Listening Across Political Divides: David Deighton and the Art of Conversation
What happens when you stop trying to win a political argument and instead become curious about the person sitting across from you? For artist David Deighton, that question became the foundation of Triptych Dialogue, an ongoing art experiment that places him in conversation with strangers about politics, emotion, disagreement, and the possibility of human connection.
In this conversation on the Marti Oakley Show, Deighton describes how the project began with his own frustration and anger. He had been making anonymous political artwork, but eventually realized that he could not remain behind the work. He needed to reveal himself, approach people directly, and find out what happened when politics became a face-to-face encounter.
What began as an experiment in public art gradually became an experiment in listening. Deighton explains how hundreds of conversations changed his own reactions to political disagreement and led him toward active listening, sensory awareness, and the search for emotional commonality rather than agreement.
The conversation moves from National Parks and public art to echo chambers, algorithms, artificial intelligence, travel, food, strangers on airplanes, and the possibility that ordinary human encounters might themselves become small political acts.
Key Takeaways
* Triptych Dialogue began when Deighton decided to move from anonymous political artwork toward direct conversations with strangers.
* His three questions were developed with linguistics professors after he discovered that his original questions were themselves capable of producing polarized responses.
* Repeated encounters taught Deighton to recognize his own emotional triggers and practice listening rather than preparing a response.
* His Word-Title process looks for a single word that emerges from a participant's answers, often revealing an emotional connection beneath political disagreement.
* His "Bridging Echo Chambers" installation turns the problem of separated worldviews into a physical question about whether two contained worlds can communicate.
* Deighton sees face-to-face encounters as a practical way of rebuilding connections at a time when digital systems can make people increasingly comfortable communicating only within familiar environments.
Detailed Exploration
I had to stop yelling and start talking
When I began this work, I was angry about things happening in the world and in this country. I had been expressing that anger through artwork, and I was doing it anonymously.
Then, about six years ago, I realized I couldn't just keep yelling.
I needed to talk to people.
That meant revealing myself and speaking directly to the public instead of hiding behind a name or an artwork. I wanted to find out what would happen if I took the subject I was most interested in—the political world—and brought it into a direct encounter with another person.
Politics seemed like an obvious taboo.
There are subjects we avoid because we're afraid that if we talk about them, we're going to end up in an argument about facts, opinions, or beliefs. So I thought: let's talk about politics.
I wasn't a professional communicator. I was an artist trying to figure out how an artist could enter that conversation.
The questions had to change before the conversation could change
At first, I wrote three questions myself.
I thought they were interesting questions. But once I started asking them, I noticed something: the way I formulated a question influenced the answer I received.
So I went to friends who were professors of linguistics at two different universities.
They looked at my questions and told me they were polarizing.
That was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.
I wanted to talk about a taboo subject without creating outrage or confrontation. I wanted people to be able to talk about politics and still have a civil conversation.
So I asked them to make me three questions.
Those became the three questions I have continued to use.
The first asks:
"How would you describe the political system of the United States of America?"
The second asks:
"Describe your feelings or reactions to the current state of U.S. politics."
The third asks the participant to finish the sentence:
"Politics in the United States..."
The structure is intentional.
The person begins by describing a system. Then they move into their own emotional response. Then they complete a sentence in their own words.
At the end, I ask for one word that encompasses everything they have said.
That word becomes a Word-Title.
I had to learn to listen instead of preparing my answer
The first part of the experiment was difficult.
I would hear something that I strongly disagreed with and immediately become triggered. Sometimes I would be thinking, "I can't believe what I'm hearing."
And while the person was still talking, I was already preparing the five cents I was going to add afterward.
Eventually I realized that this wasn't what I was trying to do.
I wasn't listening.
After roughly one hundred interviews and attempts, something began to change. I became less triggered—not because I stopped caring, but because I learned how to listen more deeply.
I began to lean into the encounter.
I also started paying attention to my other senses.
