If you’re arguing with someone, tell them when they say something you agree with.
When you don’t, things get… confusing.
If you don’t know where you agree with someone, then you don’t really know where you disagree either. Let’s see what happens when you do stop to agree with people:
That went well. (At least until they were both struck down by The Brown Stone Spire for their shared unbelief.)
This also helps people understand why you disagree with them. We all have chains of reasoning in our minds. When two people disagree, it’s usually at least partly because the chain of reasoning in one person’s head parts ways with the chain of reasoning in the other person’s head.
If you don’t tell people which parts of their argument you agree with, it’s hard to pinpoint that spot where your opinions diverge. You leave them to guess.
People will rarely ask if they are correct about their guesses. It’s a deceptively automatic process for people to assume they already know why you disagree with them.
If you acknowledge exactly where someone’s reasoning overlaps with yours, it’s harder for them to fall into that assumption.
My problem: what do you do when it’s turtles all the way down? I’m not quite arrogant enough to call someone fractally wrong, but at the very least, I’ve encountered many whose beliefs are fractally unexpected, with each belief I didn’t see coming supported by an underlying belief I also didn’t see coming. For that matter, my own commonly expressed values are based on ideas that are based on ideas that are based on more ideas! By the time I make it far down enough to actually have a point in common, the other person is bored of the conversation!
Good point. Sometimes it’s turtles all the way down. If this happens to you often, you might know more about how to deal with it than we do. But a couple suggestions:
1) As soon as you notice that there are a lot of turtles, change your goal from convincing the other person to just understanding their perspective. This can sometimes make the conversation less boring for the other person, because you’re coming at it from a place of, “I don’t understand how you see this issue. Help me understand.” It makes the other person an expert in the topic at hand, and it’s fun to be the expert.
(That’s also a good time to ask yourself whether or not the conversation is worthwhile to you, since your goal in having the conversation has changed.)
2) Cut to the chase. Certain turtles tend to be on the bottom, and you can skip straight down to them. Things like,
“How do you decide whether you think something is true? I often look to groups of scientific studies. But I know some people prefer to reason deductively from bible verses or a certain belief set. Some people rely more on their own experiences or feelings. Some people reason inductively from the words of various people whose opinions they trust. Some people start with common errors of thought, and avoid beliefs that look similar to those errors. Can you describe how you tend to arrive at your conclusions?”
or,
“What do you want the world to look like? I have goals that involve all humans being safe, and happy, and free to do pretty much anything except hurt people or destroy good things. A lot of my opinions are based on those goals. Do you share my underlying goals? What qualities make up your idea of a functional community?”
Basically, find as many turtles as possible that are near the bottom of how you think, and throw them at people until something interesting happens.
That’s all the advice we’ve got for now. Thank you for commenting! ^_^
