The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...
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Both Moa and your sister and bigots. As such they're not alone - it's pretty much the human condition for a whole host of evolutionary and sociological reasons.
Most people once they have decided on a prejudice - because that's what we are discussing - don't /aren't interested in examining a contrary position. Again most people will take such an examination as a criticism and will revert to one of the 3 standard responses - justify, blame or deny.
Their prejudices are reinforced by the again very human trait of myopically only observing what reinforces their prejudices and ignoring anything else and surrounded themselves with fellow travellers all of which reinforces the initial prejudice. Technology has simply amplified this echo chamber.
then their is the effect of perspective. Most people see their position as sane and logical and therefore not extreme. Where you feel you sit on the political spectrum is not necessarily where others will see you because your position is informed by their position. e.g. you may say you are slightly right of centre your sister sees you as far right. Someone on the far right may see you as a lefty. BSG called me out as an obvious Nats hater and Labour apologist. Which is accurate from his perspective but does not reflect my voting pattern for the last three decades. Similarly in US context National are a left wing party
I applaud you for making the effort but I think for all the reasons above you are wasting your energy. Very few people change what they stand for. It is there perception of what a political party stands for that shifts which is why the battle is always for the centre and the relatively slim number of swing voters
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I’ve had similar conversations with pro disease or alternative health fruitcakes , they usually go nowhere because they are so invested in their stance it’s probably incredibly embarrassing to actually admit to yourself let alone other people that homeopathy is water or putting a jade egg into your vagina is a good idea.
I think that’s why a lot of people who switch teams when they realise what they believe is bullshit do so quite aggressively because no one likes being taken for a fool.
You could try a different tack with Moa , you could point out she was given loads of opportunities by white males to actually further her career but she was the one who trashed it so it’s not fair to say she’s been a victim of oppression.
Or you could say she’s a fat obnoxious overrated lesbian who has no filter due to years of rampant substance abuse and whatever pops into her head comes straight out her mouth so what she says probably shouldn’t be taken as gospel.
Whichever one you’re comfortable with.
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@dogmeat agree, the default human condition is tribalism and bigotry for evolutionary purposes. It takes conscious effort to actually overcome that, and I think in the west we are way further down that path than anywhere else and any other time in history which is awesome. It's bloody frustrating to see fringe views creep into the mainstream and quickly undo the progress made.
I don't see my wife as a black woman. I just see her as the woman I fell in love with. And I really thought we had an understanding that race doesn't matter, but more and more the fact that we're a mixed couple is becoming our defining feature which is just fucking bullshit.
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@majorrage said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
So ... open forum. Why am I wrong? Why is me saying that Anika Moa saying "am I not white or male enough" is a nonsensical or logical argument for criticism of here tattoos?
I really would like to understand this, not a shit stirring thread.Anyone telling you to argue from facts is ignoring the fundamental issue - if facts worked rather than emotional attachment to an idea, then your sister wouldn't be as antagonistic and illogical as she's currently being.
Even if you could get the discussion to a point where she doesn't feel attacked, it's the same physiological response religious people have. It's immaterial that you point out the leaps of logic and contradictions, her belief is part of her identity and as such, only a gradual process of seeing flaws will help her realise there's a problem with the central premise she adheres to. The same way most people tend to drift away from their religion, there's no epiphany as a result of well meaning interlocutors.
The hardest part is the gripes and grievances have an historical basis, from which however unsteady the foundation, it provides a buttress. And for some, those grievances are lived experiences that still exist.
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Give her a forum to properly explain her views.
Talking is a way of thinking, and better in many ways than an internal monologue.
Try that tactic of saying back to her what you genuinely think she just explained.
Leave your opinions to one side and be sure she's been able to articulate her opinions. Make it your objective that she should be heard.
You don't want to beat your sister or make her feel stupid. You love her.
The objective is to hear her side and perhaps with her talking and putting her views in order she will see inconsistencies.
