150 years ago, a philosopher showed why it's pointless to start arguments on the internet

[Newest Reality]

Wildly inaccurate facts and spurious arguments are unavoidable features of social media. Yet no matter how infuriatingly wrong someone is, or just how much counter-evidence you have at your disposal, starting arguments on the internet rarely gets anyone to change their mind. Nearly a century-and-a-half ago, British philosopher John Stuart Mill explained, in a few clear sentences, why certain arguments simply won’t go anywhere. As historian Robert Saunders notes, Mill’s analysis neatly applies to heated and futile internet debates.

Mill highlights the often overlooked reality that many opinions aren’t based on facts at all, but feelings. And so, contradictory points of information don’t shift emotionally rooted arguments, but only cause people to dig deeper into their emotions to hold onto those views.

Intuitively, most people recognize that emotions motivate opinions, and behave accordingly. We use rhetorical techniques, such as verbal flourishes and confident mannerisms, to help convince others of our views. And we know that angry reactions to, for example, evidence showing that children of same-sex parents fare just as well as those raised by heterosexual parents, are grounded in emotional prejudice rather than a deep-seated desire for the facts.

Studies reinforce these instincts about the importance of emotions. For example, patients who have brain damage in areas responsible for processing emotions also struggle to make decisions (pdf), pointing to the importance of emotions in deciding between two options. And chartered psychologist Rob Yeung, whose book How to Stand Out emphasizes the effectiveness of emotions, rather than logic, in convincing others to agree with you, points to research showing that use of metaphors motivate people to make decisions.

https://qz.com/1513176/john-stuart-mills-philosophy-shows-arguing-online-is-futile/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. Naturally, there's an xkcd solution for that ...

[Bradshaw3]

2. Excellent post

Mill remains my favorite philospher. Neuroscience and cognitive science are giving modern insight to these behaviors.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. The hardest people to deal with are the ones who "think" only with their emotions, not logic.

Got one in the family. Not a full-on MAGA hatter, but defends FAUX and 45. Unreachable by logic or evidence. Gets her news from FB and complains that much of it is wrong -- but of course, she can tell which of it is right, and defend that at the top of her lungs.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Totally accurate.

that's why con men......politicians, snake oil salesmen, fundy preachers.....have such a large following.

[wnylib]

5. Sometimes it works to directly address

whatever emotions you perceive behind the "opinion." It can help separate fact from feeling for them, e.g. asking, "Why is it so important to you that ......?"

This will often yield a personal tale of woe about some issue that is the emotional driver for them.

I once worked with a woman who was strongly anti choice on abortion and condemned anyone who supported free choice. She was not at all religious. So I asked her, "Why is it so important to you that women should not have a choice in the matter?"

She ranted on about her own unwanted pregnancy years ago and how she wanted an abortion but could not afford it. Anti choice people preached at her and everyone else left her to deal with it alone. (She gave the child up when it was born.)

I validated her decades old hurt and anger about being left alone to deal with something so difficult. When she calmed down enough to listen, I quietly said, in a non-accusing tone, "How awful that you were left alone to deal with the situation. I did not personally do that to you and never would have if I had known you then. Neither would anyone else I know who supports choice. Why are you angry at us?"

She admitted that she was angry that someone might get the help she was denied. "So you want to be like the people who hurt you?"

It was a new perspective and insight for her into why she felt like she did. Debates about when life or personhood begins, women's rights, etc. would gave gone nowhere with her. Her feelings clouded and shut out reasoned discussion until she faced her feelings.

I think that is true for many people on many issues. Not everyone who disagrees with us is irrational. But when someone is rigidly committed to an irrational approach to an issue, there is an emotional, personal story behind it. You can't interest them in reason until the emotional issue is faced and dealt with. But doing that with them can be emotionally draining on you.

