36.622)
Yeah, and yet it happens all the time.

Eric Schurenberg (29:42.651)
is there a a journalist or a a newsroom right now that you’d point out as telling the story well?

Palma Joy Strand (29:55.011)
I I like to hear, I like to read you know, I think one of the things about Substack has been that you can read people who fr who speak from their own experience. and and I think that for me, you know, I read the kind of the mainstream media. but I’m also really drawn to some of the Substack people who

who you know, have they have the they’re not opinion pieces per se, but they’re just people speaking for their own experience. And I I really appreciate that kind of less of a less of a filter sometimes.

Eric Schurenberg (30:32.565)
Okay. Can you name names?

Palma Joy Strand (30:34.798)
well I’ll call out one person who I just I really appreciate. There’s a woman named Jess Piper who is out of Missouri. and I I’m interested, I have some connections with the Midwest and the rural Midwest. And she she talks about about you know Missouri and and her experience and and being you know she’s a a very liberal progressive person in a in a red state and

had that experience. And I think that that that that what it feels like and and what it looks like from the ground, I really appreciate.

Eric Schurenberg (31:14.585)
Interesting. Okay. Let’s talk about AI because everyone has to talk about AI today. Large language models, they can they can have a sympathetic, quasi-human, empathetic conversation with you. probably not unlike the conversations that people who pass through a Civity workshop have. but having a relationship with an AI model obviously doesn’t count. And

danger is that it’ll just serve to further isolate the the user. So from your sort of powers of crystal ball forecasting, is AI going to deepen divides, do you think, by trapping us in our own bubbles? Or or will it have a more beneficial effect? We’re neutral.

Palma Joy Strand (32:05.592)
Well, I’ll I’ll I’ll maybe kind of talk about AI, but maybe not answer your question specifically, because I don’t have a crystal ball about AI. But and this is a little I’m a little little bit of a wonky person, but I I was watching a documentary not that long ago called Being in the World about this philosopher. And they were talking about AI. And one of the things that one of the guys, one of these philosopher guys said was that the difference between AI and people is that

AI just doesn’t care. And people do. And I think that I think that that is something, you know, we’ve said, you know, we focus or head people, but we really acknowledge the importance of the heart. And AI can mimic that, but AI can’t really do that. And and I think that really staying in touch with that fact that we are human beings who have hearts and we actually do care, things matter to us.

Eric Schurenberg (32:54.181)
Hmm.

Palma Joy Strand (33:04.552)
it’s that that’s really integral to our work.

Eric Schurenberg (33:08.575)
Malka, this we’re back to the heart again, which you were the one to bring up. any comments on AI?

Malka Kopell (33:15.579)
Well, I’d say I actually my my comment is about the way that people are talking about AI, actually. I mean there seems to be, you know, I wouldn’t maybe it hasn’t risen to the level of a resistance movement, but I f I find that the kind of the conversations about AI are, you know, where is it taking away our humanity? And I think that the the the kind of the good side you know

of that is that people are really recognizing the fact that there is humanity and put and perhaps rightfully concerned about some of it being diminished. so I you know I I think you know I what Palma said is that that that is one thing that AI cannot do. It it it can’t be a human. And I think that that the discussion about AI is is is making that even more clear. It really it actually for us it provides a window

to to what we’re talking about to the heart and say, Okay, yeah, this is you know, you we’re living in a world that includes AI. Here’s your opportunity as a human being to really bring the heart piece forward.

Eric Schurenberg (34:25.893)
for someone who’s never done a civity workshop, what’s the the short index card version of a workshop that they could bring with them and try at a neighborhood barbecue this summer?

Malka Kopell (34:41.247)
I’ll say one thing about the workshop is you really focus on the power of the one-on-one conversation. A lot of these kind of c getting together, coming together discussions are are done in groups. We’ve wor we’ve worked in groups our whole life. and the and even in a group, there’s an opportunity for one person to talk to another person, you know, and that they don’t know that well or that they want to get to know better.

Eric Schurenberg (34:55.701)
Mm-hmm.

Malka Kopell (35:09.283)
And and we so we have a lot of that in our workshop. We we we you know we give one-on-one opportunities to share stories with different prompt questions. And you know, it it’s the one-on-one conversation is a beautiful thing. It’s a maximum opportunity for sharing, maximum opportunity for listening in a relatively short period of time. Our our one-on-one conversations are ten minutes. and so really I that’s that’s what the workshop

Eric Schurenberg (35:36.319)
Hm.

Malka Kopell (35:39.051)
is it’s in a thumbnail it’s it’s a a chance for people to interact usually with one other person and then they talk about it. They talk about what they did, they talk about how it felt they talked about they talk about how it felt to share they talk about how it felt to listen and we do a we do a a a focus on difference

in our workshops that I think we don’t see that much in in com in a lot of these bridging conversations. And a lot of the bridging conversations focus on common ground, what we have in common. And and we say and practice that differences between people are important. that not only yeah and and that we are all different from each other in many different ways.

