Over the past 6 weeks or so, I've been landed in the beautiful... but wildly statist... city of Portland. There have been a few things that have been tough about this transition from living on the road with anarchists, as you can imagine. The biggest issues have been just being around so many people who consider themselves "political", and the fact that while anarchists absolutely LOVE intellectual debate, generally managing to keep emotions and personal attacks out of it... and statists seem to have a much bigger problem with that.
Of course, when I give something my attention, I notice more of it, so I'm sharing something that I've done that with so as to release it. Over the past few weeks I've multiple times had (generally hours & hours of) my research met with the phrase "let's agree to disagree", sometimes without ANY other conversation at all.
According to Logical Fallacies: A Taxonomy of Fallacious Arguments, this is called the "false surrender":
Definition: When there is offered an unwarranted or premature truce on a point of contention in order to misrepresent opponent’s position as unprovable or inconclusive.
Example: My belief that all swans are white isn’t necessarily falsified by your photo of a black swan. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Note: This tactic is often employed by the side who feels the other side has presented the better evidence/arguments.
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Truth is truth, reality is reality, opinion is not an argument
Patrick Stokes, a philosophy professor at Deakin University, in this awesome piece on the "right to one's opinion", had a few things to say that I really enjoyed:
"I'm sure you've heard the expression 'everyone is entitled to their opinion.' Perhaps you've even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it's no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for."
The problem with "I'm entitled to my opinion" is that, all too often, it's used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for "I can say or think whatever I like" - and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful.
If "everyone's entitled to their opinion" just means no one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial [...] But if "entitled to an opinion" means "entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth" then it's pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.
If you are faced with evidence, facts, history, that run counter to your belief or argument, you can either be honest with yourself and the other person in the conversation (which you would do by conceding those points or challenging them with other evidence, facts, history) or you can succumb to cognitive dissonance and do what basically amounts to sticking your head in the sand and going "la la la".
Am I always right? Nope.
Do I know everything? Nope.
Those are exactly why I am constantly researching & synthesizing, expanding my knowledge base and challenging my beliefs through listening to/debating with those who hold opposing beliefs.
When it comes to things that are provable one way or the other (physical reality), and especially when one of those things results in violence or coercion, it is an absolute moral necessity to have the conversation, not to "agree to disagree"
Say what you mean!
If you don't have the energy for a conversation, say so. If you are getting frustrated or feeling unheard, say so. If you have been distracting yourself from something that actually needs to get done by having a debate, say so. Maybe you want to set the conversation aside so you can do more research or sit with the topic... just say so.
Saying "let's agree to disagree", when you actually mean something else is just being dishonest, and a little disrespectful. I can totally understand that some people do not enjoy debates, or are not ready for a debate, or simply don't have enough time/energy to participate. Just be honest.
Arguments & Debates don't require emotion or ill-will
It seems like many times folks are attempting to end an argument because either they feel emotionally triggered, or they are worried that one of the parties will if the conversation continues.
I've never really understood why people get so emotionally invested in their beliefs, to the point that having them challenged seems like a personal attack. To me, that seems like a huge indicator that I should step away from that belief and re-evaluate it from the bottom up.
Logical fallacies are the way to the Dark Side
There seem to be a LOT of folks who don't understand what a logical fallacy is, or what the many types are that exist. The meaning of a logical fallacy, according to Logically Fallacious:
The word "fallacy" comes from the Latin "fallacia" which means "deception, deceit, trick, artifice," however, a more specific meaning in logic (a logical fallacy) that dates back to the 1550s means "false syllogism, invalid argumentation."
One of the earliest academic discussions of logical fallacies comes from the book "Elementary Lessons in Logic : Deductive and Inductive", published by MacMillian and Co. in 1872 where the modern definition of logical fallacies is used: "the modes in which, by neglecting the rules of logic, we often fall into erroneous reasoning." Today, this basic definition is still used, and often abbreviated to just "an error in reasoning." It is not a factual error.
The dangers of logical fallacies are manifold. On the one hand, they allow us to maintain beliefs that are clearly not true, because we can basically build walls around them. On the other hand, they allow those hearing/reading a debate to be swayed towards a false viewpoint by through what amounts to deceit. From any angle, logical fallacies hold no place in mature, intellectual conversations.
I just recently found this awesome "master list of logical fallacies" from the University of Texas at El Paso, which has WAY more than I had ever seen before.
Here is a poster from YourLogicalFallacyIs breaking down the most common logical fallacies (click the image to see it full-size):
If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy some of these highlights of my blog:
I often end a debate if it keeps going in circles because it is just a waste of my time. Of course I think I am right ;) but it does not necessarily mean I think the other party is an asshole . In fact I pretty much am very blunt with people I think are ashole and thell them to their face :P
You are young you still have the energy when you get to my age it just makes you want to get a warm cardigan and sip tea away from humans. I no longer hop on my soap box I crawl there 38 years of preaching the same things and seeing but marginal change can make you want to live in a cave forever. What iI fight for is to important so I force myself to still communicate, advocate, do what I can ... but I am old and grumpy now an my stamina just isn't what it was anymore ...
