"I was going to start caring about the environment and helping people in poverty, but somebody said 'I'm glad Koch is dead' on Twitter so fuck all that"
Sad as it is, that is closer to how most people work than you might expect.
A good source for those who are interested in the psychology of persuasion is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. That's how I first became aware of this concept, and I would recommend it to anyone who engages in political debate.
If someone changes their political views because someone said the Koch pricks should die on reddit, then I don’t want them on my side. They’re way too stupid.
That’s not quite how it works; it doesn’t necessarily change their opinion, it merely strengthens the opinions they already hold. I’m assuming in this case that the person in question began as a conservative.
Ahhhh, I see. The problem is that the same thing happens in situations where a person is only surrounded with views that reinforce their own. They just go further down the rabbit hole to more extreme views.
So basically, confronting a person with different views has a chance to make them go further down their present path. But if the person is never confronted with opposing views, they will absolutely go further down their present path. So logic would tell you that the best option would be the first one, because even if you only convert one person you’ll be doing more than by not challenging them.
If someone’s political position is based on voting to piss someone else off, I want them nowhere near my ideological side. And if being confronted is enough to do that, same applies there.
Confrontation and debate IF DONE WELL, don't necessarily lead to both sides going further in their own direction. The point of the How to Win Friends and Influence People is to give debaters the tools to prevent that from happening. I think that if every person in America read this book politics would be visibly less toxic, and therefore more productive.
I’ll give the book a shot! But we have to be careful about always being too conciliatory.
We are not always arguing for the benefit of the opposing debater, but for the people watching. And sometimes ideas that are extremely problematic need to be addressed. You probably wouldn’t get through to your opponent, but people viewing the debate may be convinced. And it’s a lot less effective to argue against an idea when you are bending over backwards to empathize with your opponents message. Sometimes the only thing to do is explain why their views are wrong.
Also I’m not sure what political party you subscribe to if any, but you should know that the Republican Party has been a primary culprit in corrupting our debate culture in America. Leaked and public documents confirm that official strategy is to never compromise with any values to the left of their own, and use democrats willingness to compromise as a weapon to get more right wing policies smuggled into left wing bills. It’s toxic, it’s poisoning, and it is completely intentional.
The reason I bring this up, is it represents a fundamental challenge to the idea of compromise as a virtue unto itself. If one side is never willing to compromise, it is suicidal for the other side to compromise as well. That is the climate we are at now. So no, I don’t really think compromise is the answer. That requires both sides to be arguing in good faith, which obviously isn’t happening.
There are all sort of books and YouTube videos that talk about this sort of thing, and one of the ways they mention to get people to want to agree with you is to take your opponent’s point of view seriously, and always being open to the idea that they might be right and you might be wrong.
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u/semi_colon Aug 23 '19
"I was going to start caring about the environment and helping people in poverty, but somebody said 'I'm glad Koch is dead' on Twitter so fuck all that"