We Already Know How - a book in development by David W. Campt, PhD.
BOOK BRIEF
We Already Know How: The Unrecognized Consensus on Healing Political Division David W. Campt, PhD
THE HOOK
More than eighty percent of Americans believe the country is dangerously divided - and most of them sense, even if they can't quite articulate it, that something has gone wrong with how we talk to each other. What almost nobody knows is that researchers, practitioners, and dialogue experts across a dozen independent fields have converged on the same answer to this problem - not as a matter of opinion, but as a matter of evidence. The conversations that actually change minds follow a specific sequence: connection before persuasion, always. If persuasion is your destination, connection is the station you have to pass through first. This is not one person's theory. It is an unrecognized consensus - confirmed by social psychologists, persuasion scientists, conflict resolution practitioners, political canvassers, and neuroscientists who have largely never cited each other - and it points to a method that any person can learn. We Already Know How names that consensus for the first time, explains why the sequence works at the level of brain chemistry and human psychology, and gives every reader the practical tools to have better conversations across difference, starting with their next one.
THE BOOK
We Already Know How is structured in three movements. The first establishes the unrecognized consensus, synthesizing convergent findings from social psychology (Jonathan Haidt), persuasion science (Robert Cialdini), conflict resolution (Donna Hicks, Amanda Ripley), and applied political practice (deep canvassing, street epistemology) to show that independent fields have arrived at the same core insight through different routes. The second movement goes deeper, grounding the consensus in the neuroscience of listening and storytelling - including research showing that genuine listening produces measurable brain synchronization between speaker and listener - before introducing the ABC Method, a practical framework for making the connection-first sequence learnable and executable in real conversations. The third movement applies the method to the conditions where it matters most: political conversations with family members, canvassing across differences, and community gatherings where the stakes are high and the temperature is higher.
Throughout, the book is grounded in two kinds of narrative. The first is the voices of everyday people - drawn from interviews conducted in bars, cafes, and community spaces - who already sense what good conversation across differences requires, even when they struggle to do it consistently under pressure. The second is the experience of dialogue practitioners who have watched connection produce transformation in rooms full of people who arrived ready to fight. Together these voices demonstrate the book's core argument not just as theory but as lived reality: the wisdom is already out there, distributed across many people and many fields. This book names it, synthesizes it, and makes it actionable.
THE MOMENT
The 2028 election cycle will arrive in a country that is more divided, more exhausted by that division, and more hungry for genuine tools than at any point in recent memory. The collapse of DEI as an institutional priority has left a generation of practitioners, and the organizations they served, without a framework for the hardest conversations. And the approaches that dominate public life, from social media argument to cable news performance, are making things measurably worse. We Already Know How arrives at exactly the moment when the eighty percent of Americans who are unhappy with our divisiveness are ready to hear that the answer exists, that it is grounded in evidence, and that it is within their reach. This is not a book about fixing politics. It is a book about fixing conversations, which is the only place where politics, in the end, actually changes.
THE AUTHOR
David W. Campt, PhD has spent thirty-five years at the intersection of dialogue, conflict resolution, and civic engagement - as a facilitator, author, and consultant to universities, foundations, government agencies, and the White House. He is the creator of the White Ally Toolkit, one of the most widely used frameworks for cross-racial dialogue in the United States, and served as a lead facilitator for AmericaSpeaks, which ran some of the largest and most sophisticated public deliberation events in American history. His first traditionally published book, The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects (Good Books, 2007), co-authored with Dr. Lisa Schirch, demonstrated his ability to make complex dialogue practice accessible to a general audience. He holds a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley and a degree in Computer Science Engineering from Princeton University. He lives and works in Washington, DC.
THE ASK
I am seeking representation or a publishing relationship that can bring this book to the wide general audience it is written for, and I welcome introductions to agents or editors whose lists include serious nonfiction at the intersection of psychology, civic life, and practical wisdom. I would be glad to send a fuller proposal, sample chapters, or whatever would be most useful for a next conversation.
David W. Campt, PhD david@thedialoguecompany.com www.thedialoguecompany.com www.davidwcampt.com
Contact information: David Campt, PhD - david@thedialoguecompany.com; www.davidcampt.com; 510-610-5102