Introduction
Blog posts 131 through 134 proposed a speculative sequence. Human beings appear capable of encountering ontologies they do not share without immediately experiencing them as threats. This capacity was described as leeway. Blog post 132 suggested that curiosity may help activate this leeway, while blog posts 133 and 134 explored how lived reality and perceived connections to reality may help sustain it.
The argument remained tentative and largely theoretical. Yet an interesting question follows. Do similar patterns appear in other fields of practice and research?
This blog post explores that possibility by briefly examining a number of disciplines that deal with difficult conversations, ideological disagreement, persuasion, negotiation, trauma, and social influence. While these literatures emerge from very different contexts, they appear to converge on a surprisingly similar observation.
Street epistemology
In How to Have Impossible Conversations (2019), Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay argue that meaningful conversations about deeply held beliefs require rapport before they require arguments.
Rapport is described as a form of connection characterized by friendliness, mutual comfort, empathy, and trust. Rather than immediately challenging beliefs, the conversation partner is encouraged to ask sincere questions, seek common ground, and demonstrate genuine interest in the other person. The goal is not to win an argument but to establish a relationship within which difficult topics can later be explored.
From the perspective of blog posts 131 through 134, this is striking. The first step is not the introduction of facts, evidence, or counterarguments. Boghossian’s and Lindsay’s first step is creating conditions in which another person’s ontology does not experience engagement as a threat.
Cult disengagement
A similar observation appears in the work of cult specialist Steven Hassan. In Freedom of Mind (2013), Hassan advises family members not to attack a cult member’s beliefs directly. Instead, he recommends developing rapport with the cult identity itself. The objective is not confrontation but trust.
This recommendation appears counterintuitive. One might assume that problematic beliefs should be challenged as quickly as possible. Yet Hassan’s practical experience suggests the opposite. Before beliefs can be reconsidered, a relationship must exist within which reconsideration becomes psychologically possible. Again, the pattern resembles the concept of leeway. The challenge is not primarily epistemic. The challenge is creating an opening.
Rapport across disciplines
The same pattern appears elsewhere. In The Body Keeps the Score (2014), trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk emphasizes the importance of reciprocity, of truly hearing and being heard, seeing and being seen. Kidnap negotiator Scott Walker (Order out of chaos, 2023) similarly argues that people remain emotionally closed when they do not feel understood. Active listening allows individuals to feel seen, heard, and acknowledged.
Drawing on the work of Stephen Covey (e.g. The speed of trust, 2006), rapport is often described as a prerequisite for trust. Sales experts Richard Shell and Mario Moussa (The art of woo, 2007) describe rapport as a means of accessing what they call the “relationship channel.” Dale Carnegie (How to win friends & influence people, 1936), the primal sales expert, emphasized that genuine interest in other people creates connection more effectively than attempts to persuade them.
These examples emerge from different domains and pursue different objectives. Yet they appear to share a common intuition. Before people can even consider changing positions, reconsider assumptions, or become open to alternative perspectives, they first need to experience a relationship that feels safe enough to permit such openness.
Rapport and leeway
The examples cast an interesting light on the earlier blog posts. Perhaps rapport and leeway describe different aspects of the same process.
Leeway was introduced as a capacity: the possibility of encountering another ontology without immediately experiencing it as threatening. Rapport may be one of the mechanisms through which this capacity becomes activated. If so, curiosity acquires a dual role. Blog post 132 proposed that curiosity can activate leeway. The literature reviewed here suggests a complementary possibility. When one person approaches another with genuine curiosity, that curiosity may itself become reciprocated. Curiosity may generate curiosity. The result is not agreement. Nor is it persuasion. Rather, it is the creation of a relational space in which disagreement no longer automatically closes the conversation.
A tentative conclusion
The examples discussed here do not prove the existence of leeway. They emerge from different disciplines and operate with different concepts. Yet their convergence is noteworthy.
Experts from different disciplines appear to identify a similar first step. Before people become open to alternative perspectives, they need to feel seen, heard, understood, and respected. This is not about being friendly, agreeing, or simulating closeness.
The deepest commonality across the examples seems to be the importance of the creation of a temporary space in which another person’s reality can appear without immediately being judged, corrected, or absorbed into one’s own ontology. This observation aligns closely with the practice of facilitating in Interdemocracy as described in blog posts 96 through 104.
Blog posts 131 through 134 approached this observation from the perspective of ontology, curiosity, and reality contact. The literature examples discussed here approaches it from the perspective of rapport.
Perhaps these perspectives are describing the same phenomenon from different directions. If so, rapport may not simply be a useful conversational technique. It may be an important practical mechanisms through which leeway becomes possible.