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How to listen when you disagree

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Re: How to listen when you disagree

#151

Post by aninhumer »

ThomPete wrote: post #147

I have always hated the idea that it's the communicators job to make sure people understand them. This is of course true in any professional setting like advertising, PR etc. But in a debate between two parties this insistence and demand is killing most possibilities of actually having a debate. The first problem is that if someone is arguing from a position we have predujize against we will be interpreting the worst…

Of course communication is the responsibility of both involved, but you can only ever control one side of it, so you might as well do the best you can.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#152

Post by aninhumer »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #144
_xhok wrote: post #143

While I agree with the overall sentiment, people ought to have to earn the privilege of being listened to by meeting a higher standard of reasonableness, self-awareness, and intellectual responsibility than that. The woman was unable herself to have children, so she latches onto the view that those who are able but choose termination are unethical killers. She manufactures further rationalization: "it's not right to…

This story seems to be a bit of a rorschach test. It seems that the primary rejection of what the author observed and described is preoccupied with correctness of ideas, while those of us who it touched are preoccupied with understanding why people think the way that they do. I too reject all manner of irrational and harmful views, but I'm concerned with why so many of those views prevail. Understanding why people co…

Indeed. I'm saddened by the number of people I see who don't seem to understand that being right is not a substitute for being persuasive.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#153

Post by ThomPete »

aninhumer wrote: post #151
ThomPete wrote: post #147

I have always hated the idea that it's the communicators job to make sure people understand them. This is of course true in any professional setting like advertising, PR etc. But in a debate between two parties this insistence and demand is killing most possibilities of actually having a debate. The first problem is that if someone is arguing from a position we have predujize against we will be interpreting the worst…

Of course communication is the responsibility of both involved, but you can only ever control one side of it, so you might as well do the best you can.

Thats my point though. Its not only the communicators job to be understandable since even if they are the other side is biased against what they say.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#154

Post by [deleted] »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #149
_xhok wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, especially this bit: > Simply demilitarizing disagreement can go a long way toward reducing the kinds of friction that prevent people from learning and growing when they're wrong. Here's my attempt at reconciliation. I would support all of the following: withholding hostility; understanding that understanding something is not the same as condoning it; having empathy for everyone; understanding that every…

I have to admit that I was brought to tears reading her story. I don't sympathize with her opinion on abortion, I strongly disagree with it. But I felt her hardship and her candor when offered space to admit her personal motivations. I felt them despite being unmoved from my own opinions. I also have to admit that I haven't always been self aware enough to make healthy corrections for my own beliefs and attitudes. 10…

[deleted]

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#155

Post by [deleted] »

aninhumer wrote: post #152
eyelidlessness wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story seems to be a bit of a rorschach test. It seems that the primary rejection of what the author observed and described is preoccupied with correctness of ideas, while those of us who it touched are preoccupied with understanding why people think the way that they do. I too reject all manner of irrational and harmful views, but I'm concerned with why so many of those views prevail. Understanding why people co…

Indeed. I'm saddened by the number of people I see who don't seem to understand that being right is not a substitute for being persuasive.

[deleted]

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#156

Post by marklgr »

axlprose wrote: post #121
Swizec wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

Noe one denies the virtues or achievements of logic, but as you know, the good ideas are also the most dangerous, since there is real danger of falling in love with them and applying them to everything ie. to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The idea that facts and logic are everything suggests that we could feed facts into some ubercomputer and the Truth would come out. As of today, it's clearly not the case--computers are excellent at computing, but they are pretty dumb. Humans must be around to select, prioritize, assign values, interpret, and put it all together. Otherwise, computers only spit the most mundane truths out of facts plus logic, and that was precisely one of the decisive criticism of positivim.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#157

Post by marklgr »

chrismcb wrote: post #127
Swizec wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Saying that truth is just facts and logic is like saying that music is just maths. Yes, at some level, it is, but I'd rather listen to music actually made by musicians than mathematicians.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#158

Post by stared »

From Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and influence people":

'''

"I don't blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do."

An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive.

And you can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does.

Take Al Capone, for example. Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind that Al Capone had. Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he was - and where he was. For it is those things - and only those things - that made him what he was. The only reason, for example, that you are not a rattlesnake is that your mother and father weren't rattlesnakes.

'''

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#159

Post by Ended »

austinjp wrote: post #88
emcrazyone wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed.. I live by a motto that goes: First, seek to understand and then seek to be understood. Active listening definitely works for me!

That's excellent. So succinct, so valuable. Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Francis

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#160

Post by cvs268 »

stared wrote: post #158

From Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and influence people": ''' "I don't blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do." An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive. And you can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does. Take Al Capone, for example. Suppose you had…

Not only does it soothe the other person, this approach is ACTUALLY helpful in improving oneself i.e. how one approaches an argument or a difference of opinion.

Once you say this and mean it, you are no longer thinking about how wrong or stupid the other person is. You are no longer frustrated by someone else's apparent incompetence. Instead you start thinking how to share with the other person, the influential thoughts and experiences which you have already had.

The sooner you are successful in letting the other person experience the same thoughts and experiences that you already have, the better the chances that the other person can now see your point of view.

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