Ask Auntie Pinko
June 5, 2003

Dear Auntie Pinko,

I am a 15-year-old student. I have been following the war and world events closely, and, like most sane/moral people, was opposed to the invasion of Iraq. How do I respond to the conservative kids at my school who claim that the war is somehow justified because Iraq is now "free"? All of a sudden they're trying to take the moral high ground and it frustrates me to no end.

Sam D.
Gaithersburg MD

Dear Sam,

I'm always so delighted to hear from young people who are taking an interest in these important issues that will be shaping our future! It certainly can be very frustrating to encounter this kind of ideological sophistry, but it offers you some very useful opportunities to engage in thoughtful discussion and to become more effective in living your own convictions.

The first thing to examine, though, is the source of your own frustration. This will help you determine what your goals are, and your goals will help you select a good tactic for responding. The main thing to determine is just what is actually frustrating you:

Are you frustrated because you think that your classmates are basically people with a sincere desire to support the "right" thing, who are simply lacking the information and/or analytical perspective to share your own perceptions?

Or is it that you know their minds are already made up, no new information or different analysis will change their views, and they are simply exercising an immature urge to one-up you to demonstrate their lack of respect for you and your views?

In the first case, your goal would be to present information and analysis in a way that will give them a chance to reassess their views and perhaps form new conclusions - or at least deepen their understanding of your concerns and keep the lines of creative communication open.

In the second case, your goal would be to avoid being drawn into a futile and energy-wasting exchange that will provoke immature, emotionally-driven responses from you which can then be used as further fodder for one-upping, and generally undermine the power and effectiveness of your own convictions among your peers.

In both cases, the key to success is to respond from a platform of respect. If you choose the 'engagement' route, because you believe that an effective presentation of new information or analysis might provoke a change in your classmates' views, respectfully presented information can be very powerful. If you choose positive disengagement, respect for yourself and your views can be enhanced by treating your classmates respectfully (without validating the essential immaturity of their behavior - and let's face it, we all behave immaturely at times!)

So let's take the more hopeful situation first: You believe that new information or new interpretations/analysis of information might provoke your classmates to examine and possibly change their views. How can you do this respectfully and effectively? Auntie Pinko has always found that it helps to get a lot more information about how the other person's views were formed, and why they are important to them. By asking for that information, in a friendly, respectful way, you accomplish a couple of things: most importantly, you set a positive tone for the conversation, which can sometimes make them more receptive to your response. But you also learn about how the other person perceives the value and authority of various types of information, and what kind of critical or analytical skills they tend to apply. You can use this knowledge to present your information and analysis.

One tactic that I've often found helpful is the "reductio ad absurdum," which is Latin for "reducing to absurdity." This doesn't mean being scornful, nor should it be used with a hostile manner. But sometimes people just don't think about the "next step" implied by whatever conclusion they have reached. Asking a few carefully-framed questions can sometimes provoke thought. For example, if "freeing" the Iraqi people provides sufficient moral justification for an unprovoked military intervention in their country, then are additional unprovoked military interventions morally justified elsewhere in the world where people need "freeing?" If that is an appropriate public policy choice for our country, what does it imply in terms of our relations with other countries, the cost to our economy, the ethical dilemmas of why we might "free" one population and yet leave another population "oppressed?"

Such questions shouldn't be asked in a challenging, hectoring, answer-this-then kind of way - that will only take the discussion into unproductive, adversarial channels and harden resistance to new information and changing views. Try asking in a way that shows you're sincerely interested in learning how they would address the challenges implied in such a public policy.

I think you can probably carry on from here, Sam. Don't be discouraged if you don't make a lot of instant converts - people get very attached to what they think they "know," especially when it is attached to their values and beliefs about morality and ethics. Just getting someone to examine information from a different angle, to apply a little real critical analysis, can have a considerable positive impact.

Now, as to the other situation, where you're pretty sure you're not going to change anyone's mind. In situations like that, Auntie Pinko has always found it most effective to stay pleasant, but to agree to disagree. Presumably you've all had access to the same information and you've drawn different conclusions from it, and you're unlikely to change each others' views. If you really enjoy debate for its own sake, the best way to hone your skills is to participate in your school's debate team, or to take a class in logic when you go to college. Best of luck to you, Sam - your concern for these issues gives me hope for the future, and thanks for sharing them with Auntie Pinko!