Let’s say zero is straight up shutting your ears, going lalala and storming out of the room, let’s say 10 is sitting down with a Nazi, genuinely making an effort to see things from their point of view just to see if you could.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”
Lemmy can be an echo chamber sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everyone here is a mindless zombie, how do you all deal with others who believe differently? Can you back it up?
This depends on whether the other person is willing to do the same. I have a few basic premises which I base my political opinions on, starting with “All humans are of equal value.” If they come to different conclusions from first principles we can agree on, there is an interesting conversation to be had.
If someone has an entirely different set of basic principles, I will have a hard time understanding them, but if they are willing to try to understand mine, I will listen to them as well. I will give no time to someone whose mind is already made up.
EDIT: To more directly answer the question, I don’t think talking to a hardcore, true believer-type nazi will go anywhere, but if someone who had a right-leaning viewpoint handed to them by their upbringing and surroundings is willing to listen, I would at least want to know how they got where they are so I know how to best make them understand my own point of view. Is this the same as empathising? I couldn’t help myself but try to convince them of my point of view.6.5
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”.
I’d say that’s 3 or low 4. I think you need to define the middle stages of this scale more clearly.
10 - I can feel empathy for every human being. That doesn’t mean that I’ll accept their views, and if they are someone who would hurt others, I will certainly stop them - even with force. That’s empathy too…
Do you know what empathy is? How you practice it? How you train it?
Depends on a few things, including the viewpoint in question.
And my patience at a particular time because I’m not 18 and just discovering the world anymore and a lot of shit is the same old shit, even if it’s had a ribbon tied around it.
Some things that I’m more or less out of patience with are bigotry, right wing conservative conformists and supremacists, and monotheism. But I’m open to discussing most other things.
I’d be more inclined to ‘meet in the middle’ politically if ‘politics’ were about say how taxes should be spent, and not about who should have more or less human rights than who.
One time I had a conversation with a friend who said they would vote for Trump. We don’t even live in America, I asked him why and he said “well he seems more honest and real.” Other times I try and talk to Zionists, and the genuine hatred for Palestinian people is insane, and intolerable, and they got loud and angry when I made reasonable, good points.
Out of 10, if they don’t get angry and loud, like a 6 on average, if they are just uneducated, like an 8?
Empathize as in understand motivations and perspectives: 8
With some effort to communicate, I can usually understand how someone got where they are. It’s important to me to understand as many ways of being as possible. It’s my job to understand people, but the bigger motivation is that it bugs me if I don’t understand the root of a disagreement. Of course, this doesn’t mean I condone their perspective, believe it’s healthy/logical, or would recommend it wholesale to others.
Like a 3 or 4 LMAO. I’m pretty set in my ways, I’m willing to hear most people out but only in an effort to change someone else’s mind, not really to change my own. That said, if you are on the left (i.e. identify as anti-capitalist, at minimum), then I will legitimately take your perspective and stances into consideration.
This doesn’t mean that I’m not empathetic or that I shut people down, I’m very conflict averse as well. I just take in what people say, push back maybe a little, and try to understand their perspective while mine still remains unchanged.
6
10
I mean I used to have opposite views because I grew up where a lot of that stuff is normalized and I didn’t question it until it was challenged, so I can understand being misinformed, hell I’m still misinformed sometimes. But if they’re not open to having their mind changed, and just want to hurt people, I have very little empathy for that.
Depends who they are. The effort I put into empathising depends on how much of an arsehole they are.
Basically this. Most people are decent enough, that is they are not trying to burn down the world. Many, including me, have unclear ideas about what is happening. Often, people use opposing words and history to really mean the same goals.
But it’s exhausting figuring it out for more than friends and people in my echo groups. So I don’t usually try. They have to be worth it to me.
That said, this is for the mental stuff. When it comes to political actions that need to be done now, and cannot wait, things are different. There is a time crunch then. And it’s not about tolerance , but results.
4
10 and 1 simultaneously. I’ll sit down. I’ll talk politics with damn near nazis. But I’ll also understand they’re disgusting, their viewpoints are formed through pure idiocy. It can be simultaneously very informing and infuriating to get an understanding of how they come about their viewpoints. Same applies to much less extreme examples as well
No offense but it sounds like your are completely at a 1, if you only see idiocy then I don’t see understanding at all.
More like fear
… You think nazis aren’t idiots? Lol. I see you don’t have any actual understanding.
Never said Nazis were right. I said calling anyone an idiot isn’t understanding, it’s lazy. People don’t just wake up evil; they get shaped by fear, ignorance, and propaganda. Pretending it’s just about “stupidity” is how you avoid learning from History
It’s the truth. These people wake up, and they choose to hate. They chose ignorance. They willfully and intentionally choose it. We don’t live in the 1700s. Information to disprove themselves is readily available. Or if they had basic critical thinking skills
Pretending it’s just about “stupidity” is how you avoid learning from History
Perhaps I phrased it poorly. But their opinions are only formed because they’re stupid, through extra propaganda and hate. They’re not opinions someone who actually cared about others can have.
This is delusional, but it is popular, you sir, have no ability for empathy for your enemies.
Pray tell, why do you think people become nazis then?
I’ve already told you. Fear, the one emotion that overrides logic. You can’t call someone stupid for falling into an ideology they were raised around, fed by fear and propaganda. It’s not intelligence that fails first, it’s empathy., and you sure, have failed intelligence. Some day far in the future your take that seems so logical to you will be labeled as barbaric and idiotic. I bet you.
“opposing viewpoints” is too broad a term for the question to be meaningful.
It could mean everything from “Discovery is the best Star Trek series” to “Women aren’t real people”, and the details of the viewpoint in question are EXTREMELY relevant to your ability to empathize with it.
Depends on the viewpoint.
My brother is a conspiracy theorist, it’s absolutely impossible to talk to him about anything. No matter what evidence you produce, he’ll just ignore it.
The closest I got was when he mentioned the moon landings were faked and filmed on a sound stage. He pointed to the flag flapping “in the wind”.
I asked him why, if NASA had gone to all the trouble and expense of faking the moon landings, would they have installed a giant fan to make the flag flap…
I also won’t have anything to do with anyone who supports the likes of Nigel Farage or Tommy Robinson.
Unrelated to the specific question you asked but you would probably enjoy reading They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. The author befriended ten nazis after the war and writes about what he learned from that.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint.
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
If they’re disagreeing about following the social contract of tolerance, -10/10. They break the contract, they aren’t covered by it, they should be removed with prejudice.
If they’re disagreeing about the value of certain concepts, solutions or programs, 3/10? I’d talk to someone about something for a little while, I might give them a reference, but it’s not my job to educate them.
Of course just talking to people, I’m like a 5/10 in general…
5
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality
I always enjoy hearing about how people come to believe what they do. There’s pretty much always a logical basis for it and the difference just comes down to their heuristics failing at one particular point and cascading.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint. If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
This is pretty much the crux of the problem right here. How are you supposed to have any kind of productive conversation about the world if they are living in a fictional one that doesn’t actually exist?
