I truly love talking about the intricacies of beliefs with people, understanding their basis and the rationale for the beliefs they hold dear, and learning some of their background so that I can try to understand what shaped their beliefs and belief system.
The challenge is how to do this without appearing:
- egotistical / arrogant
- debating / arguing
- condescending / judgemental
- antagonistic / threatening
- insincere / manipulative
I have found that few people truly enjoy this lively and very personal dialogue. Therefore I try to limit these discussions to my best friends and closest family members who truly understand that I will love and appreciate them for themselves, no matter what they believe or why they believe it. In fact, I can truly love and appreciate them even when I am adamant that they are incorrect, nuts, foolish, irrational, etc. These differences may even be what draws me to them...
For the rest, I spend time making small talk about the weather, sports, jobs, hobbies, etc. Thereby growing only slightly more intimate with them. The upside though is that we get to have fun and avoid any chance of serious disagreement.
By the way, this is why I appreciate my readers and commenters so much !!! You help me to have serious, meaningful and sometimes fun dialogue about important topics that allow me to learn about different viewpoints. This I truly appreciate !!! Thank you !!!
Some questions:
- Any thoughts why talking politics, schools, religion, philosophy, money, etc is so risky with so many people?
- What is the balance point between expressing your views and challenging someone elses?
- What rules of thumb do you use regarding keeping your mouth shut?
- Any thoughts regarding having these discussions without appearing per the terms above?
6 comments:
Like you, blogging gives me a chance to engage in some dialogue, at a safe distance so to speak.
Up close, yes, it can so easily become difficult, simply because too few of us seem able to debate.
For example, I heard a couple of Jason Lewis callers today were so happy with the Federal court's ruling on California that they couldn't or wouldn't take the time to consider the actual legalities and consequences of the situation.
I get irritated, too, mostly when you reach that point where facts don't matter, like on second hand smoke, class size, etc.
Good topic, incidentally.
First of all, recognize that this medium of communication is worlds apart from normal F2F conversation, which we can address if you like, but for F2F:
I think the key to all of these is to know that at least one of the people in the conversation is actually LOOKING for an answer better than the one they have, or at least willing to consider that there may be one. This leaves out 90+% of the population, more on some days, who do not want to put in the mental effort. "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" is pretty common, and aids mental health by conserving mental energy. [No jokes about "conservative," please :-)]
I worked with a guy whose response to almost any question was, "Do you really want to know?" If you did, he would take whatever time required to make sure you had your question answered. If not, he recognized this was to be a polite conversation, and he would hold his (considerable) knowledge in check.
That's it. Everybody is entitled to my opinion, but there are few applicants for it.
J. Ewing
Along these lines... I put the following sign on my wall at work:
"Lord, put your arm over my shoulder and hand over my mouth."
When I was young and naive, I thought that when a Spvr, Mgr or Executive said that they had an open door policy and really appreciated hearing varying comments, opinions and concerns. Well... I really thought they wanted to hear different viewpoints...
After narrowly escaping with my job, I bought the sign and have learned the value of silence or very careful nudging/whispers... Maybe LIFE and the TV game of Survivor have a lot more in common than one would think.
One more note in support of your comments... I thoroughly agree that most people seem to not be very self aware. They are very busy living and believe what they believe.
They stay unaware of what influences their belief system, what bias is in place, what do they miss seeing/hearing/learning due to it, what in their life history influenced it, the rationale/logic behind the belief, the inconsistencies between their beliefs/actions/words, etc?
Maybe it makes them uncomfortable when the discussion makes them aware of this missing knowledge or inconsistency. It pushes them out of their comfort zone...
Then it is always easier to point at the other, than look inside our selves...
There is something else at work here, too. It isn't that most people aren't intellectually engaged in politics and religion and schools (and money) it's because we have been told we don't have to be.
Our culture and economy are rooted in specialization-- "division of labor." We hire people to manage our government (politics), run our schools, manage our money (banks and investment houses/advisers) and to intercede with God for us (priests, pastors). We are told by these folks that they can "handle it" and we really, really want to believe them, so we don't have to worry about it and can get on with OUR portion of the economy.
I find this to be most glaring during school board elections and levy referenda. No one wants to believe that their elected school board is a bunch of (relative) incompetents, though any reasonable amount of effort will uncover exactly that. It's simply built into "the system" that this will be so, and built into our system of thinking that it cannot be true. After all, if I elect an incompetent to the school board and entrust my most cherished possession-- my children-- to them, I've failed, and I refuse to believe that. Sustain the myth, it's an absolute mental health requirement.
J. Ewing
To express global "controversial" views risks starting a local controversy. Some people are able to detach the relationship from the controversy. Others are not. Therefore, start the discussion under these conditions:
1. You don't care about the relationship.
(passing acquaintance, anonymous internet post, etc)
2. The other person has no power over you. (if they don't like you, it doesn't matter)
3. The other person is non-judgemental or not really passionate about their own beliefs
4. The other person is truely interested in an open discussion of ideas.
By the way, here is why someone may not be interested in an open discussion of ideas:
1. Things currently make sense in their world and therefore there is less stress (cognitive dissonance)
2. They are afraid that an open discussion might poke holes in their version of reality.
3. This would require an uncertain amount of time and anguish to bring their ideas back into alignment.
4. Someone can have a non-factual belief, but that belief can set them at peace with the world. They may think that the belief risks being non-factual, but resists begin corrected because of the peace of mind that may be lost
5. Other times a belief is tied with social position. They resist new ideas, because if the were convinced of a new idea, then they will loose their social position.
Many other reasons to resist dialogue, so little time. I could go on and on.
moe
-Moe
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