The Moral Courage to Combat Polarization

• July 10, 2026 Social Justice

By Sister Mary Flick, CSJ

If we look for a root cause of polarization today, we might focus on the loss of trust — both personal and social trust. Trust itself is a predictor of stability in a democracy. In the U.S. today, it is at its lowest level in history.

This is one of the starting points for Irshad Manji, a prize-winning leadership professor at New York University, founder of Moral Courage College, and now with the Oxford Initiative for Global Ethics and Human Rights. She was the lead presenter at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’ (LCWR) “Transforming Grace: Next Steps on the Journey” conference, held in St. Louis in early May. The conference gathered 250 elected leaders, communicators and justice promoters of more than 100 religious congregations to discuss how to meet today’s polarizing issues, transforming them into trust-building opportunities.

Manji, a Muslim, drew from an intersection of Christian and Islamic beliefs, as she proposed the transformation that is needed in society today. She cited Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and the Qur’an 13:11: “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is inside themselves.“ For believers, she says, “Transformation is at the heart of what we are about.”

“We assume people disagree with each other about the issues,” she notes. “It’s not true. There is more consensus about the big issues than we assume there is. What we fundamentally disagree about is each other. We don’t believe we can trust each other to hear us out.”

For Manji, trust is at the root of building relationships and transformation happens in relationships. “What we see happening today is potential discussions that turn into toxic debates, where there can be only one winner. The ego-brain whispers, ‘I won’t let you lose.’” Though, if we are in it for relationship, there is nothing to win or lose.

It’s easy to succumb to the ego-brain — the hyper-emotional region of the brain that processes a situation, looking for a threat. “It keeps us ready for the tiger,” she says. The antidote is to breathe deeply and allow the more evolved prefrontal cortex to take charge, the part of the brain where cognition and emotion can co-exist.

How then, do we make right decisions? Manji’s answer is to practice moral courage as it’s the practice of slowing down to think, not just to emote. “It takes guts to stand up to our own ego-brain. When I do, when I seek truth, the either/or is open to being transformed into both/and.”

“It begins with wanting to understand people who disagree with me. If I want to learn, I must come from a place of curiosity, not judgment.”

Manji has identified five core skills of moral courage. She insists these are not steps, they are stand-alone skills. They are not rules, they are tools to be adapted to our needs. Each skill helps slow us down so that we can think and not just emote.

1. Breathe. Deeply. Slow the rush of blood. Give the brain permission to move from pure emotion to emotion and thought. Breathing helps calm us, so we can speak in a soft tone of voice.
2. Don’t merely seek the common good. Create it. Give eye contact, and say directly to the other, “I know we’re not going to agree, but I know you are more than this issue. Can you agree to this, and do the same for me?”
3. Before making statements about what you believe, ask a sincere question. Manji suggests we do a self-check: “Do I only want to make a statement, or do I want to make a difference?” That difference can be furthered by asking a question and being the first to listen. “To ask about someone’s story is powerful. It says, ‘I care enough about you to want to know who you are.’” Be curious. “Living with curiosity is more fun than fearing what I don’t know.”
4. Listen to learn, not merely to understand. Being heard builds trust. The point is not to win the disagreement and change minds, but to learn. Share with the other, “I’m not here to change your mind; I hope you’ll change mine.”
5. Ask another question by starting with three simple words: “Tell me more …” These three words say I want to learn. Ask directly, “What do you think I’m missing?” To ask another question requires confident humility, Manji notes. It says, “I’m so secure in who I am and my experiences, I am not going to feel threatened by someone else’s experiences. I am so secure in who I am, I’m excited to be learning from them.”

“To sit down together and have a conversation enables you to see each other as fully human beings,” Manji says. And this choice, she says, “speaks to what we’re missing today. It builds relationship.”

Returning to where she began, Manji notes that transformation is not about changing jerseys; it’s changing the game. “The finite game we often play has a winner and a loser,” she says. “In the infinite game, you don’t play to win, you play to keep playing. To stay in relationship.”

She encourages participants to select one skill and commit to practicing it regularly so that it becomes a habit. “Any skill set at the beginning is laborious, because we’re not used to it — whether it’s a language, a trade, a sport or a musical instrument,” she says. “Practice does not make perfect; practice makes painless!”