I think of the mind as a sense, too, but when my mind starts racing, I can return to the physical environment. I can feel the air. I can smell the pine trees. I can become conscious of where I am and what is happening around me.
The other person is already using their mind to tell me what they want to say.
My responsibility, as I see it, is to be present for them.
Today, I try to engage all my senses and be completely present in the moment.
The National Park became part of the artwork
The question then became where these encounters should happen.
I live in New Mexico, where so much of daily life is organized around cars. A street corner isn't necessarily a place where strangers stop and talk. In commercial spaces there are restrictions on what you can do, and a church might bring together people who are already relatively like-minded.
I wanted diversity.
National Parks gave me a different environment.
I could go to places such as Yellowstone, near Old Faithful, or the Grand Canyon and establish an installation in a place where people were already stopping, looking around, and encountering something outside their ordinary routine.
National Parks also have designated free-speech areas where people are accustomed to seeing others express ideas or distribute information.
That wasn't my purpose. I wasn't trying to offend anybody.
I wanted to see whether political conversations could happen without anger or a fight.
The park itself became part of the experiment.
The artwork is an excuse to engage
I set up an installation that gives people a reason to stop.
They see something unusual and wonder what it is.
That's important.
Sometimes we need an excuse to engage with a stranger. Curiosity can provide that opening.
The artwork becomes an invitation.
Once somebody is curious enough to approach, I can ask the three questions.
The conversation is no longer simply a person walking up to another person and being told, "Let's talk politics."
There is something between us.
There is an object.
There is a question.
There is a reason to be there.
That changes the conditions of the encounter.
The Word-Title became a bridge
After the three questions, I ask the person for one word that encompasses what they have said.
Something interesting began happening.
People might spend several minutes expressing anger about politics, but the final word could be something completely different.
It might be about hope.
It might be about community.
It might be about people or engagement.
I don't consider that scientific evidence. It is simply an impression from the encounters.
But it made me wonder whether there is a deeper human need for connection underneath all the political anger.
If someone asks me how I feel about what they've said, I can tell them honestly that sometimes I was triggered.
I can say, "You know what? I'm angry too."
And suddenly there is something we share.
That one word becomes my bridge.
We don't have to agree before we recognize each other
I've now spoken with hundreds of people, and I've never had a violent argument.
That surprised me.
The commonality I find is usually not a fact or an opinion. It is an emotion or a feeling.
If someone is angry, and I can acknowledge that I am angry too, we have something to work with.
The political disagreement doesn't disappear.
But something else has appeared.
People sometimes tell me they expected "you guys" to be a certain kind of person. They expected the other side to be almost monstrous.
Then they discover that I'm not what they imagined.
That experience has changed me too.
I began to understand how much of our picture of other people is shaped by cultural environments, repetition, and the echo chambers we're inside.
Bridging Echo Chambers makes the problem physical
One of the installations I describe is called "Bridging Echo Chambers."
I use a museum-style stand with a plexiglass case. Inside the case is a small figure or an abstract object.
I tell people that the object can represent them or me.
But I'm less interested in what's inside than in the container around it.
That container represents an echo chamber.
When we're inside our own worldview, it can appear enormous. But the container is actually quite limited.
Then I introduce another container—a small glass spice jar with another figure inside.
That's another echo chamber.
Now there are two questions.
How does one echo chamber communicate with another?
How does one enter the other?
Where is the fluidity between them?
Can they collide?
Can they communicate?
Usually, I stop talking.
There is a moment of silence.
People look at the objects and think about the question.
That's the part I find interesting.
Vulnerability creates a different kind of conversation
The conversation has led me toward the idea that we need to speak non-confrontationally with people whose views are very different from ours.
That requires vulnerability.
You have to be willing to let another person show you what their world looks like.
Their plexiglass case.
Their cave.
And then you have to be willing to let them see yours.
I don't think the first step is agreement about facts or opinions.
Those can be the things that trigger us.
The first step is recognizing the humanity of the person.
Then maybe the conversation can continue.
