Let’s say zero is straight up shutting your ears, going lalala and storming out of the room, let’s say 10 is sitting down with a Nazi, genuinely making an effort to see things from their point of view just to see if you could.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”
Lemmy can be an echo chamber sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everyone here is a mindless zombie, how do you all deal with others who believe differently? Can you back it up?
If I don’t have a choice to leave or feel irrationally compelled to actually try to debate them 10.
It’s not a choice it’s a fucking curse. I don’t have to think, my mind will eventually start predicting what they say and eventually I want to gut myself because I can think of a hundred things to say and know that it won’t change their fucking minds.
Worse, mind reading is a fallacy. Sure predictions can be pretty accurate, but there’s no way to know for sure if those arguments will play out exactly as I think. But there’s real curse is that just because all the things I can think to say won’t change their mind, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something that will. I might just be too dumb to think of a good argument. So I rot as the conversation happens to me trying to think of anything that could make a difference.
Oh also yeah when they say horrible shit and your mind decides to go “here this is how their victims feel” that’s pretty fucking horrible too.
But if I get up or get upset or react strongly it’ll likely ruin any chance of me changing this person’s mind. Not that that chance existed in the first place.
Anyway, it isn’t difficult to see things from other people’s perspective but let me tell you I much prefer talking to psychopaths than delusional idiots.
I had a roommate who was full blown psychopath (and business major to boot lol) who, once he found out I could see things from his perspective, would debate politics with me in a completely candid manner. I once brought up “so you’d support slavery then?” And he deadass said “if it benefitted me then yes”
Fucked up, but the thing is, he’d listen to my arguments when they were logical. And he wasn’t sadistic, slightly narcissistic, but like he didn’t derive pleasure from other’s pain. Anyway the point is that when you talk to someone who is sane it doesn’t hurt even if they feel no empathy because you can start to understand why they think the way they do and it always feels like you can change their mind, and they don’t feel an active desire to hurt people.
Nazis typically aren’t that. Nazis are typically idiots who can’t face the real sources of pain in their life, so they direct their hatred of their lives and themselves to others. Same with manosphere incels, same with bigots of almost every kind. They want to hurt others, they want to break things, to be mad, because they’re hurt. But you can’t get them to see what they don’t want to see in the first place.
So you just feel bad for them, feel bad for others harmed by people like them, and hate yourself for feeling hatred for them because you get why they are doing it.
It isn’t fun and it’s not even fucking useful because it’s not like you being emotionally stressed out is helping anyone ever and you aren’t changing their minds.
Its a curse to feel irrationally compelled to talk to those who won’t listen because “maybe this time it’ll work” it doesn’t.
Edit: okay clearly I’m not in a very good place mentally right now, but I’m leaving this here. If anyone can relate, here’s some external reinforcement since you’ve likely said it to yourself and it doesn’t work: you do not need to feel compelled to feel bad for others constantly especially if it isn’t galvanizing you to take solid action to help. If your suffering stops you from functioning well enough to help anyone then it’s actually a bad thing to feel that empathy. So let yourself relax.
By that criteria, 10. Like, if a Nazi wanted to seriously talk with me, I’d be fine with that. Glad, even. The thing is, they don’t usually do a whole lot of thinking or analysing, or they would have stopped being a Nazi pretty quickly.
It’s usually more about psychoanalysis - trying to figure out how their irrationality works. I spend a shit ton of time trying to get inside the head of the people who maintain the world’s problems. So, still 10.
I’ll say it’s a 6-9 depending on my mood.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
I don’t think this is necessarily empathy. I’ve read Hitler, Ilyin and Dugin, understood their arguments and point of view. If anything it made me less empathetic to them, seeing their vile hatred spilled on paper like that; but I agree that it is useful in practice to understand people who hate your guts.
To me, empathy means not only understanding the individual’s viewpoint, but moreso understanding how they got to it. This is how I can still slightly emphasize with any awful individuals, from nazis to billionaires: I understand that their viewpoint was formed by their position in the capitalist hellscape we fine ourselves in, and by incessant capitalist propaganda. If I was born in their stead and lived through their experiences, I would likely share similar ideas. This makes me more hopeful in the possibility of reform even for the worst of the worst; if a person was convinced of something, they can be convinced that it is wrong too; noone is born a nazi, and so noone is beyond hope in my opinion.
