No question that everyone has been wound up to 11 these days. But the ole "listen more to understand" is a losing game when it's assymetrical. If the "other side" is unreasonable, either because they will never spend as much effort for you as you do for them, or has an irrational position from ad hominem attacks or plain stupid allegations, then spending any resources on trying to "understand their position" or "meeting them halfway" is a category error of unrequited projection.
Spending time on stupid is stupid. It simply validates bad behavior and wastes your resources.
The way I frame any attempt at having a conversation is to think about what it would be like if two people held their conversation in couples therapy. What would a neutral third party think of the symmetry of the exchange and the willingness on each side to participate in a productive conversation?
A good couples therapist would insist on basic ground rules of reality, good-faith interest in learning, and symmetry. A good therapist wouldn't hold a session if those terms weren't met by both sides because it wouldn't be productive nor fair without them. (ask me how I know....)
In that light, Godot, you can see a whole lot of wasted time expecting something that isn't going to happen.
Unfortunately, the world has gotten would up pretty good. And many people are now simply conversational bullies (by inculation.) Where does one begin with the many flavors of Stop the Steal? Or the Pelosi or AOC is the devil carps. These are people who voted for a president without a platform.... As Dostoyevsky says in the House of the Dead, "once a man gets a taste of the power of being a bully, it is almost impossible to change him."
And therein lies the rub, Chris. When each of us sincerely believes in the "rightness" of our own individual beliefs, whatever they may be, and that we will "lose" by listening more deeply to those we disagree with, we are endlessly trapped within the very limited confines of how we see the world. In our time, the civilizations humans have built over milennia seem to be de-evolving and fracturing into smaller and smaller communities.
I don't consider myself to be a "conservative" but I do understand that conservatives such as Bob (and many of his readers) are deeply and sincerely concerned about that de-evolution. Many of them are so desperate they take extreme positions that I cannot agree with. I share a concern that some important values may be lost - but my study of human history leads me to see that it is not really rational to stand in the way of the future.
Many liberals and "progressives" believe that the pillars of the civilizations our ancestors built are rotten and must be replaced ASAP with new, stronger, and more multicultural foundations, so that a new human civilization can arise. I tend to believe in this future, yet I'm also aware that many "progressives" are so desperate to build this new world that they take extreme positions that I cannot fully agree with. I sympathize more with this view because I sympathize deeply with those who have been oppressed and marginalized by the older civilizations - the so-called minorities, as well as the females who comprise "half the sky".
You express concern about wasted time, and a dependence on "aspirational" approaches that you don't think are rational.
What then is your "rational" solution? Would you simply ignore the concerns of those with whom you disagree?
I'm not persuaded that this approach would be considered rational by the objective third party marriage counselor you cite (which is itself perhaps indicative of a somewhat irrational belief in some higher power? Interesting...).
Conservatives fight to protect the past because they fear what the future may bring, and progressives fight to build a better future because they fear the injustices of the past. Both positions are quite rational, and in fact are flip sides of the same coin. All of human history is about how we work through our various fears and muddle our way together into survival.
But to be completely rational, 99.99999% of all species of life that has existed on earth is now extinct. Of course, few if any of those were capable of consciously, and rationally, aspiring to choose their fate...
Terrific insights, as usual.
Until... The "listen more to idiots" trope.
No question that everyone has been wound up to 11 these days. But the ole "listen more to understand" is a losing game when it's assymetrical. If the "other side" is unreasonable, either because they will never spend as much effort for you as you do for them, or has an irrational position from ad hominem attacks or plain stupid allegations, then spending any resources on trying to "understand their position" or "meeting them halfway" is a category error of unrequited projection.
Spending time on stupid is stupid. It simply validates bad behavior and wastes your resources.
The way I frame any attempt at having a conversation is to think about what it would be like if two people held their conversation in couples therapy. What would a neutral third party think of the symmetry of the exchange and the willingness on each side to participate in a productive conversation?
A good couples therapist would insist on basic ground rules of reality, good-faith interest in learning, and symmetry. A good therapist wouldn't hold a session if those terms weren't met by both sides because it wouldn't be productive nor fair without them. (ask me how I know....)
In that light, Godot, you can see a whole lot of wasted time expecting something that isn't going to happen.
Unfortunately, the world has gotten would up pretty good. And many people are now simply conversational bullies (by inculation.) Where does one begin with the many flavors of Stop the Steal? Or the Pelosi or AOC is the devil carps. These are people who voted for a president without a platform.... As Dostoyevsky says in the House of the Dead, "once a man gets a taste of the power of being a bully, it is almost impossible to change him."
Kumbaya is aspirational, not rational.
And therein lies the rub, Chris. When each of us sincerely believes in the "rightness" of our own individual beliefs, whatever they may be, and that we will "lose" by listening more deeply to those we disagree with, we are endlessly trapped within the very limited confines of how we see the world. In our time, the civilizations humans have built over milennia seem to be de-evolving and fracturing into smaller and smaller communities.
I don't consider myself to be a "conservative" but I do understand that conservatives such as Bob (and many of his readers) are deeply and sincerely concerned about that de-evolution. Many of them are so desperate they take extreme positions that I cannot agree with. I share a concern that some important values may be lost - but my study of human history leads me to see that it is not really rational to stand in the way of the future.
Many liberals and "progressives" believe that the pillars of the civilizations our ancestors built are rotten and must be replaced ASAP with new, stronger, and more multicultural foundations, so that a new human civilization can arise. I tend to believe in this future, yet I'm also aware that many "progressives" are so desperate to build this new world that they take extreme positions that I cannot fully agree with. I sympathize more with this view because I sympathize deeply with those who have been oppressed and marginalized by the older civilizations - the so-called minorities, as well as the females who comprise "half the sky".
You express concern about wasted time, and a dependence on "aspirational" approaches that you don't think are rational.
What then is your "rational" solution? Would you simply ignore the concerns of those with whom you disagree?
I'm not persuaded that this approach would be considered rational by the objective third party marriage counselor you cite (which is itself perhaps indicative of a somewhat irrational belief in some higher power? Interesting...).
Conservatives fight to protect the past because they fear what the future may bring, and progressives fight to build a better future because they fear the injustices of the past. Both positions are quite rational, and in fact are flip sides of the same coin. All of human history is about how we work through our various fears and muddle our way together into survival.
But to be completely rational, 99.99999% of all species of life that has existed on earth is now extinct. Of course, few if any of those were capable of consciously, and rationally, aspiring to choose their fate...