[Newest Reality]

6. That was an excellent way...

That was an excellent and insightful way to approach something that like. People's backgrounds and experiences can have a significant influence on their beliefs about some subjects, so approaching it that way can be useful and even beneficial. We can all probably relate to how a strong, traumatic experience in our past influenced our perspective and reactions to some thing.

Oh, and of course, as per your last paragraph, at that point we might have to back off and leave it to the person to reckon with and perhaps professional therapy if they need to find some resolution or closure. Also, time passing, accumulation of new information, and even modeling of behaviors can have an effect. Being able to go from impulsive reactions, (which can be based on what you are referring to) to thoughtful, rational and appropriate responses is part of that as well, and there are methods for all of us in regards to attempting to acquire that skill.

Thank you. I truly appreciate sharing insightful and practical accounts of how to communicate more effectively and expand the scope of our skills in doing so. We humans have symbol exchange as a part of our species bio, so that underscores the importance and necessity of that.

[wnylib]

9. I'm not always that perceptive.'

It was a learning experience for me, to see what is behind the emotional positions that people take. I knew it was not possible to reason with some people on some issues. That experience helped me to see why and how to approach topics with them.

But I'm cautious about it after that experience because you don't know what painful things you might open up for people with that approach and I am not a counselor.

[Wounded Bear]

7. I came to an "ah ha!" moment many years ago, before I retired...

I came to realize that the typical business meetings really go on until they come to a conclusion (assuming they do reach a conclusion) that "feels" right. Everybody claims it is fact based, but...meh.

I think that actually helped my blood pressure for a while.

[wnylib]

14. So true. I remember a science prof telling me

once that scientific solutions and discoveries are often a result of intuitive leaps more than of the reasoning process we know as the scientific method. Only after the fact can they break it down into the steps of the scientific method as a verification of the discovery.

I did well in a philosophy class, but thought it was tedious. Told the prof a variation of what the science prof had said. I thought philosophical arguments were pointless sometimes because people make decisions on how they feel more than how they think. He agreed, but said the development of philisophical thought processes helps to sort fact from emotion and serves a guide for testing the validity of positions we take.

In the end, as you said, people do what feels right and then congratulate themselves on their "well thought out decisions."

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Thus, the Perpetual GOP Anger

Hate gets them in line and ready for action.

[Bluesaph]

10. I am the exception!

All my youth I was staunchly conservative. I was pro-birth, pro wars in lands trying to stave off communists, didn’t have a problem with Bill Clinton being impeached ...

I was also religious and was actually in a cult: the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you know how hard and rare it is to battle your cognitive dissonance and actually take the steps to leave all your friends and the closest family members because you are now an apostate?

I met some very good people on line in the early days of the Internet. We argued all night long at times! Then came along someone who never argued. He just asked me questions that FORCED me to think. When I contradicted myself he would ask me why it was ok to do so.

The thing is that I’m a person who is true to herself. I learned that I was ok with changing my mind and accepting new information. This eventually led me to do my own research, which helped me both to leave the cult and to open my mind to new ways of seeing the world.

So I would say planting seeds in arguments isn’t always a waste of time. All the arguments I had in the middle of the night plowed the soil of my mind for the right person with the right personality to help me grow.

And in turn I did the favor and helped numerous people leave the cult, most of who are now good progressive and forward thinking people.

[Newest Reality]

11. Thanks!

That's an inside view that illustrates your journey well.

We have no single, cut-and-dried answer to things usually and a lot can be context dependent.

I don't know how those questions where addressed to you or if your interlocutor was aware of it, but it sounds to me like the Socratic method, which is a good one to bring up, because the right questions can lead a person to come to better conclusions on their own, which is more beneficial in the long run. I think we may all get so used to telling and telling that we fail to see the value and even the power of asking, inquiring and listening carefully.

I learned something from what you recounted. I appreciate that and it sounds like it worked out well.

[coti]

12. Oh, so that explains why everyone else is always wrong when they disagree with me. nt

[Newest Reality]

13. Exactly!

Now we know.