As for my family, they can be incessantly racist and homophobic, not to mention all the various small things like climate change conspiracies etc. I politely disagree with them and try to nudge them towards more inclusivity and empathy for others; we’ve never had a screaming argument despite holding very different opinions about things so dear to my heart. But yeah at times, especially when I’m in a bad mood, I also just shut down political conversations with them.
7.5/10. I find that most people I encounter, even if they support causes against those which I support, would agree with my viewpoints, as long as I don’t say “socialism”. That is an unfortunate consequence of being raised in an environment of capitalist realism.
Where’s the other 2.5 points? I’ll happily listen to my opponents recount the life experiences and thought processes that make them oppose my viewpoints. But for my own sanity, I refuse to engage with those who merely throw attacks at me.
I back off from arguing on the internet in general, also for my own sanity.
7.5
So a general view I’m seeing here is, “sure if it remains civil”, what if it gets tense? These are tough issues after all. How far do you think you can tip that scale before it becomes an argument? I would agree that yes once name calling happens we have stopped debating and started arguing.
Hard to say personally since I can’t remember the last time I had a real-life conversation go tense. I’ll entertain some pretty wild thoughts, but once the other party centers the debate over emotion at the expense of evidence, I’d say that’s the point I start losing patience.
This depends on whether the other person is willing to do the same. I have a few basic premises which I base my political opinions on, starting with “All humans are of equal value.” If they come to different conclusions from first principles we can agree on, there is an interesting conversation to be had.
If someone has an entirely different set of basic principles, I will have a hard time understanding them, but if they are willing to try to understand mine, I will listen to them as well. I will give no time to someone whose mind is already made up.
EDIT: To more directly answer the question, I don’t think talking to a hardcore, true believer-type nazi will go anywhere, but if someone who had a right-leaning viewpoint handed to them by their upbringing and surroundings is willing to listen, I would at least want to know how they got where they are so I know how to best make them understand my own point of view. Is this the same as empathising? I couldn’t help myself but try to convince them of my point of view.6.5
Depends on the topic. Entertainment 10; social issues not much 4 all. Politics… if your MAGA I have zero tolerance.
4
I think the premise is missing a few key points. Namely, do we mean in the context of a one on one debate where I’m trying to either convince someone or others involved, or a dialectic where both parties are attempting to come to an agreed upon truth? How serious is my ideological opponent taking MY point of view, or are we just talking in the abstract, like can you imagine in your head tolerating the fact that others have differing opinions with you and living with that reality.
Basically, I’m a materialist, so for the majority of everyday folks especially including those in my life, I don’t attribute someones political opinions to moral failings or rectitude on their part. 9 out of 10 times it’s due to their upbringing, the material conditions surrounding their childhood and early development, as well as the things that happen to them throughout their life that form someones worldview. Morality might have something to do with it, but ultimately morality is subjective, so who am I to say that someones idea of right and wrong is better than mine. Everyone is justified and righteous in their own mind.
That said, if I’m actively engaged with someone who isn’t taking what I say seriously (as fascists often do, whom I consider by definition non serious actors in a debate), or is simply using ad hominem attacks on my character, I pretty much am done talking at that point. I feel like I come off as very patient and try and empathize with most people, usually because if I’m actually having this conversation in real life, they’re in my family or in my day to day life, and I try to present my opinion as something that’s naturally compatible with their worldview, because I’m confident that my opinions are correct and I don’t need to insult or demean someone to get my point across.
TL;DR, 8
7.5
Let’s say one on one, and your opponent is no better than the average Joe, a 6, he will hear out your arguments but will you probably won’t be changing his mind. He will let you speak without interrupting if you give him the same courtesy.
This is exactly where anyone who has an interest in actually changing someone’s mind wants to be.
90% of these conversations, which are often shared between friends or at least acquaintances, can be “won” by listening to the other person and meeting them on their own terms. People are way more receptive to hear what you have to say when they feel like what you’re actually saying is relevant to the points that they are making, etc. For example, if someone complains about immigration, it’s likely that they want Americans to have those jobs instead and see immigration as a threat to their way of life. The way to handle something like this is always to address the problem radically, i.e. from the root, and say something like: “I hear what you’re saying, but what if the countries that most immigrants are coming from didn’t have so many issues that they feel like they need to risk their lives/livelihoods to come all the way here? Why is it that these countries in central/south America have so many economic problems relative to the US?” Now the conversation has been re-framed so that it’s actually addressing a root cause, and this person will walk away at least having a thought provoked about US imperialism and it’s consequences, which is an important concept to understand.
