Today we are showered with ‘inspiring’ and ‘hopeful’ conversations that are ultimately worthless. What makes these conversations so seemingly great is that no one ended up calling someone a name or drawing blood. If you go to YouTube and watch any of these conversations/debates, you will notice thousands of comments describing them as ‘mature’, ‘adult’, ‘productive’, and ‘bridging’.
There are many others and it goes without saying that any of Jubilee’s Middle Ground episodes fit the description. A concern I have, and the question I pose to you, the reader, is this: Do any of these videos portray someone changing their mind?
I have not seen it in any of these videos, and videos where a mind change is observed are rarer than emeralds. So why is it so hard for us to change our minds? In this writing I will strive for a digestible word count which will doubtless entail me leaving out vital perspectives. For this reason I encourage you to use this piece as a primer for your own epistemological journey to health.
The Demonization of Arguments
Being confronted on our ideas with conflicting viewpoints can be a daunting encounter, but it does not need to be. Arguments are often vilified, but this is because they are all too frequently misunderstood as fights. There is a staunch difference between fights and arguments that must be understood. A verbal fight seeks to bully, misunderstand, and destroy the opponent. An argument seeks to change the mind of the interlocutor, understand their perspective, and represent that perspective well. The difference can be summarized as this: Fights target the individual while arguments target their ideas. All too often we find ourselves victims, and even possibly perpetrators of the most egregious sin I believe one can commit in conversation: intentionally misunderstanding/misrepresenting one’s views. This crime against humanity is the reason we are so happy to see a peaceful disagreement, no matter how unproductive. To intentionally misunderstand an opponent’s view is to waste your own time, the time of the person you speak with, and manifests a fight. Some of us are so familiar with committing this crime we do not even notice ourselves doing it. Worse, we might not notice others doing it to ourselves as it is the status quo for arguments today. Here is an example
Person 1: “I do not believe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met at a pizza parlor in NYC to perform sexual acts on children (PizzaGate).”
Person 2: “Oh, so you like defending pedophiles, I see!!! Why are you so eager to downplay horrible acts on children?”
Here is another example
Person 1: “Kyle Rittenhouse was innocent of the charges levied against him when he shot those people at the BLM rally.”
Person 2: “You are racist. He shot those people because he hates black people. Why are you defending racism?”
Understanding the other’s position is a long-held and long-forgotten tenant of productive conversation. Philosopher John Stuart Mill writes in his work, On Liberty:
“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”1
One of the only ways to stop this lazy and cowardly argument style is to call it out when it happens. Notify the person that they are grossly misunderstanding you and seek to ensure they represent your view most generously. You can always confirm with yourself that you are arguing in good faith by asking yourself what your opponent’s position is. You should seek to represent your opponent’s view better than they can represent it themselves. These sins doom us to a self-fulfilling prophecy. We avoid arguments because they are demonized and we fear being misunderstood, so we remain in our echo chambers, which demonize our opponents and intentionally misunderstands them. To break from this, we must acknowledge the gifts that arguments bestow on us.
The Benefits of Arguing
Arguments are a gift to the world, and many of the luxuries we enjoy today were spawned from arguments one way or another. The Founding Fathers and the Enlightenment thinkers were constantly engaged in arguments regarding proper government and civil liberties. The Civil Rights movement argued their way with the law and ethical philosophy against not-so-equal arguments. The creation of the atomic bomb was surrounded by political, ethical, and scientific arguments. The Women’s Suffrage movement constantly made arguments and engaged with opponents regarding liberty, justice, and equality. Today you will do something that would not be legal or possible if it was not for the critical arguments that proceeded it. You might post online that ‘liberals are stupid losers’ to which you owe a great deal of gratitude to the Founding Fathers’ philosophy of freedom of speech. You might get on an airplane not acknowledging that Wilbur and Orville Wright were famous for arguing with each other constantly regarding how they would invent the airplane. If Wilbur and Orville viewed arguments the same way many of us do today, as cowardly, scared, and hostile, we would never have been gifted the joys of flight.2
Don’t Doom Yourself To Stupidity
Oftentimes, we doom ourselves to stupidity by seeing a change of mind as a sign of low intelligence, defeat, or worthy of shame. The cognitive difficulty of admitting your position was wrong and that the other person has changed your mind goes against the doctrine of modern verbal fights. Arguments are seen as something we should ‘win’ rather than an opportunity to allow truth to compel us. We can often doom ourselves with the harmful self-fulfilling prophecy that ‘I won’t change your mind and you won’t change my mind.’ If any speech should be illegal and banned, it is this phrase right here (joking). If this disgusting phrase is muttered to you, or you are the one that mutters it, ask ‘why’ it is so. Will minds not change because they do not like compelling arguments, because someone is too hostile, or because one person is too stupid and is not familiar with the facts of the matter? Why will no minds change?
