I’ve been told violence isn’t the answer and we shouldn’t just shoot nazis and nazi enablers dead.
The way most people change their mind isn’t based on facts or figures, but emotions. Specifically, in-group belonging. For most people, and this certainly includes me and you some of the time, what our in-group believes is more compelling than an out-groups supposed facts.
They see that guy as someone in their group so they believe him. They see you as a bad outside bad bad bad liar, so nothing you say is likely to get through. (This comic is worth reading on this topic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe )
If you want to change someone’s mind, they have to see you as in-group. Not necessarily the same group as what you’re arguing with. We all belong to many groups. American, new yorker, white guy, middle aged, yankees fan, etc etc there are many such slices. Like how you can’t get a republican to recycle by appealing to environmental concerns (because environmentalists are out-group, so fuck them), but you might be able to get them to recycle via something like “only american ingenuity can turn trash into bridges and tanks!”
This takes a lot of time and effort, and if you don’t get them to stop hanging out with the other group, you won’t make any lasting changes.
So I think you’d need a multi prong approach:
Get them off bad media. Facebook, fox news, etc. This is reinforcing their bad beliefs. Because they see this stuff as trustworthy in-group, it goes right into the worldview.
Get them to stop hanging out with their shitty maga-hat friends. This is the social in-group that’s reinforcing bad beliefs.
Get them to trust you.
Gently introduce the idea that maybe the extreme right doesn’t have their interests at heart, etc
All of which takes a lot of time and effort, and your opposite number is basically trying to do the same thing. Except they have fox news, trump, and such in their corner.
And, again, I’m told we definitely shouldn’t just shoot extreme right wingers and other nazi sympathizers dead. Nor should we burn their houses down. If we’re an emergency responder, we definitely shouldn’t let them die while thinking to ourselves “they would let so many die. without a thought, their passing deserves no mourning” or similar.
You should definitely nullify if you’re on a jury and someone allegedly did violence to a shitty ceo or red-hat, though, bu that’s getting off topic.
Compelling point. I just found that arguing with „these kind of people“ (livibg in europe, so no MAGA‘s here but like-minded, conservative fundamentalists etc.) leads to nowhere. It‘s kind of like the covid-conversations.
And often I heard „you can‘t make them change their minds, so just let them be“.
Still, I think this behaviour leads to isolation and separates us as a people even more.
Long story short: good question. If you found the answer, let me know.
As a reasonably experienced “data guy,” this seems obviously laughable, but the discussion on X is scary. This guy is a savior in the MAGA world.
We can criticize and poke fun all day, but it doesn’t matter much if our message isn’t challenging the mindset of those with other opinions.
How do we make better use of our time to impact outside opinion?
I’ve been told violence isn’t the answer and we shouldn’t just shoot nazis and nazi enablers dead.
The way most people change their mind isn’t based on facts or figures, but emotions. Specifically, in-group belonging. For most people, and this certainly includes me and you some of the time, what our in-group believes is more compelling than an out-groups supposed facts.
They see that guy as someone in their group so they believe him. They see you as a bad outside bad bad bad liar, so nothing you say is likely to get through. (This comic is worth reading on this topic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe )
If you want to change someone’s mind, they have to see you as in-group. Not necessarily the same group as what you’re arguing with. We all belong to many groups. American, new yorker, white guy, middle aged, yankees fan, etc etc there are many such slices. Like how you can’t get a republican to recycle by appealing to environmental concerns (because environmentalists are out-group, so fuck them), but you might be able to get them to recycle via something like “only american ingenuity can turn trash into bridges and tanks!”
This takes a lot of time and effort, and if you don’t get them to stop hanging out with the other group, you won’t make any lasting changes.
So I think you’d need a multi prong approach:
All of which takes a lot of time and effort, and your opposite number is basically trying to do the same thing. Except they have fox news, trump, and such in their corner.
And, again, I’m told we definitely shouldn’t just shoot extreme right wingers and other nazi sympathizers dead. Nor should we burn their houses down. If we’re an emergency responder, we definitely shouldn’t let them die while thinking to ourselves “they would let so many die. without a thought, their passing deserves no mourning” or similar.
You should definitely nullify if you’re on a jury and someone allegedly did violence to a shitty ceo or red-hat, though, bu that’s getting off topic.
Compelling point. I just found that arguing with „these kind of people“ (livibg in europe, so no MAGA‘s here but like-minded, conservative fundamentalists etc.) leads to nowhere. It‘s kind of like the covid-conversations. And often I heard „you can‘t make them change their minds, so just let them be“. Still, I think this behaviour leads to isolation and separates us as a people even more.
Long story short: good question. If you found the answer, let me know.