Last modified on February 25, 2026 by Brad Phillips

The Enemies Project: Productive Conversations in Divided Times

In one corner, you’ll find a trans woman who wants to live her life in peace. In the other, you’ll find a woman who thinks that any transgender person belongs in a mental institution.

In another corner, you’ll find a White cop who cares about keeping his community safe. Opposite him, you’ll find a Black woman who views law enforcement as a threat to her safety.

Our lives are filled with these types of binary debates. Our politicians, podcasters, and social media platforms serve up supercharged outrage to drive voter, listener, and user engagement. The “other” side is presented as being all bad, motivated solely by evil desires.

As a result, nuance falls to the side. We no longer seek to understand why someone thinks as they do. We lump all people into a single category, erasing their individual identities and experiences, forgetting that actual people can hold a variety of complicated and even contradictory opinions. And if we had hoped to persuade them, we would fail, because few people being attacked as evil can make space to process new information, reconsider a viewpoint, or experience a change of heart.

I’m not naive. Some viewpoints can never be reconciled. I will never be friends with someone who advocates racist hate, for example, or who treats people with casual cruelty. So I’ll add an important caveat: this post assumes we’re dealing with people operating in good faith.

Here’s this post’s question: Can two people of good faith find common ground when they’re worlds apart?

I’ve recently become aware of a remarkable docuseries called The Enemies Project. In each hourlong episode, host Larry Rosen – an experienced mediation lawyer – speaks with two people who, on the surface, have little in common. According to the show’s description, “The Enemies Project is neither gotcha TV nor political debate. The purpose is for ‘enemies’ to find the humanity in the other — because in a warring world, understanding is rebellion.”

The participants aren’t allowed to spend more than a few minutes accusing the other person of being wrong. Instead, Larry encourages each person to go deep – to discuss what brings them joy, sadness, and meaning. Rather than trying to drive an argument, the participants are encouraged to listen – to truly hear the other person. To help make sure that happens, the participants even switch roles, allowing them to play the other person and articulate, as sincerely as possible, the feelings and beliefs of the other.

Inevitably, the two “enemies” find areas in which they reveal shared values. The two combatants who entered the ring as implacable rivals walk away, at the very least, seeing the other person more completely. What becomes clear is that when one person feels truly understood – and doesn’t feel like they’re being lectured to – they voluntarily take a few steps toward the other person. It’s no wonder the participants often end their conversation in tears or with an extended hug.

This approach isn’t a panacea – no single solution is. But in a world in which division is the most potent currency, conversations that help to rebuild our fractured society should be nourished more than ever before.