Ideas worth spreading

I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left

10,869,458 views |

Megan Phelps-Roper |

TEDNYC

• February 2017

What's it like to grow up within a group of people who exult in demonizing ... everyone else? Megan Phelps-Roper shares details of life inside America's most controversial church and describes how conversations on Twitter were key to her decision to leave it. In this extraordinary talk, she shares her personal experience of extreme polarization, along with some sharp ways we can learn to successfully engage across ideological lines.

What's it like to grow up within a group of people who exult in demonizing ... everyone else? Megan Phelps-Roper shares details of life inside America's most controversial church and describes how conversations on Twitter were key to her decision to leave it. In this extraordinary talk, she shares her personal experience of extreme polarization, along with some sharp ways we can learn to successfully engage across ideological lines.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Be deliberate about cultivating empathy for "enemies." Before getting into a conversation full of intense disagreement, you can lay the groundwork for success by making deliberate efforts to understand the perspective of groups with ideas you oppose. Whether Republicans or Democrats, city-dwellers or rural farmers, consider the groups you tend to write off. Who are they? Given their experiences, can you understand why they hold the positions they do? What ideas do you share? When you're intentional about searching for understanding and common ground, you’ll be better at engaging people with opposing ideas on the merits — instead of the mental caricatures humans often form of one another.

Practice engaging when the stakes are low. Remember that the strategies mentioned in this talk aren't natural; they're skills we have to learn and develop in ourselves. Disagreements are common, but the more intense the disagreement, the harder it is to remain calm enough to engage effectively. To practice, be on the lookout for low-stakes disagreements that appear in your life. Answering an angry tweet from a stranger requires less time and emotional energy than staying cool in a long conversation with a close friend about a divisive subject. Reaching out when the stakes are low strengthens our ability to engage when stress levels and potential costs are higher.

About the speaker

Megan Phelps-Roper

Megan Phelps-Roper

Writer, activist

See speaker profile

A former member of Westboro Baptist Church, Megan Phelps-Roper is now a writer and educator on topics related to extremism, bullying and empathy in dialogue.

Aeon via NPR’s Invisibilia | Watch

"Kindness as Self-Defence -- The Power of Non-Complementary Behaviour"

This short video is a wonderful example of the idea that lies at the core of my talk: non-complementary behavior. As humans, we tend to treat others the way they treat us – kindness tends to beget kindness, and anger breeds more of the same. Breaking a negative feedback cycle is incredibly difficult because answering hostility with kindness runs contrary to our natural impulses. This video illustrates both the difficulty and the power of non-complementary behavior.

Hanna Rosin | NPR, 2016 | Article

"How A Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away From ISIS"

This story shows non-complementary behavior in another context: a successful deradicalization program developed by two Danish crime prevention officers. While most of Europe came down hard on people who traveled to fight in Syria, this Danish town responded more gently: “They made it clear to citizens of Denmark who had traveled to Syria that they were welcome to come home, and that when they did, they would receive help with going back to school, finding an apartment, meeting with a psychiatrist or a mentor, or whatever they needed to fully integrate back into society.” Although some deride this as the “hug a terrorist” model of deradicalization, the officers see their response as entirely practical. It’s more important to have an effective strategy to keep their town safe than it is to punish people for choosing a bad path.

Jeneen Interlandi | New York Times, 2015 | Article

"The Brain’s Empathy Gap"

This article is fascinating because it considers one theory about why it’s so difficult to engage across entrenched divides: "When considering an enemy, the mind generates an 'empathy gap.' It mutes the empathy signal, and that muting prevents us from putting ourselves in the perceived enemy’s shoes." This theory comes from Emile Bruneau, a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT who studies intractable conflicts around the world. "I get that these are complicated problems," he said. "But if you trace even the biggest of these conflicts down to its roots, what you find are entrenched biases, and these sort-of calcified failures of empathy." It seems clear that overcoming these natural cognitive failures – and the growing national divide – we’ll have to be deliberate about cultivating empathy for our ideological opponents.

Adrian Chen | The New Yorker, 2015 | Article

"Conversion via Twitter"

For anyone looking to better understand Westboro Baptist Church and my journey out of its ideology, this profile by New Yorker staff writer Adrian Chen is a great place to start. He spent the better part of a year digging into the question of exactly how my mind changed over time, and how people on Twitter helped make it happen.

Eli Saslow | The Washington Post, 2016 | Article

"The white flight of Derek Black"

This profile of Derek Black is another illustration of the power of kind engagement over hostile dismissal and accusations. Derek was raised in the white nationalist movement, and though our ideologies were extremely different, many hallmarks of our upbringings were the same. We developed a deeply Us vs. Them mentality; the sense that the masses were deluded and that our truth was the only hope; and a desire to help the world by spreading our ideology as far and as wide as possible.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Be deliberate about cultivating empathy for "enemies." Before getting into a conversation full of intense disagreement, you can lay the groundwork for success by making deliberate efforts to understand the perspective of groups with ideas you oppose. Whether Republicans or Democrats, city-dwellers or rural farmers, consider the groups you tend to write off. Who are they? Given their experiences, can you understand why they hold the positions they do? What ideas do you share? When you're intentional about searching for understanding and common ground, you’ll be better at engaging people with opposing ideas on the merits — instead of the mental caricatures humans often form of one another.

Practice engaging when the stakes are low. Remember that the strategies mentioned in this talk aren't natural; they're skills we have to learn and develop in ourselves. Disagreements are common, but the more intense the disagreement, the harder it is to remain calm enough to engage effectively. To practice, be on the lookout for low-stakes disagreements that appear in your life. Answering an angry tweet from a stranger requires less time and emotional energy than staying cool in a long conversation with a close friend about a divisive subject. Reaching out when the stakes are low strengthens our ability to engage when stress levels and potential costs are higher.