We have been bringing diverse people and perspectives together for over 30 years, last we took it to the next level by launching the OC Bridging Initiative. Even in the spring of 2024 we could not have imagined much greater the need would become. 

That’s because we are bringing people together across their political divisions to change how we see one another and uphold the idea that violence and dehumanization benefits no person and no cause. 

One of our recent participants said, “I learned that we are human first and that we can and should talk to each other beyond our labels.”  

Isn’t this the way we all want to be treated?! If you said yes, then join us! 

If you’re wondering why bridging is how we are meeting this moment, let me share… 

If you’re still reading this you probably either already think it’s a good idea or you’re a skeptic. I have found myself in both camps at times. I believe that we need to build bridges - but it needs to be authentic and not ask us to endorse views that we object to – because where we are now is not working. Division and disconnection dominate our lives, leaving our greatest problems unsolved. 

Though it is hard to engage across our divides, there are reasons to push through our discomfort and do it anyway. 

One reason is that arguing or presenting facts doesn’t work well for our brains. Here’s how Martha Beck somewhat humorously summarizes this in her book Beyond Anxiety, “once we’ve generated an anxiety-based story, our brains latch onto it as the only reality, becoming resistant to any other way of thinking. Take a group of anxious people with extreme political beliefs, say, or cultists, who are convinced that their leader – a former carpet salesman named Ralph – is a powerful wizard. Show these people irrefutable evidence that something they believe is factually incorrect. What happens? Research shows that their belief in the disproved idea actually grows stronger. Confronted by new information, the left side of the brain doesn’t open up, it sees the evidence, not as valuable information, but as a threat to its status quo, its truth – no THE truth.” 

Humans are living with more anxiety than ever, we take in more information in one day than people of the past did in an entire lifetime and our nervous systems have yet to catch up. So, we may interpret challenging and uncomfortable things to be threats and thus double down on our beliefs as a way to maintain our status quo, to feel safe. Put more succinctly, the facts alone don’t change our minds. 

We must also consider the function of echo chambers in society. Echo chambers are more than the tendency to gravitate toward people with whom we share common interests, views or values. Echo chambers exclude contradictory views, and they undermine the source of those views so that if one cannot refute information that contradicts their viewpoint, they just discredit the source and therefore all information that comes from it. Those with opposing views are labeled outsiders who, presumably, come with malintent.  

In his article, “Escape the Echo Chamber,” C Thi Nguyen writes, “Listen to what it actually sounds like when people reject the plain facts – it doesn’t sound like brute irrationality. One side points out a piece of economic data; the other side rejects that data by rejecting its source. They think that newspaper is biased, or the academic elites generating the data are corrupt. An echo chamber doesn’t destroy their members’ interest in the truth; it merely manipulates whom they trust and changes whom they accept as trustworthy sources and institutions.” Nguyen suggests that trust is the pivotal element here. When members of an echo chamber begin to have trusted relationships with people on the outside it, it may be possible to pierce the echo chamber. See the story of former neo-Nazi Derek Black, and how the goodwill of his college classmates was part of his exit from his hateful ideology.  

Also consider the effect that relationships of trust had on the gay civil rights movement. In The Path to Gay Rights: How Activism and Coming Out Changed Public Opinion, Jeremiah Garretson credits activism in the LGBTQ+ community for creating space for LGBTQ+ folks to come out and, “in doing so, they created positive associations among the larger public which shaped thinking on [LGBTQ+] related issues.” As people who harbored anti-gay views found out that people they loved, respected, and trusted were gay they had to reckon with their views in a new way. The relationship of trust pierced their echo chamber and allowed them to meaningfully challenge their prejudices in a way that information and facts alone could not. 

This kind of engagement is challenging. We take a big risk when we agree to trust that others will come in good faith and honor our most basic humanity and right to exist in the world. But knowing that disengaging and/or “facting” at one another just strengthens our echo chambers and breeds dehumanization, means we need some new options. Sometimes this might be easier than we think. 

In 2024, Science Magazine published a megastudy of interventions that reduced partisan animosity. Of the 250 examined, the most effective involved little personal risk. Sara Nispel of the University of Rochester notes that, “highlighting sympathetic, politically dissimilar people and emphasizing their common ground was effective in reducing partisan animosity. For example, a top-scoring intervention (“correcting division misperceptions”) involved watching a four-and-a-half-minute Heineken commercial from 2017, titled “Worlds Apart.” Just seeing that it’s possible to put each other’s humanity before our labels reduced animosity – what else might we see when we step into the possibilities? 

I believe that choosing to bridge is one viable option. We have crafted a format that has been tested and tweaked. There are boundaries and agreements that allow us to uphold our commitments to one another’s dignity. Participants have given positive feedback and showed a willingness to stay involved and grow the program. If you are interested in learning about the OC Bridging Initiative and whether it’s for you, find out more here!