Another critical answer to have ready in your mind is a response to the question, ‘What would it take to change my mind?’ An inability to answer this question should reveal to you that you are not familiar with or ready to engage with the topic at hand. If the person you speak with can not answer that question, ask yourself what the point is in continuing to speak with them when they just admitted nothing you say can persuade them.
Let’s Not Agree To Disagree
Agreeing to disagree is a mark of epistemological defeat in my eyes. Regarding factual matters, there are only 3 possibilities
I am wrong and they are right
I am right and they are wrong
We are both wrong
There is no other possible reality in a factual debate. During an argument, both sides should be seeking to figure out which of the three options is the case, of course, it will always sting a little to admit you were the wrong one. Agreeing to disagree is not only lazy, it is a cop-out to remain incarcerated in a prison of arrogance and uncritical thinking. It is worth noting that setting the discussion off to a later time due to time restraints or exhaustion is not the same as agreeing to disagree. Agreeing to disagree reveals one of the interlocutors is not ready to confront the possibility they are wrong.
We Can Be Better People
Some of our best character developments come from great awakenings. We can be (to steal Immanuel Kant’s words) awoken from our dogmatic slumbers when we learn to change our minds. We can learn that we will not lose friends but make them when we engage in good-faith arguments. We also become better people ourselves when we admit we are wrong, it brings us closer to the truth. Learning to confront the possibility of myself being wrong has been one of the most liberating and painful experiences of my life. I engage in debates regularly, roughly three times a week I will participate in a political, religious, or philosophical debate. Oftentimes, when I am confronted with a strong case that goes against my conditioning, I am hesitant to concede. An example of this was my examination of the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Rittenhouse is a textbook case of politics infiltrating criminal law. Although I might despise the personality, politics, and rhetoric of Rittenhouse, there is no sober watching of the case evidence that leads me to believe he did not act in self-defense. Not only was defending Rittenhouse polarizing for me in groups of people wrapped up in leftist identity politics, but it was also difficult for me to concede because Rittenhouse embodies all the views I am repulsed by. But I had to acknowledge I was not critiquing the politics of Rittenhouse but the legal matters regarding his case.
I have not found comfort in my Israel-Palestine views either, as many left-of-center individuals are repulsed by my support for the state of Israel. However, regardless of whether I am correct or incorrect regarding the optimal views of political-military intervention in the Middle East, one thing is for sure: I am not rank and file behind party rhetoric. This by no means implies I am rhetorically safe. Every week, I find perspectives and information that alter a position of mine in minute or drastic ways. I track these changes on my phone, where I have a list of all the times I change my mind in real-time. Sadly, a mind being changed in real-time is rarer than the most precious jewels.
As you go about your week, examine all the moments where you might have your mind changed. Ask yourself what it would take to change your mind on some of your most deeply held beliefs. When you engage in disagreements, ensure you are representing their position better than they are. If our goal is to convince others of the truth, should we not be holding ourselves to the same standard we hold others? The moment we cease to be cowards, pledge allegiance to reality, and embrace having our minds changed, we can begin to repair the epistemological bankruptcy of this society. I concede there are myriad ways I can align myself better with reality, oftentimes at steep reputation costs to myself, but the cost is worth it.
But maybe you would rather agree to disagree.
John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and On Representative Government. London, England: Everyman’s Library, 1948.
https://mickmel.medium.com/argue-like-the-wright-brothers-b4948febbf7d