this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
19 points (100.0% liked)

Politics

10176 readers
28 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.


Guidelines for submissions:

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.


Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
19
Pathos v Logos (self.politics)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by ConsciousCode to c/politics
 

How do you argue with someone who's confused a lack of emotional connection to a topic with objectivity and rationality? Say a topic profoundly affects you and those you care about, but not the other person, so you get angry and flustered and they seem to think this means you're less objective as a result and it's an easy win.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Axolotling 5 points 1 year ago

Maybe you could prod them by asking them questions designed to highlight their unconscious biases? Assuming that they're not a malicious actor of course and actually genuinely trying to learn and expand their worldview.

I do think it's important to determine whether the person you're arguing with actually cares to grow and learn or if they're just trying to start fights with people and "win" arguments with comments that take a lot of nuance to address. In the cases where they don't care, don't waste your breath on arguing with someone who's sole purpose is to make you angry. They don't care about your nuanced answer.

I forget how the original phrase goes, but someone once said that these people use language as a toy to play with, while the reasonable person uses it to justify their actions.