Intentions pt. 2

The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they’re truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love.

-Andrew WK

Imagine someone who is extremely intelligent, at least as intelligent and well read as you. This same person is someone you’d consider highly moral, at least as moral as you. They’re someone who wants the best for others and the best for the world. They agree with you on every political issue. Except they strongly disagree with you on abortion. 

Maybe you don’t care about abortion. For any political issue that you’re passionate about (e.g. foreign policy, taxes, gov spending, vaccine mandates, trans rights, war on drugs) imagine someone like the above who agrees with you on everything except for that one particular issue. This also works for non political issues, e.g. best basketball player of all time, best restaurant in your town, how you feel about an argument with a family member or a significant other. 

The best part is that there are people in the world who fit all those criteria. People who agree with you on everything but one issue. They’re really out there. 

We’ve all been in heated debates. Why do other people disagree with you? Maybe you’re still correct but how could someone who is at least as smart and reasonable as you strongly believe the opposite? Really play it out. Spell out their arguments.

Some issues are so innate and so emotional that it seems impossible for another to disagree with you. Anyone who thinks “X” must be “Y”. They must be stupid, evil, or prejudiced. The goal of this exercise is to take emotions out of your view. To get rid of ad hominems. To force yourself to think of alternative arguments in good faith. There’s a good reason someone strongly believes differently than you, and no, it’s not because they’re a “bad person” or ignorant.

This practice is called steelmanning. Meaning, you give the best argument possible for the other side. If you truly understand an issue, you should be able to argue the other side better than your opponent. For those who want a better understanding of the world, this is vital.

While debating, some get triggered. The debate sparks emotions in them. The issue is deeply personal. Maybe they were adopted and if abortions were legal, their parents would have aborted them. Maybe they wanted an abortion, but it was illegal so they had a back-alley abortion, and there were adverse side effects.

Intentions are almost impossible to assume. The context of what someone else is going through is hard to understand. When I’m driving and someone cuts me off, depending on my mood I either won’t care, will laugh, or will get angry. The action of another car cutting me off is a stimulus. The feeling I experience after is internal to myself. My reaction is dependent upon my internal state. This is the same for all of us. The external world is a stimulus that our internal self reacts to.

You see someone put money into a vending machine. The vending machine spits it out. The person then starts screaming and kicking the vending machine. You’ll likely assume the person is mentally unstable or has anger management issues. Little do you know that a few hours ago they lost their job, they burned their breakfast, their significant other broke up with them, they got a speeding ticket on the way to work to pick up their things from their old job, and now the vending machine won’t take their money. All they wanted was a snack to give them a break from this awful day.

If you simply seek to float around and confirm your pre-existing emotions and biases, then you can ignore this. But that’s a boring way to live.

Divorcing emotion from issues is the only way a society can be healthy and civilized. Even if it is an issue that is intensely personal and intensely emotional. We must expose ourselves to opposing viewpoints. We must understand opposing viewpoints. It’s the only way to challenge ourselves. It’s the only way to find truth.