I also think there’s an art to deescalation and discussing ideas or persuading someone you disagree with to see an alternative view (and then giving them space to change their mind).
Productive discussion isn’t possible with everyone or even one individual depending on where they are in their life, but I’ve generally found it works better than expected when you can remove your own identity and feelings from it.
It’s rarely in the spotlight though because it doesn’t get retweeted or shared as much as combative arguing that’s more a performance from each side (with likes and cheering on the sidelines).
This doesn't really work with core views like politics. Some of the most polarizing topics are not because the opposite side can't see your view, it's because you fundamentally disagree on priorities.
Examples:
Anti-abortion people aren't going to be persuaded by yet another view on women's rights. They think you're arguing to murder babies. The plight of a woman in poverty is not going to suddenly make them go, "oh, well then I guess a litte murder is okay."
A libertarian isn't going to be swayed to suddenly think a planned economy is a better approach even when presented with spectacular market failures. They completely understand the failures suck and understand the alternative views just fine. Another anecdote is not realistically going to alter a belief that central planning is worse overall.
Like, for example: politician X is corrupt, he was caught taking bribes. Counter: everyone is stealing, at least his party gives our group more benefits than the other party.
I think people understand that at a very base level, and that's why online arguments are often really more of a performance to score points with your side, or to take shots at the other side. Rarely is anyone actually attempting to convince or learn, they're just playing out some weird tribal warfare ritual and dressing it up as debate.
As the larger thread here suggests, the best move in this game is simply not to play it.
You're right that a core belief tied into someone's identity is not going to be changed by new evidence, unless you can get people to value trying to figure out what's true and updating on evidence itself (rather than having an 'answer' already and just using motivated reasoning to come up with arguments that support their 'answer'). This is hard.
I know I've personally gone from someone who made these kind of bad reasoning mistakes - the smarter you are the more insidious they can be because you're better at being a clever arguer and coming up with plausible sounding reasons while ignoring or rationalizing contradicting evidence. I've worked hard to get better at it (and I still am, it's an ongoing process). Yes, this is only a sample size of one, but I think it's possible.
I have an optimistic view of the capacity for a person to learn how to think better, while simultaneously having a pessimistic view of the general public's current ability to think rationally. This may seem like a conflict, but really it just means that I think it's possible for us to be a lot better than we are, while recognizing it's a bigger project than just stating the specific evidence available for any specific argument.
People have to be willing to consider why they believe what they believe, and be honest about the potential to change their mind based on new information that contradicts what they believe to be true.
I think that's the goal we have to work toward first.
What evidence could you give to disprove the belief that abortion is murder? The belief is not a claim about evidence; it's a claim about priorities, as the GP said. Or, if you like, about what actions count as belonging to what categories.
Of course there is an underlying difference of opinion, and of course it matters to those on both sides.
But it matters because the media have done an exceptionally good job of herding people into different camps - by focusing on a small and standardised collection of divisive issues and amplifying the rhetoric around them.
Does someone benefit from these divisions, and from the loss of civility and civic cohesion they create, and perhaps also from the implied promotion of violent oppositional defiant subjectivity over rational argument that powers them?
I think a factor here is that the US pushes the boundaries of what it really takes to have a free country with a diverse population more than other countries do.
Other countries--or at least other developed countries--have a more homogeneous population than the US has, and also do not have the same tradition of skepticism about and distrust of government that the US has. Also other countries do not have quite the same Constitutional provision for the free exercise of religion that the US has.
A less homogeneous population means there is a wider range of traditions that people are brought up with. That creates a lack of common ground about a lot of things. For example, I'm not aware of any other developed country that has a significant population of young earth creationists.
A tradition of skepticism about and distrust of government means that people are less willing to accept a legal rule that conflicts with their personal convictions, and more willing to complain about it publicly (or indeed to take even more drastic action). Note that this applies to both sides of the abortion debate: to extreme pro-lifers who feel that any abortion at all is wrong, and to extreme pro-choicers who feel that any restriction on abortion at all is wrong. Current US law and jurisprudence is actually not close to either of those extremes, so both extremes have plenty of reason, in their view, to complain.
