Now that I am not directly fed on news I am hearing more of how people talk about it. The standard wisdom for understanding your opponents' POV in a fair way is to listen to their best exponents make their case. I can't say I have always done that, but I have put in some effort in that direction. Yet I wonder if my irritation at their worst exponents has been more of a driver of my opinions, or at least my energy.
Once that occurred to me I started to notice that this seems to be what drives 'most everyone else as well. They don't focus on their opponents' best people, they are snagged by their worst every time, like a fish to a lure. In the other direction, they regard their best expositers and ignore their own jerks. This is know, but the standard wisdom may not fix this.
If you want to understand how those idiots on the other side can possibly think the stupid things they do, don't try and read their best folks, as sensible as it sounds. Read a steady diet of the worst people on your side for about a week, the bigoted, the foolish, the pigheaded.
Because that's who your opponents are basing their opinion of your side on - your worst.
It's fairly painful.
1 comment:
The nice thing about being as disagreeable and independent as you and I are is that there really isn't anyone else 'on our side.' That does mean that you never get to be more than, at most, an advisory voice on the sidelines of any democratic system; but it does have advantages.
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