If you learn something new or have your mind changed, say so

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Ruminating on Skinner's 'humans believe whatever their gut tells them and are not open to counter argument' post...

It is true that most people do not generally employ reason on complicated matters. When a subject has too many moving parts to be reducible to table-top math (take away three oranges and how many oranges remain?) we humans tend to approximate based on a host of gut feelings.

And those gut feelings are far more who we are than any rational process. Reason is abstract and somewhat disconnected from personality by nature and design.

Science is (when practiced well) impersonal and even cross-cultural.

On the other hand, "sides" are central to our self-identification. This identity issue reaches the point where contradicting a dogma held by an individual is read as a personal attack on that person!

Often people do not even really read what the other is saying beyond a gloss to identify which "side" they are on.

For posters trying to talk about some sort of shared objective reality this doesn't end well. If you have no side, no dogma, then you are an enemy of everyone with a side. Hence the comical phenomenon of Christians (in aggregate--as a demographic) favoring hell-bound worshipers of false gods over non-believers.

(Think of all the conservative Christians who admire Joe Lieberman for refusing to flip a light-switch on the sabbath. I don't really get the thing of admiring people who I also believe will be tortured for infinity by an infinitely wise and loving god, but the polling is clear. Americans would rather have a Muslim president than an atheist.)

Yet despite the anti-rational reflexive nature of discourse, and political discourse in particular, there are sometimes thoughtful and polite discussions here where people learn things and minds are changed.

There is a signal to noise ratio problem, however. Being inflexible and dogmatic correlates highly with being aggressive. Posters with the least to say are often reliably those doing the most talking.

How to reshape the system so that virtue is rewarded?

• Well, a small start would be when we learn something, say so. "I did not know that. Thanks." "This post has changed my thinking in these ways..."

A lot of great stuff is written here and it surely does inform and change minds sometimes, but the thoughtful lurker is relatively unlikely to weigh in while the full-time leg-humper will gainsay every reply with irrelevancies.

• The developmental psychologist Piaget was quite interested in intellectual maturation as progressive objectivity. The infant is barely aware where the world ends and the self begins. By adolescence we are usually well aware of our alienation from the world and others, but we continue to believe that our feelings somehow make the world. To the adolescent intensity of emotion is an argument. I feel this so intensely and personally that it must be true and the intensity of my emotion trumps your abstract reasoning process. An example of this is the famous bumper sticker "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it." Personal certainty becomes and argument for the truth of the matter.With luck the maturing person makes it past the adolescent stage (though many do not) and comes to realize that her feelings are as disconcerted from the real-world universe as her hands. The evidence of the world we share in common exists primarily outside of ourselves. Nobody owns reality. So avoiding the use of intensity of feeling as a proxy for actual argument would be a good thing, conducive to civil discussion.

• Another step might be to reply to what people are actually saying. Do not presume their agenda. Address what is actually being said. A related thing: "Most men do x" is not logically contradicted by "I am a man and do not do x." Terms like "most" and "sometimes" and "on average" are precise elements of language and argument. They are as important as all the other words in a statement.

• Do not parse all facts in terms of their propaganda value. Some folks like to talk about facts and issues and such without their primary concern being how some hypothetical person could mis-use or mis-understand what is being said.

• And this one is very important... do not assume that the average DU post is written by the love-child of Pol Pot and Pinochet. If you read something and it seems to be saying that rape is good or Hitler was a misunderstood humanitarian consider the possibility that it does not actually say that and try to see what is actually being said. It may be that the poster is actually saying that, in which case have at them.

This is a do-as-I-say post. I have no doubt that my posting history is full of examples of these bad behaviors.

[MineralMan]

1. I can't find fault with your suggestions.

They all sound like good ideas.

[monmouth]

2. You make excellent points. One of the things that I notice is those who

reply without reading the "entire" post. Many an OP will start off with a seemingly negative statement but when read through, makes a lot of sense. However, if one just skims through the first few thoughts without embracing the entirety, the reply will look uninformed..

[Fumesucker]

3. It is the duty of the writer or speaker to make their thoughts understandable to others..

I've found over many years of posting online that anything beyond the very simplest sentences written in as straightforward style as I can manage are almost invariably misunderstood by at least a few readers and often by many of them.

For that reason I now strive to pare down my thoughts to the minimum number of words necessary to convey my meaning in as unambiguous a fashion as I am able and yet I still find my words often end up being misinterpreted.

A great many people are not good at saying what they really mean, this makes your edict to reply to what people are actually saying much more difficult than it would appear at first glance.

Your points are good and well taken but putting them into practice is a an effort that is bound to be fraught with errors and miscommunication.

[HughMoran]

4. Good analysis

Thanks for sharing it with us. I was just considering one of your points yesterday (the falling back into adolescent thinking bullet), though you have hit on several valid issues that limit intelligent discourse here.

[Greyhound]

5. Good thoughts, I hope it catches on. K&R. n/t