If you really want to change someone’s mind, to truly communicate with them, you need to understand their point of view. Simply bludgeoning a person with logic or volume will never do anything beyond forcing them to fall silent when you’re around. This is not a long term victory.
This makes communicating across the deep issues and divides of our society supremely difficult. For me to understand the point of view of a committed anti-abortionist, a gung-ho Republican, or an anti-immigration racist … I need to get inside of their heads. I have to get their ideas all over my brain in order to see the underlying logic in a compelling way. This requires an honest openness to having my own opinions changed … and it’s not easy at all.
The payoff is big: I think that it’s something like what amnesiadust has told me about aikido. Once you’re comfortable on either side of a debate, once you’re as facile with the other guy’s logic as your own … you have a significant chance of not only winning that particular argument … but you have a nonzero chance of gaining a real convert as well.
On the other hand, it’s uncomfortable to realize how much of my own position is knee jerk.
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