How to listen when you disagree • Hacker News Board

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#121

Post by axlprose » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 1:20 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #116

joslin01 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point parent is making is that the one's own stubbornness (that they are indeed correct) forces them to skip a step -- is what they are saying true and/or what is their logical positioning? Instead, OP says "first find out how they got to that position in life" which you gotta understand does come across pretty smug since it implies superiority of opinion/belief and degenerates the disagreer as if they are merely…

> merely using emotion in their logic. Truth often goes deeper than facts and logic.

This is a pretty common sentiment, but I think it underplays just how much phenomena logic and factual observation can analyze/explain, and in turn we easily forget and underestimate just how much it can truly accomplish[0]. I mean, literally all of our modern scientific and technological progress has been built on top of it, so what inherent quality makes these tools ineffective for discovering these other things that are yet to be understood, like emotion?

Discussing things like mathematicians trying to solve a hard math problem would probably help our communications more if anything, compared to say, carrying out discourse like we're all Deepak Chopras...

[0] This idea is described pretty well by the whole "Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics" discussion:

https://plus.maths.org/content/unreasonable-effectiveness

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#122

Post by endgame » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 1:36 AM UTC

What the actual shit. Before I could read the text, I got hit with a "sign up for our bullshit newsletter" pop-up. Then after dismissing that I hit space to page down and got shown a SquareSpace login that I couldn't get out of.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#123

Post by exclusiv » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:04 AM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #104

bcoates wrote: post #73

"Hear the Biography, not the ideology" This is just another way of attacking someone else's position, with the added bonus of letting you be intolerably smug while you do it. You're not communicating in good faith unless you're willing to concede the possibility that the other person is actually right about something. At the very least you need to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. This, on the othe…

* At the very least you need to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.* We were all taught Debate ("Trying to prove your point") instead of being taught to Dialectic ("the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions."). I have many conversations about Religion and Theology and as soon as I detect the other party is dead set on proving their ideas correct instead trying to find the truth, I…

Well said. If I detect that then I usually try to disarm them by saying that we don't need to agree and for most things... that's ok.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#124

Post by FooHentai » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #73

"Hear the Biography, not the ideology" This is just another way of attacking someone else's position, with the added bonus of letting you be intolerably smug while you do it. You're not communicating in good faith unless you're willing to concede the possibility that the other person is actually right about something. At the very least you need to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. This, on the othe…

>This, on the other hand, is a way of reconciling the fact that you obviously don't have a good reason to believe the things you do (otherwise, you wouldn't be threatened by the mere fact that someone disagrees with you)

I don't agree that this is the only reason someone would be threatened by disagreement, or even the main reason. You can feel threatened by disagreement on the basis of the other party acting on their belief, and how that outcome would affect you.

As a relevant example, you can feel threatened by someone disagreeing with your stance on abortion if you are pro-choice, because the down-stream implication of pro-life beliefs is legislation and societal constraints that remove your ability to choose.

If we're just debating in a vacuum then sure, you would only feel threatened as some kind of ego response. But in the real world beliefs tend to result in real-world consequences, and those consequences are the root cause of feeling threatened by disagreement.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#125

Post by cderwin » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:30 AM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #5

Eh, perhaps I'm cynical, but listening to someone, and coming to understanding regarding how they might have developed there beliefs, sounds nice, and it's very compassionate, but I question if it's actually a step toward compromise, or simply understanding. After all, for an increasing number of issues, in the end, the beliefs themselves are so polarized they leave no room for compromise. To this woman, it doesn't m…

I think you've got to understand that Point of View is absolutely crucial in ascertaining how "radical" a view point is. I think to most people here the idea of incarcerating people who choose to abort there pregnancies is truly radical, something that seems without basis in fact or logic. But you're missing the crucial point here, which you could come to by listening: to the woman in the article, abortion is murder. It is killing another individual. If you are willing to take that as fact, to consider another's point of view instead of just be reviled by it, you might realize that given the presumption that abortion is literally murder, the criminalization of abortion is not so absurd after all. Now, you may still have now idea and be reviled by the notion that abortion could be considered murder, but at least you understand why they would want abortion to be criminalized.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#126

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 3:04 AM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #41

justratsinacoat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I make a serious effort to nurture relationships with people who hold beliefs very different from mine, some of these beliefs I even consider ethically flawed, or counterfactual. And yet I get so much out of talking and especially listening to these people explain their beliefs to me. I feel grateful to have the opportunity to see the world through other lenses, and I have learned and grown as a result Honest questi…

I have changed opinions on certain topics, for example my thoughts about gun control and libertarianism are more nuanced than years ago. I can articulate many viewpoints extremely clearly which I don't happen to hold, which means if I am in a debating mood I can much more precisely debate someone, rather than simply dismissing them. I repeatedly realize my own opinions are sometimes based on unexamined assumptions, w…

[deleted]

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#127

Post by chrismcb » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 3:19 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #116

joslin01 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point parent is making is that the one's own stubbornness (that they are indeed correct) forces them to skip a step -- is what they are saying true and/or what is their logical positioning? Instead, OP says "first find out how they got to that position in life" which you gotta understand does come across pretty smug since it implies superiority of opinion/belief and degenerates the disagreer as if they are merely…

> merely using emotion in their logic. Truth often goes deeper than facts and logic.

Could you please explain how truth goes deeper than facts? I am missing something

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#128

Post by kennethcwilbur » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 3:23 AM UTC

Those with deepest insights on this topic are least likely to post.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#129

Post by dingo_bat » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 4:02 AM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #5

Eh, perhaps I'm cynical, but listening to someone, and coming to understanding regarding how they might have developed there beliefs, sounds nice, and it's very compassionate, but I question if it's actually a step toward compromise, or simply understanding. After all, for an increasing number of issues, in the end, the beliefs themselves are so polarized they leave no room for compromise. To this woman, it doesn't m…

>They don't care why. The act itself is morally unjustifiable.

I think this very similar to how people view the act of murder. This is nothing special about abortion. They just view it as a crime.

>There is no room for compromise in a belief system like that.

Exactly. That is why, listening does nothing. In the article, the author felt very warm and fuzzy but look at the result of that encounter. The woman went on believing what she already believed and the author went on believing what he already believed. So what's the point?

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#130

Post by vacri » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #73

"Hear the Biography, not the ideology" This is just another way of attacking someone else's position, with the added bonus of letting you be intolerably smug while you do it. You're not communicating in good faith unless you're willing to concede the possibility that the other person is actually right about something. At the very least you need to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. This, on the othe…

> This is just another way of attacking someone else's position, with the added bonus of letting you be intolerably smug while you do it.

Ah, yes. The author is so intolerably smug, the way he didn't advance his own message to the woman, and asked her to speak more of her own experience. I know that I, for one, can't handle it when someone ask for more information without expressing any statement of judgement - I mean, the sheer smugness of it is just intolerable.

> This, on the other hand, is a way of reconciling the fact that you obviously don't have a good reason to believe the things you do

Even though the author clearly and concisely explains why his own opinion is different to the woman's? It's not like it's a complex or hard to read article.

There's a considerable amount of projection going on in your comment. I find the commentary about smugness quite ironic, really.