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How to listen when you disagree

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Re: How to listen when you disagree

#171

Post by philh »

Udo wrote: post #102
zw123456 wrote: post #61

I love the sentiment that the author was trying to convey. The example that was provided was beautiful. It is really important to realize that usually it does not work out as beautifully as was presented in this particular example. My experience in active listening is that perhaps 1 out of 20 times do you get a good outcome as was the case in this example. Generally, the person will simply yell things at you about th…

I also found it interesting that this article is hugely concerned with making someone feel loved for expressing a desire to literally have everybody killed who had an abortion. I think at some point, the severity of an ideology has to outweigh the desire to accept a person as who they are. We have been somewhat culturally conditioned by the common tropes of storytelling that biography excuses, and in fact makes accep…

> expressing a desire to literally have everybody killed who had an abortion

She expressed a desire to have those people locked up and arrested for murder. That is not literally killing someone.

> Making it immune to criticism

I don't think anybody suggested doing this. You can love someone while disagreeing with them, even if you disagree with them really hard. You can criticize someone's opinions in some forums, and leave them other forums where they can vent safely.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#172

Post by JonnieCache »

pjc50 wrote: post #168
chrismcb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Logic can tell you, to a certain extent, about cause and effect. It can tell you how to achieve objectives and what likely risks there are. Perhaps you can assign probabilities to possible outcomes. It can't tell you what objectives are important nor what risks are acceptable. Those are both transitive properties: something is important to some people, something might be acceptable to some people. There's no objectiv…

>There's no objective morality

It should be noted that this is a controversial view, albeit one commonly held.

There are many people who believe, for example, that given only the laws of physics and the information describing the arrangement of particles making up a kitten, that they could in principle derive the conclusion that it is wrong to set the kitten on fire, without needing any further context. There are many ways to go about this.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#173

Post by jld89 »

This is a great article.

We don't need to be always right or prove others wrong, choose carefully the battles and aim for compromise, you don't have to agree to a solution, you just have to approve it.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#174

Post by Ntrails »

trjordan wrote: post #113
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…

If you're hearing the biography so you can attack the ideology, you're missing the point. Ideology is nearly pointless to discuss. Instead, the author suggests talking about topics that are more personal. By talking about experiences, you can expose the nuance that's so easily blown away by swapping talking points. Perhaps the author and the woman both agree that people should be less cavalier with pregnancy, and the…

> Even abortion is not so black and white, and arguing about it abstractly is a much less fruitful way to find common ground.

So my common response to strong ideological positions is to take a hypothetical which exposes something I feel uncomfortable with if I were to accept that ideological framework.

The world is pretty much all shades of grey to me (indeed to an extent which occasionally offends), so I find ideological certainty very hard to relate to. It's not that I think they're wrong and I'm right, I'm not attacking their position, I just want to get my head around the fact that when faced with all the ramifications of their position - they're still certain.

These conversations are really interesting to me, and I love talking to people who see the world so differently.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#175

Post by qntty »

smcl wrote: post #32

I'm sorry, it's possible that I am too cynical for this world, but this sounds embellished if not entirely fictional like the precocious toddlers* waxing lyrical on free speech and Donald Trump. After the author asked a single question the stranger poured their heart out on a deeply personal issue, conveniently vindicating the presence of a "free listening" booth at the RNC and giving an all-too-perfect story for the…

Consider that he probably listened to dozens of people, and maybe this was the only incident worth writing about.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#176

Post by gilleain »

Udo wrote: post #169
Chris2048 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for expressing a desire to literally have everybody killed who had an abortion The article says: > people who have them should be arrested for murder Also, this is said by someone who considers abortion to be murder, so isn't surprising.

Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe I read it wrong, or maybe the article was changed in the meantime. Whatever the case, I still want to point out that a conviction murder carries with it a life sentence and possible death penalty. > Also, this is said by someone who considers abortion to be murder, so isn't surprising. The article actually does a pretty good job of convincing me that she doesn't consider it to be m…

> she doesn't consider it to be murder as such, she just wants people who do it to get the same punishment

Right, and the point is that the writer would likely never have found this out in the course of normal argument because the discussion would have got caught up in the rights and wrongs of jailing people for making choices about procreation.

There's the expression "love the sinner, hate the sin" that surely applies to more than just religious sins. It is possible to disagree with someone but not hate them for it, even if their ideas might be hateful to you.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#177

Post by falcolas »

zw123456 wrote: post #61

I love the sentiment that the author was trying to convey. The example that was provided was beautiful. It is really important to realize that usually it does not work out as beautifully as was presented in this particular example. My experience in active listening is that perhaps 1 out of 20 times do you get a good outcome as was the case in this example. Generally, the person will simply yell things at you about th…

Someone quoting the Bible at you is actually a very useful output from such a conversation, since it gives you a pretty good reference point on the framework for many of their beliefs. It also naturally segues into "what lead to your belief in the Bible?"

The output from that question can be very interesting sometimes.

Re: How to listen when you disagree

#180

Post by Udo »

gilleain wrote: post #176
Udo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe I read it wrong, or maybe the article was changed in the meantime. Whatever the case, I still want to point out that a conviction murder carries with it a life sentence and possible death penalty. > Also, this is said by someone who considers abortion to be murder, so isn't surprising. The article actually does a pretty good job of convincing me that she doesn't consider it to be m…

> she doesn't consider it to be murder as such, she just wants people who do it to get the same punishment Right, and the point is that the writer would likely never have found this out in the course of normal argument because the discussion would have got caught up in the rights and wrongs of jailing people for making choices about procreation. There's the expression "love the sinner, hate the sin" that surely appli…

> There's the expression "love the sinner, hate the sin" that surely applies to more than just religious sins. It is possible to disagree with someone but not hate them for it, even if their ideas might be hateful to you.

I'm not sure how this is a response to my comment. If you read my other comment, that's pretty much my point. I'm sorry if that was not clear.

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