The Constitutional protection of free exercise of religion means that "personal convictions", if they are backed by a religious tradition, carry a lot more weight. This is most obvious in the US on the anti-abortion side of the debate.
> Does someone benefit from these divisions
I think someone taking political advantage of divisions within the population can happen in any country, but it might well be true that the US, for the reasons I described above, presents more opportunities for it to happen.
Abortion is tricky because once you recognize the life of the embryo as a value to protect it's difficult to have it come as less compelling than a right to bodily autonomy. Still, most anti-abortion people would still carve out a lot of exceptions (rape, genetic problems, danger to the mother's life and so on). Most people recognize that the even right to life is not absolute (another example: they would agree it would be unlawful to refuse to obey an order in time of war that would almost certainly result in a soldier's death).
I think part of the problem with abortion is the left argues that "it is not a life" which is generally a weak argument. It's better to accept/concede that you are ending life, but doing so without suffering before there's a neural net that can recognize anything - I think that's the important bit (and why third trimester abortions are banned anyway).
The push back then tends to be that life itself is sacred and can never be ended (suffering is not relevant), but this is generally not truly believed by the people making the argument so it's easy to point out their contradictory support for the death penalty. They then usually say there's a difference between innocent life and people who've committed crimes at which point you're back to negotiating conditions and suffering seems like a pretty good condition to use.
[Edit] It's also a messier issue because I think a component of the debate is shaming women for sex. That they should be forced to have their baby as some sort of penance for having sex. Obviously this is largely unsaid in favor of more palatable arguments, but if it's the true driver then it's hard to even start because you're not addressing the true motivation (which may not even be fully realized by the person arguing).
#repealthe8th
I don't think this is accurate. Getting a typical pro-choice person to discuss the fetus at all, much less whether it can be called alive, takes some serious cornering (I am pro-choice, to be clear).
There are a lot of good reasons other than this one to support pro-choice, but those reasons will be irrelevant to someone who views 'abortion as murder'. You have to put yourself in their position and reason about it like they would, then think about what is the best argument from their position.
Basically steel-manning their side and then tackling the best argument head on.
I think this is where really interesting discussions happen and where minds can change, otherwise you end up just discussing the same tired points without making any progress.
Really? I think it becomes much more difficult. It invites arguments for infanticide (see the 2013 Giubilini paper on after-birth abortion for a famous example of this). The same arguments concerning a woman who is not able to take care of a child apply equally well after birth if suffering is the only consideration, because it's entirely possible to end the life of the baby in a painless manner. As someone who is pro-life, I've generally found the suffering angle to be the least compelling of the pro-choice counterarguments.
I think it's a mixture of suffering and having a neural network formed enough for ...something? I have an intuitive feeling that it's wrong to kill infants before they're self-aware even if 'done painlessly', but I don't feel that way about a blastocyst or a fetus without a sufficiently formed neural network that can suffer.
I recognize this isn't perfectly consistent though and I don't have a great answer for why.
First, this assumes that such a "neural net" is required for suffering. I personally don't have a problem with that, but making an ironclad scientific case for it is going to be very difficult, since we don't understand how "neural nets" actually produce suffering even in the case of humans with fully developed brains.
Second, by this criterion, it's not just third trimester abortions that should be banned, but abortions at any time after the "neural net" develops. That's a lot earlier than our current jurisprudence draws the line (neural activity can be detected in the brain of a fetus at about six weeks, vs. viability at roughly 24 weeks as more or less the current jurisprudence line), which means that our current jurisprudence is allowing a lot of suffering by this criterion.
So I'm not sure this framing actually makes the argument any easier.
I had some time to think, I think you're right and at some point it becomes a utilitarian trade-off where there is no obvious answer, but a lot of factors that can help support/determine what the best policy is.
I think the suffering framing does move the needle away from the 'life is sacred argument' to something more actionable and specific (also honest/consistent with other beliefs often held by that crowd like the death penalty). There is a baked in assumption here that everyone is arguing in good faith though which I don't think is necessarily true (see the edit on my initial comment).
