#heated debates
Click here to start at the beginning of this series
It’s easy to believe you’re doing good by staying in a conversation when you’re very uncomfortable being there. Or when you know your anger is starting to alter your judgement.
And there’s a little truth to that. It’s super powerful to be willing to spend time talking to people who you disagree with, whose views upset you. It’s the counterweight to groupthink. It opens up lines of communication so you can challenge your own assumptions, and everyone else’s. Being persistent in voicing your opinion is a powerful way to spread it. The more people hear an idea, the more seriously they tend to consider it.
But saying something in the wrong way or in the wrong context makes your point sound less believable, not more.
You can have this effect even if others are arguing with you just as angrily. People can link your views with the antagonism of the conversation, and become biased against them.
…Which makes it that much harder for other people with your beliefs to make themselves heard down the line.
Now, it’s not always fair or logical for people to build these associations. And it doesn’t mean you were overreacting in losing your temper.
It’s just that disengaging from an angry conversation is a super useful skill to have on hand, if you really want other people to take on your beliefs. If you can walk away promptly when you or others start to get upset, you leave room for someone else to build on that conversation another day.
You also leave room for the other person to consider the ideas you’ve presented on their own terms, in their own time.
When you’re changing someone’s mind over the internet, you almost never get to see that you’re doing so. People rarely overturn an opinion they care about in the span of a single conversation. It’s something that happens in the privacy of someone else’s mind, as they gradually sift through what you’ve said, and how it lines up with their past experiences and beliefs.
You walking away can be one of the first steps in the process of changing someone else’s mind – because it’s the someone else in that situation who does the central work of changing their own beliefs.
How and when you walk away can make a big difference in how likely they are to succeed.