If you simply resort to shutting down topics like this, because you feel a person who holds this worldview is a racist, xenophobe, etc, and therefore morally inferior, you never allow yourself the opportunity to win. You’ve already given up the ghost if you follow your instinct and resort to ad hominem attacks, scolding and finger wagging, and you prove that you lack the rhetorical ability to actually SELL your project, something that is an absolute necessity if you have a genuine interest in the electoral gains of any kind of socialist/populist/proletarian project. My political platform is already popular. People don’t need to be convinced that it’s desirable, only that it is possible, so I am happy to debate and share my opinions with anyone who will listen.
It depends on what those opposing viewpoints are. If they involve actively targeting and harming vulnerable people, I have no space at all for those viewpoints or the people that hold them.
For the other stuff, maybe a 7.
Really depends if the viewpoints involve the oppression of other beings than near zero if not maybe 6.5.
I straight up told my father to drop politics or I’ll go home.
He wasnt thrilled about the ultimatum but he stopped. I got the cold shoulder for the remaining evening. :p
“opposing viewpoints” is too broad a term for the question to be meaningful.
It could mean everything from “Discovery is the best Star Trek series” to “Women aren’t real people”, and the details of the viewpoint in question are EXTREMELY relevant to your ability to empathize with it.
The notion of a marketplace of ideas selecting the best ideas and rejecting the worse ones is interesting. It suggests that marketplaces always select for quality, especially the more unregulated they are, which is not something I’ve noticed to be true about how any actual marketplaces operate.
The idea that Nazi “ideas” need to be defeated in open debate, which will cause them to lose power, is also interesting. It presupposes that debates are always won by the most correct idea, which I’ve noticed is often the opposite of how debate works.
It also suggest that the Nazis’ plan is to participate in bloodless debate over their ideas, and accept the outcome if their ideas are rejected, which is not a plan I think Nazis have ever pursued, or the sort of arena in which they have ever admitted—much less accepted—defeat.
It also suggests that what Nazis have are “ideas,” when we know that what they actually have are intentions, and those intentions always create real-life violence toward marginalized communities along racial, ethnic, religious, and other lines of bigotry—and they do so the more effectively Nazis are able to gather and organize and promote their “ideas” into the mainstream.
Source: https://www.the-reframe.com/questions-for-substack/
Also, I find the very definition of your “zero point” as a self-contained bad faith argument. It is quite close to notions of “snowflakes needing safe spaces” or sth, but real life anti-nazi tactics are, and should be, more militant. To this bad-faith zero point my position is either a -10, or on another axis entirely lmao.
Unrelated to the specific question you asked but you would probably enjoy reading They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. The author befriended ten nazis after the war and writes about what he learned from that.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint.
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
If they’re disagreeing about following the social contract of tolerance, -10/10. They break the contract, they aren’t covered by it, they should be removed with prejudice.
If they’re disagreeing about the value of certain concepts, solutions or programs, 3/10? I’d talk to someone about something for a little while, I might give them a reference, but it’s not my job to educate them.
Of course just talking to people, I’m like a 5/10 in general…
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint. If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
This is pretty much the crux of the problem right here. How are you supposed to have any kind of productive conversation about the world if they are living in a fictional one that doesn’t actually exist?
5
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality
I always enjoy hearing about how people come to believe what they do. There’s pretty much always a logical basis for it and the difference just comes down to their heuristics failing at one particular point and cascading.
One problem with empathizing with others’ viewpoints, truly, is realizing a lot of them have downright evil motivations. So, empathizing should make you despise them.
Often this “evil” like hate is born out of fear or some other vulnerability so you can find the underlying emotion and emphasize with that instead. Oh the other hand, what I find really hard to emphasize with in people with fascist viewpoints is their lack of empathy. Like when they are not acting out of being afraid or hurt or anything, just really clinging to privilege and being indifferent towards racialized people.
For me it’s like they’re using 12 year old reasoning and it’s easy to intuit that’s by choice. It’s something I associate with tourists especially who want to weaponize cluelessness and hospitality if they are Evil evil
