Habits of a Peacemaker - Practical tools to change our potentially toxic conversations into healthy dialogues

In Habits of a Peacemaker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues (Shadow Mountain Publishing; 9/3/24) Steven T. Collis offers a practical, humbling path to better, more genuinely productive, and empathetic conversations.

As a law professor specializing in the First Amendment and a leading expert on civil discourse, Collis has built his career navigating some of the most divisive issues facing our world today. He’s bridged gaps between people across the ideological spectrum: academics, diplomats, foreign and domestic judges, high schoolers, religious leaders, college and graduate students, devout churchgoers, devoted atheists and agnostics, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those who believe in traditional notions of sexuality—essentially, people who are perhaps the most poised to disagree with each other.

Habits of a Peacemaker shows us many of the keys to creating civil discourse between theoretically opposing parties. These include reframing disagreement as an opportunity to learn rather than an argument to win, recognizing our intellectual limitations, acknowledging our basic biases, and so much more. By following these habits, we can engage in dialogue about difficult topics while simultaneously building and strengthening relationships. 

Steven T. Collis is an author and law professor at the University of Texas- Austin. A former research fellow at Stanford Law School, he is the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and is one of the nation’s leading thought leaders on the First Amendment and civil discourse. He regularly speaks to major media outlets and lay audiences all over the globe on those issues. He is the author of four books, most recently Habits of a Peacemaker