If faced with critical thinking, people tend to disregard what you’re trying to say and push back to their outlook.
Your title is un-self critical and condescending, so your conversations probably aren’t terribly productive in either direction.
That turn of phrase has never been used by someone conversing in good faith and with an open mind.
Edit: Jack Nicholson excepted
Seriously, that title is worded like a straight up attack. Such a question, while open ended in who would consider what truth, still leads to the same outcome: engagement based purely on outrage and “proving the other side wrong.”
I sometimes wonder if people post things like this with the intention of filtering through comments to block people that post their political viewpoints in response. If thats the case, I would conssider this a very effective and intelligent post. However, I don’t think that this is the case.
My goodness that sounds like a lot of work lol.
“Can’t handle the truth” = I’m gonna write you off as a whole person and call you weak and stupid because we disagree.
On one hand people often don’t like to hear bad news or an idea that means they have to do a thing or face a problem. On the other hand how a person is told the idea is a big part of a negative reaction. Often there is no reason to tell someone the thing at all.
I’ll be straight forward if someone asks but I’m not “brutality honest”. OP sounds like the “brutality honest” without anyone asking type.
I enjoy your username
He needed a good title. You cant judge a persons conversation skills based on that…
Not sure if this is helpful, but my take is:
Because in most cases, what is assumed to be “truth”is subjective. If you’re talking political. More often things are blurred with regards to truth as most things tend not to be empirically true, but instead, emotionally true.
For example;
“All conservatives are Nazis!”
This is inherently untrue. Yet I see every day- people who believe this to be the absolute truth. Same thing with-
“All liberals want to do is make our children gay!”
Also untrue. But when you try and correct them, they will almost always entrench themselves within their own version of the truth and disregard any form of critical thinking.
This is why asking questions is important. All conservatives are Nazis may actually be true if the person merely equates conservatives with Nazis, the proposition a mere tautology. Same for liberals trying to make kids gay, where people who make kids gay are liberals.
And by asking questions, trying to understand someone else, both parties can engage in critical thinking.
I think it’s wrong to think that critical thinking should spontaneously arise because someone’s beliefs are challenged. That’s never how it works. Rather, one person has to be vulnerable and ask, “What do you mean? Help me understand where you’re coming from.”
I don’t think there is such a thing like making someone gay.
I have a friend who had surgery to become gay. He was a straight guy before the surgery, and now she is a lesbian.
Fake. Was already a lesbian pre surgery.
Can’t argue against straight facts
That’s sort of exactly the point. People believe it to be true, and it’s sort of impossible to prove them wrong. Nature vs Nurture still isn’t proven either way, regardless of how strongly you feel one way or the other.
The simple fact that someone believes it’s possible to “make people gay”, almost necessarily leads to them believing there are people out there actively doing it.
Sure, but the problem isn’t fundamentally different from any other based on different views of how the world works, which is important. It means that it’s subject to the Socratic Method, for example, or any other method of inquiry that helps people explore their own beliefs.
What it means to “make people gay” may just mean having LGBTQIA+ stuff in the general area, inviting others to come out and normalizing the behavior. I’m willing to bet that’s exactly what it means based on what I’ve seen and read. And even if I disagree with that perspective, it makes way more sense than literally forcing people to become gay. And that’s definitely a step forward than merely thinking that person is as dumb as a box of rocks, because now understand how they’re as a dumb as a box of rocks.
The real power of the rainbow carebear stare.
All conservatives are Nazis
Some were very fine people.
Have you considered that they probably feel the same way about you? That you’re disregarding what they say and pushing back with your own outlook?
Humans are more influenced by emotions than logic, which means that critical thinking alone may not convince them. Only those who are receptive to logical reasoning can be persuaded that way.
“I think it’s very easy to convince people they are wrong.”
“Actually, here’s all these studies that prove that the opposite is-”
“Well I don’t believe that.”
People don’t like being wrong.
Being wrong has long been viewed as a form of weakness.
When in reality, if you are faced with knowledge of your wrongness and make a correction, then over time you grow. In which case, being wrong is a strength of sorts.
I’m weak several times a day.
My kink is admitting when I am wrong.
Well you’re wrong
Many reasons.
- the message seems fishy
- the messenger is not charismatic/trustworthy enough
- there’s lack of clarity in the message
- it contradicts personal model of reality, and these form the cornerstones of our identity, thus can’t be changed just like that
- etc, etc, etc
That’s great question! From psychological perspective, people like to think that they are right. If they encounter some person or situation that threatens their believes they have three choices:
- accept that they were wrong - might cause some unpleasant emotions, risks being perceived as not trustworthy/knowledgeable
- assume the other party is wrong - the belief is upheld, no negative consequences
- find some condition under which the belief in question does not apply - middle ground Of course, there are many situational and personal qualities that affect how easily person accepts other view as their own.
Eg. if you are self-proclaimed expert on some topic, naturally opinions different than yours are wrong, at least to you. However, if you approach your expertise with attitude of trying to understand underlying principles, it would be easier to accommodate for new, sometimes very surprising facts or theories.
Also, humans are very susceptible to biases, meaning the world they perceive is different to what “objectively” is. One of them is attribution bias, which causes people to assume some results depend on their actions - even if there in no basis for that. This bias started the whole “vaccines cause autism” belief. The reaserch paper which started the whole thing is based on a survey directed to parents of autistic childen asking, do they think autism of their child was caused by a vaccine. It is ridiculous belief for most nowadays, but it provided a clear cause of the disease for those parents.