Active listening and giving her the floor is way more difficult than we realise.
Let her set out her platform as a starting point.
I used to be like her and it took months of angry denial to come around, and months of calling BSG a fluffybunny (which he is!) before the weight of evidence took over. I always had a "but you don't know or a whatabout..." to retreat into a safe space between my ears.
It'll take a while but being the conversation passenger will be more fruitful than fighting over the wheel.
Be patient and check your tone of voice.
Again your objective is for her discover different viewpoints, not to beat her into submission, figuratively speaking.
Don't forget it's also a great way for you to learn new viewpoints and why such viewpoints arise
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@siam said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
Give her a forum to properly explain her views.
Talking is a way of thinking, and better in many ways than an internal monologue.
Try that tactic of saying back to her what you genuinely think she just explained.
Leave your opinions to one side and be sure she's been able to articulate her opinions. Make it your objective that she should be heard.
You don't want to beat your sister or make her feel stupid. You love her.
The objective is to hear her side and perhaps with her talking and putting her views in order she will see inconsistencies.
Active listening and giving her the floor is way more difficult than we realise.
Let her set out her platform as a starting point.
I used to be like her and it took months of angry denial to come around, and months of calling BSG a fluffybunny (which he is!) before the weight of evidence took over. I always had a "but you don't know or a whatabout..." to retreat into a safe space between my ears.
It'll take a while but being the conversation passenger will be more fruitful than fighting over the wheel.
Be patient and check your tone of voice.
Again your objective is for her discover different viewpoints, not to beat her into submission, figuratively speaking.
Don't forget it's also a great way for you to learn new viewpoints and why such viewpoints arise
Err.... You are welcome?
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@baron-silas-greenback
Yeah thanks, all good. Message delivery might need some work, but all good 😁 -
There is an interesting critique of Ben Shapiro on Quillette which makes almost the same points as yours. Although I wanted to disagree with the thesis, it does seem very true that confronting the emotional ideas that underly people’s interpretation of facts, is sometimes more important than straight up refuting them factually.
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@gt12 I might look for that. I've read a few things in the last couple of years that caused me to revisit how I discussed topics with people. I used to rely on facts, obliterating their argument, walk them step by step through the logic, confirming it with them at each stage that we agreed and after delivery the coup de grâce I'd smugly sit back and await the acclamation.
Then I'd be stunned to find at the last hurdle, they'd simply ignore everything that had been said previously and go back to their original position. As if the discussion had never taken place. I'd never dealt with why they chose to believe what they believed, just what they believed.
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@paekakboyz I was using the backhanded complimentary version of fluffybunny 😀
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Another good wad of replies overnight. Thanks to all.
In a nutshell, she think it's not worth debating me as my position is firmly entrenched. And vice versa. And the only way to move forward is to step back, listen to her and ask questions without offering prejudice and then try and explain things. Well ...
@rancid-schnitzel said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
It's tribalism and a knee-jerk instinct to defend one's side no matter what. Can happen on the other side as well. I'm sure there are people who will defend whatever Trump says and then slander the person calling it out as "out of touch" or something. Ultimately if you've invested so much time and energy in your own side and have become convinced of the total righteousness of that position, not even a slide show identifying every single error in minute detail will make any difference to your stance. In other words, you're dealing with fanatics and have to view them as such. Just accept that people like this exist and just move on with your life.
Maybe this wins post of the thread for me ... probably just easier. Accept that I'll never know why I'm wrong and move forwards. Reality is that she will take a position of extreme upset at any argument of her views, and it's simply not worth it.
Apparently the Don Brash incident ended up in a stand up and walk out with tears. It is her holiday here and I don't want to be the one to ruin it.
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@jc said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
@majorrage what does your sister do for a living? Is she surrounded all day by people who would be offended by your politics? Did she qualify in an area dominated by people who believe in progressivism (teaching being the obvious example)?
