The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
jonathanhaidt.substack.com
The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
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Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#2I’m not an American, but in general it’s possible for people with different views to understand each other, provided that they have the patience and awareness required to explain their views down to their core values.
It’s not always possible, however, to agree, because the core values are frequently incompatible. A catholic can not reach an agreement with a leftist on e.g. first trimester abortion, because for the former it’s murder, and for the latter it’s not. So the leftist will consider the woman’s right for bodily autonomy, and the catholic will simply want to prevent murder, and evil from happening.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#3I’m not an American, but in general it’s possible for people with different views to understand each other, provided that they have the patience and awareness required to explain their views down to their core values. It’s not always possible, however, to agree, because the core values are frequently incompatible. A catholic can not reach an agreement with a leftist on e.g. first trimester abortion, because for the f…
As a person who fits within your example, this is what I always come back to. I can completely understand a person’s position in support of abortion, but no amount of talking through the issues will get us in alignment.
Many of these big issues (homelessness, immigration, universal income, abortion) come down to one’s particular viewpoint on humanity and human rights, and if folks aren’t in alignment from that foundation, no amount of dialogue changes the disagreement that flows from the foundation.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#4Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#5I’m not an American, but in general it’s possible for people with different views to understand each other, provided that they have the patience and awareness required to explain their views down to their core values. It’s not always possible, however, to agree, because the core values are frequently incompatible. A catholic can not reach an agreement with a leftist on e.g. first trimester abortion, because for the f…
After trying a lot to understand Republicans and right-wingers in the US (where I'm from) I'm much less convinced it's possible now than I was when I first became politically aware twenty-ish years ago. But moreover, even if I can understand someone, I can't understand why they trust their sources of information (which seem to me patently self-serving, pandering and stupid). And when our sources are so different we can't seem to talk anything but past each other.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#6I’m not an American, but in general it’s possible for people with different views to understand each other, provided that they have the patience and awareness required to explain their views down to their core values. It’s not always possible, however, to agree, because the core values are frequently incompatible. A catholic can not reach an agreement with a leftist on e.g. first trimester abortion, because for the f…
As a person who fits within your example, this is what I always come back to. I can completely understand a person’s position in support of abortion, but no amount of talking through the issues will get us in alignment. Many of these big issues (homelessness, immigration, universal income, abortion) come down to one’s particular viewpoint on humanity and human rights, and if folks aren’t in alignment from that founda…
In modern societies the solution here is simply voting - people with similar worldviews group, and advocate for their position. The fringe positions, like advocation of slavery will lose. In the US, the winner takes all makes it more difficult, because you only get two options, and they have to represent views of a broad spectrum of voters.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#7I once spoke to a former Republican operative whose assessment of the communication problems we are facing struck me as interesting:
- In the past, the two parties primarily differed in how they thought issues should be tackled. E.g. should the economy be stimulated by cutting taxes or by increased government investment in infrastructure.
- Now many of one party's priorities simply don't exist in the other party's platform. For example, Republicans have no plan for promoting social justice/equality because it's not something that they prioritize at all. Similarly, Democrats don't really have a plan for advancing Republican's "traditional values" priorities.
- Because of this, Democrats and Republicans often talk past each other. For example, Democrats can't work with Republicans to tackle economic justice because, in a manner of speaking, economic justice doesn't exist in Republican's world view.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#8I’m not an American, but in general it’s possible for people with different views to understand each other, provided that they have the patience and awareness required to explain their views down to their core values. It’s not always possible, however, to agree, because the core values are frequently incompatible. A catholic can not reach an agreement with a leftist on e.g. first trimester abortion, because for the f…
As a person who fits within your example, this is what I always come back to. I can completely understand a person’s position in support of abortion, but no amount of talking through the issues will get us in alignment. Many of these big issues (homelessness, immigration, universal income, abortion) come down to one’s particular viewpoint on humanity and human rights, and if folks aren’t in alignment from that founda…
Yes but there are rational arguments in favour or against each of these issues, using values that (almost) everyone can agree on... Minimising suffering of sentient beings, or the continuation of our species for instance.
The hard bottom I hit with religious people is more often a disguised form of "because that's God's will" than a diverging core value.
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#9I think what Haidt and Mounk are chasing is right in plain sight.
The desire not to be understood, to assert the impossibility of mutual comprehension is experienced by every healthy teenager (and parent thereof) in the process of separation (into adulthood).
It is not merely a rejection of "everything you stand for" but an assertion of total separateness and inscrutability. To be "understood" is to be colonised, categorised, placed on your Cartesian grid and thus dominated and neutralised. The chosen identity is arbitrary, it is simply not yours, and the demand is that the very apparatus of perception, the frame within which mutual recognition can take place, be reset. And yet, weirdly, it is not a genuine bid for isolation, but Greta Garbo saying "I just want to be left alone!"
Why this happened culturally in this century may remain a mystery, but I see seeds of it in our own geek version of proto-identity-politics, in Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" [0]
" Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh
and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf
of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are
not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."
Re: The Insidious Lie That We Can’t Understand Each Other
#10I agree to some extent, but there are emotional aspects to oppression / discrimination that are difficult to understand if you haven’t experienced it personally.
But there’s an even more egregious and insidious lie here: the idea that a person can be reduced to their social identity / group membership, and that this gives a complete understanding of somebody’s life. Many people nowadays are even offended when you tell them they can’t know if I’ve had an easy life or not by looking at my skin and knowing what my parents did for a living.