The goal is to work from the ground up
Eventually I became less interested in changing something from the top down.
I started thinking about working from the ground up.
If the connections between people are the foundation, perhaps that's where we should work.
We live in a time of digital devices and increasingly powerful artificial intelligence. If people are already separated into their own bubbles, those divisions can become harder to cross.
So I think we need to return to some basics.
Talk to somebody.
Listen.
Ask questions.
Find out what another person is experiencing.
That sounds very small compared with the scale of political problems, but that's part of the point.
It is something an individual can actually do.
The conversation itself became part of the artwork
The host pointed out that when I needed help reformulating my questions, I went to linguists rather than immediately turning to a chatbot.
That matters to me because this project is fundamentally about encounters with people.
The irony is that we were talking about AI while also having a very human conversation.
I see these exchanges as creative moments.
This conversation itself can become a kind of art performance—not because we are pretending to perform, but because two people are actually exploring ideas together.
That's the theater of life.
People want connection, but listening takes practice
I don't consider what I am doing scientific research.
What I have are impressions.
One of those impressions is that people want connection. They have things they need to say.
But that doesn't mean we should force ourselves to listen to every opinion we encounter.
Listening to somebody with a radically different opinion can be painful.
I've experienced both sides of it.
I've felt the outrage rising in me.
I've also learned to take it in and remain present.
That didn't happen because I discovered a technique once.
It happened through practice.
You try.
You make a mistake.
You adjust.
You try again.
Maybe you shouldn't begin with the person who matters most emotionally. You can practice with people who are less important to you and gradually develop the ability to remain present when the stakes are higher.
It is different when you are emotionally invested in someone.
Strangers can sometimes be easier.
A conversation can be a political act
I see every one of these conversations as a political act.
Voting is one kind of political participation.
But engaging a stranger and discovering a commonality is another.
There are people who say they don't want to vote because they believe the system is corrupt. I can't control what someone decides to do about voting.
But I can control whether I engage another person.
I can create a connection.
And sometimes something happens later that I didn't initiate.
Someone I've spoken with might come back and tell me that they spoke to a stranger themselves.
That interests me more than simply having one successful conversation.
The action can move from one person to another.
Place changes the possibility of conversation
The environment matters.
People need to be receptive.
There need to be fewer distractions.
Things need to be calm enough for someone to stop and pay attention.
Rush hour in New York probably isn't the ideal environment for this kind of encounter.
That's one reason the National Parks work for me.
The place changes the conditions of the conversation.
Travel isn't necessary to encounter another world
I've been to many countries, and I was raised between France and the United States.
I've lived in both countries and spent much of my life moving between them.
But I don't think we have to travel far to experience another way of thinking.
We can do that in our own neighborhoods.
There are communities around us that we don't normally enter.
You can go to a restaurant serving food you've never eaten.
You can enter a religious community you've never experienced, even if you're not religious.
You can encounter another language, another set of customs, another way of seeing the world.
That's a form of travel too.
Taboo subjects can lead to better questions
I believe in confronting taboos.
That doesn't mean every subject should be approached carelessly. Some subjects involve real harm.
But even then, I think we can ask questions.
Why is this harmful?
Why shouldn't this be done?
What are the boundaries?
What can we learn by examining the subject rather than simply refusing to discuss it?
For me, the point isn't to break taboos simply for the sake of breaking them.
It's to use questions to explore them.
Maybe those questions can help communities become more resilient to division.
The stories we exchange are part of what makes us human
The host describes conversations she has had with strangers on airplanes.
One involved a mother traveling with her daughter, who had cancer, on a Make-A-Wish trip. Another involved a man who had suffered a serious spider bite and showed her the effects on his leg.
These encounters stayed with her because of the stories people shared.
That brought us back to something I think is increasingly important.
Human stories are rich.
AI may become capable of doing more, but right now there is something about a direct human story that isn't easily reproduced.
We have our voices, our bodies, our senses, our energy, and the physical presence between us.
