Interesting article, but I feel like this article is built around assumptions of similarity that I don't feel really hold up. Take this quote for instance:
> "We miscalculate the extent to which our opponents’ viewpoints differ from our own."
A more accurate statement is that we tend to misunderstand the ways in which another person's viewpoints differ from our own.
For example, my mom recently told me, in almost these exact words, that she is confidant in her opinions, but doesn't feel any need to rely on facts or evidence to build or maintain those opinions. That's a pretty radical outlook and puts her at direct odds with quite a number of other folks.
I strongly suspect that there are very large differences in humanity's views on topics like epistemology, authority, institutionalization and other very core concepts. When I read articles like this, it's not really clear to me that the authors themselves understand just how divergent these views can be, or how best to get participants to elucidate their core feelings. For my own part, I've seen that under most situations, people will rely on euphemisms and fuzzy language to soften their most radical viewpoints. For example I had to be very direct with my mom to get her to make the admissions that she did, and she only did it because I backed her into a bit of a corner. In other conversations, she would deflect, change the subject, or use language in ambiguous ways in order to appear more reasonable.
This article hints at the very reason why this article is difficult to take to seriously:
>while it remains unclear exactly why this intervention works, Rodríguez and Halperin speculated that it has to do with the desire to maintain a positive self-view.”
This only holds when the table stakes are low and the stakes are never low when it comes to someone's most core beliefs. It looks like the authors succeeded in coaching people on how to appear reasonable, but it's not clear to me that they succeeded in actually teaching people how to be more reasonable. In short, I wonder if this article is naive because I'm not sure if they ever got to the heart of any particular person, including themselves.
Very clean and clear observation here. The authors implicitly comment on other's objectivity, presumably from some (more perfect) place of (actual) objectivity. So the irony is kind of intense if you think about it.
It's remarkable to me that when you describe your mother's POV you can do that without judgement though, so I envy you your equanimity here.
Struggling myself to relate to/tolerate family like this, because it seems like they've just gone crazy. And sure, we can avoid political discussion, but underneath that it looks like values/life philosophy are kinda corrupted. In general, what usually makes people ignore (some) evidence or (some) authority is a desire for tactical and targeted hypocrisy.. i.e. not justice or truth in general but wins for their team. Regression to pure unapologetic tribalism seems more and more common these days, and it's hard for me to see that as "just" preferences for different epistemology.
Generalizing more.. some story like "objective meets subjective and they disagree about who is who" seems naive, almost nostalgic. It reminds me of earnest science/religion debates I had with smart friends when I was a kid. Those debates now seem quite civilized and mature compared to most political/philosophical/even vaguely value-oriented discussions I see (or foolishly participate in) now. I would characterize recent modern discourse more directly as "open mind meets closed mind" or even more directly as "spiteful meets curious".
As families, friends or whole society's I wish we were lucky enough to still argue in terms of things like objectivity/subjectivity, because hey, at least things like science/art cross-pollinate! But this is an increasingly irrelevant regime for discussion, post-truth and all that. This sucks, because I don't see the alternative curiosity-vs-spite regime bearing much fruit for anyone.
> "We miscalculate the extent to which our opponents’ viewpoints differ from our own."
A more accurate statement is that we tend to misunderstand the ways in which another person's viewpoints differ from our own.
For example, my mom recently told me, in almost these exact words, that she is confidant in her opinions, but doesn't feel any need to rely on facts or evidence to build or maintain those opinions. That's a pretty radical outlook and puts her at direct odds with quite a number of other folks.
I strongly suspect that there are very large differences in humanity's views on topics like epistemology, authority, institutionalization and other very core concepts. When I read articles like this, it's not really clear to me that the authors themselves understand just how divergent these views can be, or how best to get participants to elucidate their core feelings. For my own part, I've seen that under most situations, people will rely on euphemisms and fuzzy language to soften their most radical viewpoints. For example I had to be very direct with my mom to get her to make the admissions that she did, and she only did it because I backed her into a bit of a corner. In other conversations, she would deflect, change the subject, or use language in ambiguous ways in order to appear more reasonable.
This article hints at the very reason why this article is difficult to take to seriously:
>while it remains unclear exactly why this intervention works, Rodríguez and Halperin speculated that it has to do with the desire to maintain a positive self-view.”
This only holds when the table stakes are low and the stakes are never low when it comes to someone's most core beliefs. It looks like the authors succeeded in coaching people on how to appear reasonable, but it's not clear to me that they succeeded in actually teaching people how to be more reasonable. In short, I wonder if this article is naive because I'm not sure if they ever got to the heart of any particular person, including themselves.