Eric Schurenberg (36:19.402)
Yes, right.

Malka Kopell (36:36.995)
And really what we’re not what we’re going for is not this difference and that difference and let’s come let’s come to common ground about that, whether it’s a political difference or a cultural difference. It’s let let’s e let’s understand that the other person is just as complicated as we are, as I am. That’s what we’re really going for, is to have everybody see the complexity in the other person, not to cross one bridge, but to see that the other person is really.

made up of of so many different identities as as as as as am I.

Eric Schurenberg (37:11.591)
Uh-huh. well that’s a good that’s good Palma, would you add to the sort of I I what I’m taking away from what Malka said is that sort of the you want to pair off perhaps in these environments where, you know, you can you can make a little difference in an informal gathering like a neighborhood barbecue or Thanksgiving dinner.

Palma Joy Strand (37:35.073)
Yeah, so you know, it’s funny. I I am a little bit of a I’m a little bit of a shy person and I’m a little intimidated when I go to a you know a neighborhood barbecue, even when I know people I’m you know who I’m gonna talk to. And I started to realize, and this is actually something that came from my husband, it’s like if I have a a good conversation with one person, that’s that’s a wonderful party. That’s a wonderful I don’t need to

You have a conversation with everybody. I don’t need to meet everybody. That would be lovely, but but but I’m connected if I have one or maybe two conversations and they’re and they’re genuine. And I think the other thing, you know, you asked about sort of taking this out into people’s lives. we we we obviously conversations are important. Sometimes we’re talking about, you know, a coffee that’s like an hour, sometimes we’re talking about a 10 or 15-minute conversation at a party.

But we also talk about something called civity brushes, which are sort of micro interactions where you know you’re ordering something at the you know coffee shop and the person is and you’re like, Hey, how are you? Or, you know, somebody answers the phone, you know, how are you today? It just like I I see you, you’re a person, like you matter. Sorry, Malca.

Eric Schurenberg (38:42.537)
Hmm.

Eric Schurenberg (38:49.053)
Let’s

Malka Kopell (38:49.227)
I’ll I’ll refer good.

Eric Schurenberg (38:54.154)
Mm-hmm.

Malka Kopell (38:56.455)
I’ll refer back to the Stanford study that Palma was talking about. the intervention that the civity storytelling intervention that we that we pro we proposed was is one is basically people speaking into a camera about themselves one at a time. Very short, but one at a time. And yeah, and and and and the the so the the the the study participant is the other person in the conversation, right? They’re look they’re they’re seeing

Palma Joy Strand (39:15.128)
Forty five seconds. Yeah.

Malka Kopell (39:25.411)
A person, a series of people talked to them. And what the study showed is that not only did the person feel differently about the person that spoke to them in the study, but they felt differently about the people that the person represented to them. This is a study in political difference. So Democrats felt differently about Republicans. Republicans felt differently about Democrats after seeing one person at a time speak to them.

So the one on one conversation does ripple out the effects ripple out. As Palma says, you can go to a party, have a good a great conversation and think it’s a great party. That’s that’s what you get from it.

Eric Schurenberg (40:07.007)
Good. All right. In in closing, I often ask guests whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic about the future. And the the ones who say they’re optimistic tend to argue that the majority of individuals making choices of their own free will over time will choose truth over falsehood and civil discourse over hatred. And pessimists, on the other hand, tend to believe that

However well intentioned individuals are, they can’t overcome social structures like media that that incentivize division and and tribalism. Between those two, where do you two fall? Malka?

Malka Kopell (40:48.559)
I’m an optimist, but I I would say I’m an I’m an optimist based on data. I see this every day. I see yes, I see as Palma said, people are hungry to connect. they just want it to be okay. we are a social species, and if we can let people do their thing, they can make great change.

Eric Schurenberg (40:54.038)
huh.

Eric Schurenberg (41:08.915)
Good. Palma?

Palma Joy Strand (41:10.914)
I I’m I I’m I hesitate to use the word optimist, but I am hopeful. And the reason I’m hopeful is because cooperation is the human superpower. That is our evolutionary, this is you know, kind of the research again shows. This is how we’ve gotten to be where we are. We are we are programmed, hardwired to connect. And and that I think is kind of our our ultimate imperative. And so

It it’s a it’s a it’s not a head truth or falsity thing. It’s a it’s a kind of a kind of innate gut, heart, head all together. That’s that’s kind of who we are. We connect.

Eric Schurenberg (41:55.092)
We connect. Well, thank you so much. I’m s so happy on behalf of the in reality audience that we connected. Thank thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Malka Kopell (42:03.332)
Likewise.

Palma Joy Strand (42:04.49)
lovely to be here. Thank you.

Malka Kopell (42:06.991)
Thank you, Eric.

Eric Schurenberg (42:08.278)
Thank you.

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Created & produced by: Podcast Partners / Published: Jul 21 2026

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