The GP is not talking about prejudice; he's talking about a genuine difference in priorities. Calling that "prejudice" implies that one of those choices of priorities is simply wrong; it ignores the possibility that there is no one "right" choice of priorities.
Basically, a technique that works to convince people away from prejudice over and above what presenting them with truth does should be applicable to any belief.
Yes, it does, because the post I originally responded to said "persuading people out of" these beliefs. How is that justified if the beliefs are not known to be wrong? "Prejudice" implies that the beliefs are known to be wrong, so it's justified to try to persuade people out of them. "Strongly held beliefs" does not carry the same implication.
My bad, I thought you were arguing that "prejudice" is something that can be argued-out-of, whereas a "genuine difference in priority" cannot. If you're arguing persuading people is unethical, then…I disagree incredibly vehemently. Like, that's what a peaceful society is built on; I'm not sure what other method of change you imagine would take its place?
It depends on what you mean by "persuade". Trying to convince people to change their minds about something, and understanding that a lot of times you'll fail and accepting that, is one thing. Trying to force them to change their minds, or at least to act as though their strongly held beliefs were simply wrong and yours were right, for example by using the power of the law, is another.
> that's what a peaceful society is built on
A peaceful society is built on trying to convince other people, but accepting that a lot of times you'll fail, and accepting that when you fail, the law should not take either side. In other words, the force of law should only be used if there is a very strong consensus on a policy, to the point where the only people who don't agree with it are obvious outliers. It should not be used if there is just a 51% majority that favors a policy.
The fact that I'm tall is proof that people can be tall. But not that you can become tall.
In general people have the opinions they need to have to feel good about themselves. That's hard to change.
Regarding feeling good: yeah, that's a problem, and that makes it harder, no argument from me. The point I thought GGP was making (likely incorrectly; see my response to their response) was that you can't persuade people out of "genuine differences in priorities", which I think is untrue.
The book that gave me much of my cynicism on this topic: https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda...
The problem that I have, though, is that I don't believe that many pro-life advocates look at it that way; instead of thinking about what's best for the people around the potential baby, they resort to religious or strictly emotional arguments in support of their views[0], which I will never consider persuasive.
The cut-off point is entirely up to society's consensus. You could go to the extreme and say that vasectomies (or even male masturbation) and tubal ligations are murder, because they destroy germ cells that could turn into children eventually. Some religions prohibit birth control of any kind. Many people aren't comfortable with the morning-after pill. Some people are fine with an abortion up to N weeks, but not after.
And that's what I find sad about arguments on this topic: people have drawn their line in the sand, and they believe that they are right, any other option is wrong, and that they must impose their rightness on everyone else, regardless of any disagreement in beliefs.
As a result, I just tend to not get into arguments about this, as I don't think it's worth the blood-pressure increase to engage a pro-life advocate in discussion.
[0] I may be wrong about this; I frankly do not have many (any?) pro-choice friends, so I only know what I read, and that may be a case of me just hearing the loudest voices, not the most representative ones.
Did you mean to say "pro-life" here?
Woah!
Sure, there are exceptions, and some people can be dispassionate enough to weigh evidence and change their minds, but that is definitely not the norm.
[0] I read a fantastic article on this a year or two ago, but can't find it now; will update with an edit if I find it before the edit window expires.
Guess, it sounds bit like a tin hats theory but I can imagine the above is the happening at the moment.
Generalist subs/topics collect junk. Directed subs have more focus and are healthier in defending crap.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming
Sometimes I do hit the Reply button though. I still have room for self-improvement. :-)
For about 6 months after, I thought I would reactivate and jump back in but it's been years now and I'm 100% sure it was a life improvement.
1. Slowly improving in checking for typos
2. Reading something after a break helps framing my point better and helps remove the heated emotion from the text
3. I also don't save the comment, so I have to spend time searching for it. This further helps in filtering the topics that I don't care about
4. Using services while not logged in, basically be a lurker
Improvement takes time.
We certainly need more and better role models.
My new mantra is the saying, "not my circus, not my monkeys".
I say that in the past tense just because it makes in terms of what I'm trying to convey but it still routinely happens too, and will continue to happen.