Our devices don't provide the same thing.
Digital life can become a diet of dessert
We started talking about the amount of time people spend with digital devices.
My conversations with strangers might last a couple of minutes or more. Online, our interactions can become much shorter as we scroll from one piece of content to another.
I think of digital information like a huge buffet.
There are many choices.
But we're often drawn toward the dessert.
It's sugary. It's easy. It tastes good.
We don't necessarily eat the vegetables.
The host is a baker, so the conversation naturally moved into cake.
We talked about the difference between industrial food and artisan food. A mass-produced cake isn't the same experience as something made by a person whose work, ingredients, and story you can understand.
That became another metaphor for digital life.
Maybe some digital experiences are like industrial cakes.
The direct human encounter is more like the artisan version.
You meet the person who made it.
You know something about where it came from.
There is a story attached to it.
A good conversation can change your taste
The food conversation eventually turned to travel.
The host mentioned Hawaii and the reputation of its pineapples.
I had been in Japan the previous March, and I said that after eating tempura there, I might never experience tempura in the United States in quite the same way again.
We joked that encountering something in its original context can ruin you—in a good way.
Then I realized that the same thing might happen with human conversation.
A rich conversation with a stranger might make it harder to accept the thinness of some digital interactions.
It might "ruin" us for them.
That might not be such a bad thing.
The goal isn't to sell something
The host asked me what the end goal was.
I'm not really selling anything.
I'm getting something from these interactions too.
Before this project, I was much more of a recluse. I didn't necessarily want to talk to people.
I was angry at humanity and at the cruelty I saw around me.
The cruelty hasn't disappeared.
But maybe there is a little less of it when people actually talk to one another.
And I'm still learning how to talk.
That's part of what I get from the project.
The act of listening and being present is rewarding in itself.
Do your own art
I have a YouTube channel for Triptych Dialogue, but I think of it almost as a diary.
It's a little wacky.
It's not designed simply to entertain.
There are strange things there, photographs, installations, conversations, and ideas.
But I'd actually be happier if someone watched it and then did something themselves.
Talk to a stranger.
Talk to the coworker you're no longer speaking with.
Talk to the family member you're avoiding.
Ask a question.
Listen.
Make your own art.
The action itself can be creative.
It doesn't have to be a performance in the traditional sense.
It can simply be you being real with another person.
That's the play of life.
From the Conversation
"I couldn't just go out there and be yelling all the time."
"First we have to show our humanity."
"There's always one word."
"Every one of those conversations is a political act."
"That's the play of life, if you want. The theater of life."
Related Triptych Dialogue Projects
Three Non-Confrontational Political Questions:
The three questions form the recurring conversational structure at the center of the episode.
The episode traces how Deighton moved from being triggered by responses to practicing sustained, sensory awareness and listening.
National Park Art Installations:
National Parks became the physical environments in which many of Deighton's stranger encounters and listening experiments took place.
FAQ
What is Triptych Dialogue?
Triptych Dialogue is David Deighton's ongoing conceptual art project using public encounters, art installations, questions, listening, and participation to explore political division and human connection.
What are David Deighton's three political questions?
The questions ask participants to describe the political system of the United States, describe their feelings or reactions to the current state of U.S. politics, and complete the sentence "Politics in the United States..."
What is a Word-Title?
After answering the three questions, participants are asked to choose one word that encompasses their responses. Deighton uses that word as a Word-Title within the project.
Why does David Deighton use strangers for political conversations?
Deighton has found that strangers can sometimes discuss sensitive subjects with less emotional investment than people who are already deeply connected to one another. He uses the encounter as an opportunity to practice listening and search for emotional commonality.
What is Bridging Echo Chambers?
Bridging Echo Chambers is an installation using physical containers to represent separate worldviews. Deighton asks how two contained perspectives might communicate, cross boundaries, or become open to one another.
About the Host
The episode appears in the Marti Oakley & TS Radio archive, the TS Radio Network program associated with The Marti Oakley Show.