I just "fired" my hairdresser.

[snot]

6. Maybe it's too late, but

it seems to me that the client-hairdresser relationship can be a rare, pretty ideal situation for trying to spread a little enlightenment and build a little solidarity, if done the right way, since it's often a long-term relationship with regular if intermittent hours of friendly, relatively uninterrupted conversation. This is especially the case if, apart from her perhaps appalling opinions, you feel that she basically has a good heart.

Here's how I'd go about it (this is based on some training I did about how to have "safe conversations" about "race"-related matters).

I'd first try to be a GREAT listener to her. Try to be genuinely open and curious about her opinions, including asking about any personal experiences that she thinks helped form or are relevant to her beliefs. You don't have to agree with her views, but bend over backwards to make sure you really heard her on every level – ask if she can share any personal experiences that she thinks helped form or are relevant to her beliefs; and best to repeat her own words back to her verbatim, until she as well as you are sure you heard it right. I'd do that for several sessions, never mentioning my own views.

(Side note: most of the Occupy movement camps governed themselves via "General Assemblies" and direct democracy. In the General Assemblies, anyone could speak about their concerns. When the crowds became so large that the people in back could no longer hear the speaker, the camps adopted a "human megaphone" solution in which a speaker would pause after each sentence or phrase, the people in front would yell it out so that those behind them could hear it, then those people would yell it out for the people behind them, until even those in the far back had heard it; and only then would the speaker go on to the next sentence or phrase. The reason I mention this is that in doing this, particpants realized that simply having to repeat the exact words of the speaker had helped them to really take the speaker's words in, understand them, and connect with them in a deeper, fuller way, which then proved helpful in working together to find solutions.)

In the next phase, I'd look for the common ground with the hairdresser and try to focus on those areas. Stay away from discussing hot button wedge issues, of course, or particular solutions, and especially individual politicians, and just focus on the problems. What factors does she think are in play? What factors seem to complicate reaching a solution? And again, how have her own experiences seemed relevant? Let her understand that you do understand and that you do agree about what some of the problems are and even (hopefully) some of the contributing factors or complications.

I've found that many people on all sides are unhappy about affordability, inflation, the precarity of employment, the fact that it takes two or three jobs just to keep up with basic lifestyle, let alone save for retirement, the costs for housing, health care, and education, the various forms of legalized bribery of Congress and other officials (e.g., campaign donations, well-paid speeches, insider info re- stock trades, the revolving door into cushy jobs in regulated industries, etc.) that ensure that our representatives carry out the will of their biggest donors and ignore ours, the fact that so few Wall St. people are prosecuted for financial crimes such as those that caused the 2008 crash, the consolidation of media ownership to the point that 95% of traditional media worldwide are owned by 6 megacorps. that control nearly everything we see, our series of foreign wars that drain our economy and leave everyone but the MIC and oil cos. worse off than before, etc. etc.

After a few sessions of this, one might pick an area of some of the most common ground and ask her about what she thinks it might it would take to help the problem, taking all the relevant factors and complications into account. The same approach set out above should be applied in trying to discuss solutions; i.e., try to be a great listener and remain nonjudgmental, open, curious, collaborative.

You and she will never agree on everything; but the most important thing is to build a bridge, a meeting ground where each side knows they'll get a fair, nonjudgmental hearing, and where we can all agree to disagree on some things but not let that stop us from recognizing that we do in fact agree on some other things, and set about with genuine good will to try to work together to find creative, workable solutions other than those dictated to us by demigogues of whatever political stripe.