>Yes, we disagree constantly. But what makes our disagreements so toxic is that we refuse to make eye contact with our opponents, or try to see things as they might, or find some middle ground.<p>This bothers me so much. In my social circle (and I expect many of yours) simply understanding the other side is demonized. It's a sin to admit that, despite their conclusions being terrible, these human beings have some sense somewhere.<p>When you hear a view you disagree with, instead of disagreeing, first try to understand. These are intelligent human beings who will surprise you. Most often, it turns out the point they are making isn't quite the one you thought, or at least it has some nuance and the truth is somewhere in between you.<p>It's bad even here on HN. There was a post last week about using genetic algorithms to solve jigsaw puzzles. It looks like this: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nemanja-m/gaps/master/images/lena.gif" rel="nofollow">https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nemanja-m/gaps/master/imag...</a> .<p>One commenter was disappointed at the test image used, because:<p>> At best, it's crass and tasteless. At worst, it's openly disrespectful and hostile to women.<p>Another commenter asked:<p>> Why is it crass and tasteless? And why is it openly hostile and disrespectful to women?<p>The response was:<p>> If I need to explain to you why using a nude image of a model (taken from a pornography magazine, no less) is hostile and disrespectful, then I suspect you are part of the problem.<p>As typical, treating your "opponent" as an intelligent moral person, trying to understand them first, applying the slightest bit of empathy, then even if you agree that the picture is crass/hostile/whatever, it's much more respectful and likely that the asker simply did not know the history of it, rather than the asker being immoral (from that POV).<p>Jumping straight to "you are part of the problem" is an extreme version of what happens in most of these disagreements. There's no respect or effort towards empathy and it makes me really sad.
I've posted this quote a few times before, and I find it fully relevant to this discussion:<p>> 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... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.<p>― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty<p>A few months back I read "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", by Jonathan Haidt. I'd highly suggest reading it for anyone seeking to improve their understanding of the ideological landscape in modern America. From the publisher's summary: In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.<p>The biggest problem I'm seeing with many online communities is the unwillingness to engage with others. There's no discussions, they just tell you that you're wrong and evil, and then they ban or block you. That's no way to change people's mind; it just makes people more likely to dig in their heels. If you want to change people's views you need to engage them calmly and with respect. One of the greatest example of this that I can think of is Daryl Davis, a black man who converted ~200 people from the KKK just by befriending them.
Sadly, the piece does not actually seem to model the behavior it advocates. I wish it were more well written.<p>It is a really hard problem space to address well. But, I think a good place to start would be to acknowledge that with 7 billion people on the planet and the existence of the internet, humanity has an unprecedentedly challenging circumstance that makes it inherently harder than ever to find common ground with people with whom we disagree. Then challenge people to up their game.<p>This piece is guilty of the very sin it decries: Being not genuinely respectful and empathetic to the people it criticizes. I think acknowledging the unique and extreme challenges of modern life as a starting place is the only way out.<p>First, admit that agreeing to disagree is fundamentally harder than it has ever been before in human history because there is so much more opportunity to interact with people whose views and choices are utterly alien. Then, invite people to rise to the occasion.<p>Otherwise, you are merely pissing on people and provoking them in the exact way the article describes and decries as a bad practice. Most of this article merely slams parents, educational institutions, etc for their failures. There is zero acknowledgement that these failures might amount to crumpling under extreme stress.
> We express our disagreements in radio and cable TV rants in ways that are increasingly virulent;<p>And Tweeter. I never signed up, but from the posts and tweets I've seen, I can't imagine a worse platform for sharing ideas or views. I don't see a stream of 140 character insults or smartass comments ever resulting in someone saying "Hmm, that's a great point, maybe I'll rethink my position. I guess I am a dumbass just like you described. Thanks".<p>> Then we get to college, where the dominant mode of politics is identity politics, and in which the primary test of an argument isn’t the quality of the thinking but the cultural,<p>There is an element there were colleges have started to treat students (and parents who pay for the tuition) as customers. Don't offend anyone, build clubs for every need and hobby, luxury dorms. My university last I heard built a huge rec center with a pool and a lazy river going around it. Oh the irony. Tuition has risen dramatically and the idea is anyone who pays that much is not going to tolerate being inconvenienced, or challenged in any way. If they do, they'll "demand to talk to the manager" so to speak. Take their money and go some other place. And maybe mentality extends to ideas and what is taught and so on, not just rec centers and facilities.<p>> This is the baroque way Americans often speak these days. It is a way of replacing individual thought — with all the effort that actual thinking requires — with social identification<p>Another thing I noticed as an outsider, that maybe people from America haven't noticed because they are immersed in the culture, is that just as much as there are victims and oppressed groups, there is an equal and greater amount of those who want to gain an upper hand by either identifying as a victim in some way or claim to speak for some victims "My heart aches for the struggles of group X and I'll go on a Tweeter rampage to support them". And yet they've never interacted with that group in any meaningful way to understand them, and are simply doing this dance to brag and gain some kind of status. Can't tell how many times I've heard people trying to one up each other concerning how many minority group they know. "Oh you're friends with X and Y. Aha but I have a friend who is X, Y, and Z. And everyone gasps, oh wow, that's really cool you're such a good person". Once you see it a few times, it's hard to miss it.
