To know what I am talking about, let me give you an example. I have this friend who went crazy over the vaccine issue. She’s done so much research into it that I feel like I can’t talk to her about her vaccine skepticism. Whenever I start to talk about something, she would drown me with a ton of articles and youtube videos and most of the times from the actual websites of UN health and stuff. It would have taken me a day to just go through that stuff. So I gave up on convincing her about vaccines. Might seem cruel but even I lost my certainty about vaccines after I met her. There’s just too much to know and I don’t completely trust the institutions either, but I do trust the institutions enough to vaccinate myself and my kids but not enough to you know, hold a debate about it with someone who has spent days researching this stuff.
You can take any topic which is divisive, which basically looms over the media all day and you can find a ton of articles to either support it or “debunk” it. I think 9/11 wasn’t caused by Bush, I am almost certain, but I won’t bet my house on it. I mean, this is almost a certainty, but yeah.
On other issues which are not this much of a certainty I fail to see how to convince a person who thinks something that they are wrong.
Stuff like earth is round or not, I can prove. But was the virus from Chinese market or from a lab, I can’t.
Have aliens visited earth? I don’t know. It would be wicked if we make first contact, but as awesome as this is, I am not motivated to search about this on the internet. I don’t think I would search anything about the not so cool topics of life. I don’t know enough to hold an informed debate about capitalism vs socialism or any other hot button issue for that moment.
What do you do in these situations?
I can sense that this is poorly written, but I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say.
My approach is rhetorical in that it focuses on understanding the motives behind people’s statements rather than evaluating their truthfulness. We’re living in an age often described as “post-truth,” where the emphasis is not so much on factual accuracy but on what a statement achieves:
In this context, the question is not, “Is this person telling the truth?” Instead, we should be asking, “What is this person trying to persuade me to believe or do, and how are they going about it?”
So, when you find yourself in a debate and you’re not well-informed on the topic, consider the true objective of the conversation. Is it genuinely about searching for truth, or is it more about making a spectacle to win points, irrespective of facts or logic? Reflecting on this can help you decide whether the debate is even worth your time and effort.
Addressing your concern about convincing others they’re wrong, it’s important to remember that in a post-truth world, facts are often secondary. Instead of trying to prove someone wrong, try to understand how their incorrect beliefs serve them. What value or emotional payoff are they getting from holding these views?
Take vaccine skepticism as an example. For some, doubting vaccines aligns with a broader narrative that the government aims to control its citizens. This perspective provides them with a sense of resistance and preserves their individuality against what they perceive as an oppressive force. Their beliefs are deeply tied to their identity, which is a common human trait. Facts against the narrative of which they’re convinced is often construed as an attack on who they are as a person. And for that, you can just be a normal caring person.
This is exceptionally well stated. I saw my parents, myself, and every reddit/lemmy/twitter thread I’ve ever read, in your description.
So much online conversation isn’t conversation at all; it’s posturing; saying something completely irrelevant that attempts to paint the “opponent” into an indefensible corner. The best response, then, also doesn’t respond, and does the same - end result being two people just saying stuff at each other.