Habits of a Peace Maker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues
Steven T. Collis
Shadow Mountain Publishing (September 2024)

How to find workable solutions through dialogue and conversation

In the Epilogue, Steven Collis recalls Abraham Lincoln’s advice to attorneys: “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time.” I agree with Collis that our world needs peacemakers, those who can address seemingly intractable problems “with civility, kindness, respect, thoughtfulness, pure knowledge, and flexibility. We are most likely to find workable solutions through dialogue and conversation led by people who know how to make those happen.”

Long ago, Aristotle observed, “You are what you do repeatedly. So your excellence isn’t an act, it’s a habit.” Collis suggests that the success of peacemaking — solving even the most intractable problems — requires the development of specific habits that change potentially toxic conversations into healthy dialogues. He devotes a separate chapter to each of the ten and they are best revealed within the narrative, in context.

In or near the central business district of most major cities, there is a farmer’s market at which — at least prior to COVID — some of the merchants have offered slices of fresh fruit as samples of their wares. In that same spirit, I now provide a selection of comments by Collis:

o “So let’s face reality together: if the zombie apocalypse happens tomorrow and disrupts all of the world’s supply chains and products we rely on and get so easily from the store, most of us are going to be dead after a short time. It won’t be because of the zombies –it will be because we don’t know how to grow food, access clean drinking water, or create any of the many things we rely on for modern life.”

o “Even in our interpersonal relationships, lack of knowledge can be a powerful source for discord.” (Page 15)

o “Once we recognize we must do the heavy lifting of finding our own news source, the obvious issue is who to trust. The short answer is no one.” (61)

o  “If you assume the best about your interlocutors, your goal in any conversation with them will shift. Instead of trying to persuade them of their bigotry or foolishness, you will want to increase understanding for everyone involved. Asking sincere questions helps others better understand their own positions and it helps you better understand others’ motivations. What you will usually find is (1) people are often not as firm as they think they are in their own views, and (2) they generally hold good motivations.” (82)

o “Our opinions should be like unstable explosives offered slowly and gently.” (137)

o “What we are interested in is gaslighting as a form of argument that almost always takes what could be productive conversations and turns them into fights.” (152)

o “Human beings developed an instinct for tribalism for a reason. It allows for protection, group productivity, and achieving in numbers that which would never be achieved solo. Tribalism, by itself, is not an inherent negative. And, in fact, remaining true to our tribe when our principles demand it is another habit peacemakers regularly employ.” (178-179)

o “When we spend time with others and truly get to know them and the circumstances that led them to behave as they do, we tend to be less judgmental of them and more understanding of who they are and why they make the decisions they do.” (186)

Collis focuses on ten specific habits that can help avoid, prevent, or eliminate what he characterizes as “unhealthy dialogues” and devotes a separate chapter to each  habit.  They are best revealed in context, within the flow of the narrative. He points out that Habits of a Peace Maker “does not claim to offer answers to society’s greatest questions; it tries instead to pass on some of the greatest gifts that I [as well as countless others]have ever received: the tools to find those answers ourselves, ion delightful dialogue with the people in our lives.”

I agree with Steven Collis that many of the world’s seemingly intractable problems are not unsolvable.  “What they require are peacemakers, those who can address them with civility kindness, respect, thoughtfulness, pure knowledge, and flexibility. We are most likely to find workable solutions through dialogue and conversation led by people who know how to make those happen.”

He and I both hnope that the habits in this book will help  you to become one of them.”

* * *

Here are two suggestions while you are reading Habits of a Peace Maker: First, highlight key passages. Also,  perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to head notes and key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to relevant issues or questions addressed or suggested. Pay special attention to the “What We’ve Learned About…” material at the conclusion of all ten chapters.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.