What Bridging Is… and What It Isn’t
Before you dive into this website, we want to clarify a few important aspects of bridge building.
Bridging is Not About Persuasion; It is About Understanding
The true goal of bridging differences isn’t to convince another person of your viewpoint or even necessarily to build consensus. Instead, the heart of bridging work lies in trying to understand someone else’s perspective, even if it’s not your own. While you might not share their views, you don’t dismiss them; you dig deeper to try to appreciate where those views came from. This requires asking questions and a willingness to suspend judgment.
Bridging Recognizes Common Humanity
Bridge building does not mean that you always find common ground or compromise. You may disagree with another person, sometimes vehemently. But the key is that you don’t dehumanize them in the process – you never reduce them to a caricature or see them as somehow less worthy of health and happiness than you are. Indeed, bridging starts from recognizing that another person or group has their own human needs, tastes, values, goals, and worldview, just like you do. Without that basic recognition of your shared humanity, constructive dialogue and problem solving is unlikely to happen.
Bridging Requires Modesty and Humility
To bridge differences, you usually need to start by accepting that you don’t have all the answers or a monopoly on the truth. This is especially important because bridging often involves contact between people from different cultures or communities. You probably won’t get very far in bridge-building efforts if you presume that your own tradition or story is definitely the right one; that’s true whether you’re talking about major historical events or your own family’s history.
Bridging Is Not Always Revolutionary; It’s Sometimes About Small Shifts
While bridging differences might mean overcoming a history of conflicts – personal or political – or forging an alliance between once-opposing groups to work toward a common goal, it sometimes centers on more modest shifts. That may just mean setting an intention or an openness to more change down the line. “Bridging is sometimes just putting a flag in your land that says, ‘I’m working on it,’” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. “Sometimes that’s the job of the person who bridges, to make small incremental changes.”
Bridging Involves Inner Work, Not Just Action
When we think about bridging differences, we usually think about grand gestures or breakthrough conversations. But the truth is that much of the work happens before those events ever take place. To make them possible, we often need to cultivate the right mindsets and psychological approach – and that’s something we can do on our own.
That’s why a portion of this website is devoted to intrapersonal skills – things you can practice on your own, to build your capacity for more positive interactions with other people and across groups. You will see that elements of these skills can be practiced when we are interacting with others as well.
Bridging Is Not Without Risk
Bridging often involves taking risks and exposing vulnerability. You may risk having your overtures rejected, and you may often need to express feelings of hurt, anger, or disappointment. Perhaps most of all, when you truly try to hear someone else’s views, you risk being changed or influenced by what you hear. That willingness to be transformed can be an important part of bridging work.
Not Everyone Should Bridge in Every Circumstance
Partly because of those risks, it’s important to recognize that not everyone can or should feel compelled to build bridges in every situation – the work of bridging should not be done by demand. It’s ethically dubious, and often counterproductive, to ask people to bridge differences when they’re being discriminated against or otherwise denied social power. Before they’re ready to bridge, some must heal from personal trauma. And, as we’ve suggested above, bridge building is about expanding one’s sense of commonality with others, rather than trying to get them to adopt your worldview.