I can understand that, though even in that case I try to explain that exact point ("I feel like we're going in circles and I don't want to dedicate any more time to it") rather than saying "agree to disagree". In many of the cases I was referring to in the post here, it went more like this:
Kenny: 3500 word research paper
FB person:
No other conversation before or after... That is clearly just not wanting to engage in a challenging dialogue.
I feel ya.
The one point I would contend is that I bet there is a lot of the change that you may not have seen or be aware of, because that seems to be the most common thing is folks not being aware of the massive amount of progress that's happening everyday.
facebook person seems not to want to even bother to read what you said.
as for progress yes there is some but it is so slow compared to what it could be . Example one of my mother's lovers built a fully functional prototype of a solar car when I was 7 that was 43 years ago. One of the big oil companies bought his work and shelved it. there are so many more stories like this it is just really sad ... also progress seems to ebb and flow until it sticks somewhat it is tiring ...
Ya, that seems to be the most common use of "agree to disagree", at least that I've experienced. Someone won't bother to read what I wrote, or will sort of glaze over while I'm talking, then decide that we should just agree to disagree.
Oh ya, I mean we had awesome electric cars 120 years ago, of course the corporatocracy has allowed that sort of thing to get big... Though at the same time it's important to note that they usually shut these things down because the inventors are willing to sell it to them. If they weren't trying to get paid, the corporations wouldn't have control of so many patents.
Nowadays, every inventor who actually wants to help needs to be putting things out open source, and the more designs that can be 3D printed, the better it is for everyone on Earth.
Agreed I am a big fan of open source. i was so excited when I first cme to steemit because I was hoping we could foster alternative science here and engineering- finance it with steem on the contingency that everything developed would be open source .. sadly steem at this point in time is just a reflection of the outside world but I still hope that can be changed because the potential is there to be sooo much more ...
This is an awesome post!
I come up against this regularly (I almost wrote "all of the time" there, but rephrased it, as that would have been bullshit!)
This is just used by people to protect their world view and established beliefs, rather than have to face the possibility (supreme being of choice forbid!) that they might have to change the way they perceive something.
Thanks! Ya, this is probably one of THE most annoying things for me. In my own experience, the harder I believe something, the more likely it is that I need to drop that belief because it's probably faulty. Seems that many are uncomfortable with that process.
Monty Python was somewhat prophetic given the state of Britain today. But I didn't come here for an argument.
I think this one depends on the context of what is being argued. The further away from scientific consensus, the more one is likely to run into this. The internet has made things tricky as we are all becoming mini-genius' thanks to the information explosion.
Consider this though: as a well-informed musician and house-painter would you feel comfortable with me performing emergency life or death heart surgery on you? Now before you say no please consider I have the hands of a surgeon although the wage of a garbage man:)
There's a point in here somewhere:
I must agree to disagree 😀 , There are some people that you will literally end friendships with over debating certain subjects even when truth is on your side, I always believed that the statement,"I must agree to disagree" was a truce and meant"I value your friendship more than I value our conflicting opinion". I am wrapped up with what I believe is the truth in almost every subject, and I believe now that the truth is a personal path, and some people will not receive the truth, and I could do or say any number of things to this person, and for whatever reason the Universe will not open their mind to the truth at hand, I almost think of the truth as a gift that not everyone will be given the gift of receiving, also sometimes the day they stood against your truth's was the day you planted seeds of truth in their mind, years later that revelation might take hold, I'm not using the Bible because I'm a hardcore Christian but 2 things came to mind when I read your post, the parable of the mustard seed, and the fact that Jesus said if they won't listen to you shake off the dust off your shoes, and keep rolling. To know the truth may mean people will have to destroy their entire belief system, what you say today may actually take root at a different time so don't give up, and the phrase I agree to disagree maybe a compliment where the people respect you enough to set aside differences and do not want to risk the personal relationship over ideas they aren't ready to accept, You are in a frustrating place, but your example maybe creating change in ways you can't imagine, being on the side of truth is the most thankless position to be in. But the Universe has chosen us for a mission that only certain people have the strength to accept.
Ned Flanders: Well, I guess this is a case where we'll have to agree to disagree. Skinner: I don't agree to that. Krabappel: Neither do I.Haha! Beautiful :-)
Don't forget about the 100+ cognitive biases!
And ... up to 150 ego states!
Oh jeez, I've never even heard of ego states. These crazy human brains :-P
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