{"id":22,"date":"2015-12-10T15:23:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T20:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/?p=22"},"modified":"2016-01-08T11:04:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:04:11","slug":"defend-thyself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/12\/10\/defend-thyself\/","title":{"rendered":"Defend thyself!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\"><em>I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig.\u00a0 You get dirty, and besides , the pig likes it.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: right;\"><em>&#8211; George Bernard Shaw<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">One of the more frustrating things to run up against is people who will spout an opinion, but can&#8217;t or won&#8217;t defend it. There are two pieces to this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">if you haven&#8217;t given the subject enough thought to be able to defend it, how can you hold that opinion so strongly? and<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">How are you going to convince me, who holds a contrary opinion, that you&#8217;re right (and I&#8217;m wrong) if you can&#8217;t connect the dots for me?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Tribalism&#8221; plays a large role in this. You believe something because your tribe believes it. You share things not to convince anyone, but to show you belong. And as a result, you end up <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em>emotionally<\/em><\/span> invested in those opinions\u2014and emotion vs. logic never plays out well.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of different approaches people take to handle challenges to their closely-held beliefs:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Victim<\/strong>: Wonders why they&#8217;re being &#8220;attacked&#8221; over their opinion, and believes that the act of holding an opinion endows them with credibility; you have no <em>right<\/em> to question them. The tribe may join in, denouncing you as &#8220;outsider&#8221; (&#8220;you liberals just want to &#8230;&#8221; \/ &#8220;you right-wingers all think &#8230;&#8221;) and basically shouting you down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Artful Dodger: <\/strong>Rather than address your question \/ comments, they&#8217;ll shift the conversation in a direction intended to put you on the defensive. You get the feeling that they&#8217;re more interested in looking clever at your expense than they are in convincing you of anything. Typically, they&#8217;ll answer a question with a question, and before you know it, your question on HOT lanes has morphed into a defense of school lunches. They &#8220;win&#8221; by having avoided answering your question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Zealot:<\/strong>\u00a0Holds basic premises which are off the table, as they come down from a Higher Authority. If you don&#8217;t share those basic premises, the conversation is going nowhere fast, as the Zealot insists on starting from that point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Liar:<\/strong>\u00a0Has a vested interest in the subject matter that is independent of (or in conflict with) the evidence. So, they make stuff up. They&#8217;ll impugn your motives\u2014again, the tactic of putting <em>you<\/em> on the defensive. They can&#8217;t legitimately defend their positions\u2014but they can make it very difficult to challenge them, by shifting all the burden to you.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter?\u00a0 The only way to <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">#stampoutstupid<\/span> is for people to talk to each other, and more importantly, to <strong>listen<\/strong> to each other\u2014finding areas where they agree, understanding why they disagree, and doing so with respect. And that&#8217;s not always easy. But, in short:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t fall into these traps yourself. I like my preconceived notions and my tribe as much as the next person does\u2014but the conversation&#8217;s going nowhere if we&#8217;re all hunkered down.<\/li>\n<li>Try to make it a conversation, not a confrontation. Which, given that we&#8217;re talking about questioning someone&#8217;s position on a topic, isn&#8217;t always easy.<\/li>\n<li>Be willing to learn things, and perhaps have your mind changed.<\/li>\n<li>Know when to bail. Discretion is, at times, the better part of valor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on stampin&#8217;!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig.\u00a0 You get dirty, and besides , the pig likes it.\u00a0 &#8211; George Bernard Shaw One of the more frustrating things to run up against is people who will spout an opinion, but can&#8217;t or won&#8217;t defend it. There are two pieces to this: if you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[9,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampoutstupid.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}