Works for the government as a policy analyst in the social services sector. So in answer to you other questions massively yes and yes.
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@antipodean said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
@gt12 I might look for that. I've read a few things in the last couple of years that caused me to revisit how I discussed topics with people. I used to rely on facts, obliterating their argument, walk them step by step through the logic, confirming it with them at each stage that we agreed and after delivery the coup de grâce I'd smugly sit back and await the acclamation.
Then I'd be stunned to find at the last hurdle, they'd simply ignore everything that had been said previously and go back to their original position. As if the discussion had never taken place. I'd never dealt with why they chose to believe what they believed, just what they believed.
Really good points there.
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@antipodean said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
@gt12 I might look for that. I've read a few things in the last couple of years that caused me to revisit how I discussed topics with people. I used to rely on facts, obliterating their argument, walk them step by step through the logic, confirming it with them at each stage that we agreed and after delivery the coup de grâce I'd smugly sit back and await the acclamation.
Then I'd be stunned to find at the last hurdle, they'd simply ignore everything that had been said previously and go back to their original position. As if the discussion had never taken place. I'd never dealt with why they chose to believe what they believed, just what they believed.
Thats interesting actually. I know exactly why my sister believes what she believes. It's her job to deal with the "downtrodden" everyday and understand why they are where they are, and what the government should be doing about it. I fully get it.
What I don't get at all is why somebody who I know is extremely smart (smashed me all the way through school (including in logical subjects such as maths / physics) and got a PhD from a reputable uni) can call me flat out wrong when I'm just talking what I view as basic logic.
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Well I'm just on my way to watch Cornell West go head-to-head in debate against Douglas Murray. Maybe I'll get an insight, or maybe it'll just devolve into a screaming match. Either way it'll be fun..unless antifa show up and then it'll just be unbearable
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@antipodean said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
@gt12 I might look for that. I've read a few things in the last couple of years that caused me to revisit how I discussed topics with people. I used to rely on facts, obliterating their argument, walk them step by step through the logic, confirming it with them at each stage that we agreed and after delivery the coup de grâce I'd smugly sit back and await the acclamation.
Mansplaining
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@gt12 said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
There is an interesting critique of Ben Shapiro on Quillette which makes almost the same points as yours. Although I wanted to disagree with the thesis, it does seem very true that confronting the emotional ideas that underly people’s interpretation of facts, is sometimes more important than straight up refuting them factually.
Agree, although it is much more difficult to change 'feelings'
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Read it here.
This observation echoes the main thesis of Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, in which he argues that our faculty for reason labors to validate our intuitions (including our moral impulses), not vice versa. In Haidt’s analogy of the Rider and the Elephant (elaborated in the clip below), the Rider represents ‘strategic reasoning,’ whose direction is determined by the much larger and more powerful Elephant, which represents intuition and emotion. Haidt explains why so many debates fail to persuade, writing, “You can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments…If you want to change people’s minds, you’ve got to talk to their elephants.”
Ben Shapiro’s tendency has not been to talk to elephants so much as make them stampede. Take, for instance, the now-infamous tweet he sent in September 2010 which read: “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.” A fair-minded look at the tweets sent immediately after this one reveals that Shapiro’s assertion was made in reference to the Israeli and Arab political leaderships—not to these populations as a whole. Shapiro reiterated this explanation in a recent defense of the tweet at the Daily Wire, in which he describes the Left as “idiotic” for its collective failure to appreciate context.
But what Shapiro is really criticizing in his article is the willingness of people to be led by their elephants, even though this is inevitable and therefore entirely predictable. Regardless of any technical defense of the tweet disqualifying it as racist, if Shapiro’s objective as a good faith interlocutor is to invite people to consider new perspectives, then it is strategically unjustifiable. If, on the other hand, his intention is solely to enrage his opponents and electrify his supporters, then he is engaging in demagoguery and should not complain when people react exactly as intended.