I know my writing can be confusing sometimes, so let me know if you would like some clarification.
I’d be interested in a example. What is an example of a truth that you have found it difficult to get people to accept?
Some people honestly believe the Earth is 6000 years old. And not a little amount of people, giant percentages of the United States of America. They believe dinosaur bones were placed by Satan. These people walk amongst us.
how are you going to reason with somebody like that??
“you can never reason a man out of an opinion he was not reasoned into”
- Jonathan Swift
@ArtVandelay Logic is not what got them into this situation, logic is not what will get them out of it
The vast majority, virtually all, believe so because they believe that is what the Bible says.
And since they also believe their interpretation is the only correct one, and said interpretation requires everything be accepted OR they’ll go to eternal hellfire and burn forever there, as they deserve, there is basically no way to change this worldview without shattering it entirely. It benefits from being fragile because it causes so much mental anguish to depart from it, and people who walk away can turn into totally different people as a result of rejecting it and thus being rejected by their friends and family and community at large.
You, as a single, and likely, stranger to them, can’t get them to change. Alternative points of view or lifestyles are evidence of Satan’s trickery, so directed and deliberate debate with these people functions for them as a test of faith: they just have to weather the blows and they get Good Christian points and become closer to God. Nevermind that you have no intention of causing them harm or tricking them: you want to do the opposite, but it doesn’t matter.
The best you can do is be a kind person and be sure of yourself and your views. Planting a seed of doubt is much better than being used as a piece of evidence that they should not be looking for friends in worldly places.
While I never believed in YE creationism… i did a become a better person when I turned apostate.
A substantially better person, if I’m being honest.
Which is funny, since the idea that you’ll go off the deep end and become a cruelly nihilistic hedonist if you ever leave is such a constant drumbeat in that culture.
Yup. I was going to be a pastor until, at college for it… some LGBTQ protests came to campus (late 2k’s) and saw people being down right hateful. And everyone else being okay with that.
Made me realize…. I was an asshole. I didn’t want to be an asshole.
I mean - it may be that OP finds himself constantly coming across Young Earthers - but I am interested in hearing directly about the kinds of opinions they find the rest of the world struggles with.
Only morons would believe the world was 6000 years old. The universe started last Thursday.
I think we underestimate how much normalisation is a survival mechanism. Personally I struggled to acknowledge the ‘truth’ about my traumatic childhood but I can see now that I did this because it was easier to get through life.
It’s not simply that people believe specific things, but that they define themselves in terms of what they believe.
And in fact, it’s often the case that people invest in specific beliefs not because they’ve reasoned their way to that conclusion, but simply because they’ve effectively picked it off the rack of possible beliefs as the one that most clearly represents whatever image of themselves they wish to promote - it’s the position held by smart people or enlightened people or trendy people or moral people or strong people or whatever.
So if you try to argue against their belief, you face two immediate and generally insurmountable obstacles.
First, they’re psychologically invested in the belief, so if you call it into question, you’re not just threatening the belief - you’re threatening their self-image. Anything that casts doubt on the belief by extension casts doubt on their self-affirming presumption that holding the belief demonstrates their intelligence/morality/whatever.
And second, since it’s likely the case that they didn’t reason their way to the position in the first place, they can’t becreasoned away from it anyway. So itvinevitably shifts back to their psychological investment in the position, and your attempts at reason are a distraction at best.
Could you add the source of a media outlet that I trust to support your claims?
Because we’re emotional creatures first, we default to what’s familiar or comfortable. Logic/critical thinking take sustained practice and a lot of effort. There’s a study that suggests that many of our conscious choices are simply post-hoc rationalizations for decisions made in the unconscious.
I absolutely no longer trust anyone that insists they’re naturally and perfectly logical, they are unquestionably hiding some fixation or personal opinion which–if challenged–will make them unravel in the worst fashion.
Agree. Every single “logical” person I’ve met has had no more logic than anyone else, just incredibly low EQ.
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I think you could argue that this is an example of cognitive dissonance. It is uncomfortable to come face to face with new information that contradicts your beliefs or actions, and it requires energy if you want to integrate that new information into your worldview and adjust your actions. It is much easier to deny that information, even when it is clearly true.
For example, when it came out that aspartame might cause cancer, if you (like me) have eaten/drunk a lot of products containing it or have had a strong belief that it was completely safe, then it may be more comfortable for you to criticize WHO or think “well, it’s not really relevant for me because my family isn’t predisposed for cancer.” If you didn’t care about aspartame or artificial sweeteners before, you will probably readily accept that there may or may not be a cancer link.
This might be spot on
Could you make an example? They most likely see you the same way.
When it comes to changing someone’s mind, I believe it helps to first question whether there’s even a need to do so. If there is, then asking questions is vital. You can’t just hit someone with Facts & Logic™ and expect that it will immediately undo something they may have had drilled into them since childhood, or something that requires recognition that would challenge other dearly held beliefs (e.g. “if my dad did a bad thing, then is he not the great, infallible man I thought he was? If he’s a bad person and people tell me I look and act just like him, does that mean I’m a bad person, too?”). Finding out why someone believes what they believe, and taking time to understand it yourself and validate their experience is instrumental in opening up people’s hearts and minds. Or, at least, that’s been my experience and is therefore true to me. 😉