> Socrates quarrels with Homer. Aristotle quarrels with Plato. [..] These quarrels are never personal.<p>This, like many of today's rosy views of the golden past, is slightly misleading: while Socrates many have high-minded intellectual quarrels with Homer, one can't just ignore that he was murdered ("sentenced to death") by his fellow Athenians for supposedly corrupting the youth.<p>In comparison to drinking hemlock, the criticism today's divisive figures have to endure seems manageable.
It's worth knowing the context to this. The author was invited to present a prize in memory of Mark Colvin, but the Colvin family took offence to the arrogantly foolish things he has said about the greenhouse effect. There's an element of knowing when to stop digging here.<p><i>Socrates quarrels with Homer. Aristotle quarrels with Plato. Locke quarrels with Hobbes and Rousseau quarrels with them both. Nietzsche quarrels with everyone. Wittgenstein quarrels with himself.</i><p>If only Newton and Boltzmann made the reading list.
Excellent article.<p>However, there is one glaring issue. I completely agree that part of the increasing radicalism among younger Americans is coming from an increasing sensationalistic media that will say anything and do anything for clicks. [0] Unfortunately, there is a reason for that. Another absolutely phenomenal article that was written by a 50 year veteran of the news industry is "The Bad News About the News." [1] It describes more in detail precisely why the media has become what it has become. And the answer can be summed up in one word: money.<p>For many decades a small handful of media organizations had an effective monopoly on news, and access to information in general. That entailed a practically endless stream of money. Ethics and integrity cost nothing in a world where money is no concern. But then enter the internet. It, as a competitor to traditional news outlets, started very slow. And that slowness led traditional news media to fail to appreciate its potential. In short order the internet not only showed its potential but turned traditional media outlets borderline obsolete. They died from a fatal case of myopia. And we replaced them with social media which has shown that negative news, partisan news, emotionally charged news, and sensationalized news is what gets clicks. Even better when you combine them together.<p>And in the end, if you can't beat them join them. This has likely only been urged on by the ownership of the news media today. Time Warner owns CNN. Comcast owns NBC. Disney owns ABC. These are not exactly the first names you think of in altruism, which is what valuing an informed public over profitable quarters comes down to. The BBC is a peculiarity. They have ostensibly no profit motive, but I'm not familiar enough with their funding/directives/etc to even try to hypothesize why they've also jumped on the bandwagon. I can say something about ostensibly not for profit organizations in the US like NPR. NPR has been struggling. In the past 10 years alone they've had to buy out contracts and downsize multiple times. The only way they keep afloat is by donations, and mostly large donations. With them barely staying afloat if they publish anything that might cause a corporate donor to pull their support, it would be enough to put the company back in crisis. The company itself ends up beholden to special interests in a way that's even more insidious than Time Warner owning CNN. That's a direct and visible line. The line between donor interests and 'not for profit' organizations is less apparent to many.<p>I'm in no way defending what the news media has become. But like the article emphasizes, I think the first step before judging a group is to try your best to try to genuinely understand why they behave/think the way they do, in lieu of just attaching a label to them and calling them evil.<p>[0] - An image that sums up the state of the media today. <a href="https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg</a><p>[1] - <a href="http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-news.html" rel="nofollow">http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...</a>
It would be really amazing if those who choose to comment in this thread would try to do their best to disagree with each other thoughtfully, charitably, and respectfully.
I’m not sure how you’re supposed to respectfully disagree about someone like Kissenger who got hundreds of thousands of people killed through his ideas.
Speakers are compensated handsomely for their engagements, no? I don't see anything wrong with students refusing to see their tuition bankroll the likes of Kissinger or Rice--people with blood on their hands.