This page analyzes why the country is so divided, provides motivation for moving toward independent thinking and reconciliation, and provides tools and techniques for independent and rational thinking. Then it suggests tools and tips for discussing issues with the other side, including being courteous and respectful and avoiding demeaning or divisive statements.
SUMMARY/TALKING POINTS
Many Americans are fed up with all the divisive, biased arguing and name-calling that has characterized recent politics.
The divisiveness has been caused by confirmation bias, groupthink, black and white thinking, one sided, divisive political news sources and opinions, generalization and oversimplification applied to complex issues, and emotionally persuasive labels and slogans designed to suppress debate.
We need to be less opinionated, study both sides of the issues, try to see the other side’s point of view, and learn to compromise.
Most of all we need to substitute civil dialogue for divisive behavior.
Motivation: One sided opinions are usually not facts. There are two sides to every story. We should all keep an open mind because we don’t know what we don’t know.
And we’ll be smarter if we can become less biased and learn to consider both sides of issues rationally.
We all should support bringing Americans together via civil dialogue and applying independent, rational thought, free of biases, to both sides of the issues.
DISCUSSION
1. The Problem
Many Americans are fed up with all the divisive, biased arguing and name-calling that has characterized recent politics. We all should support bringing Americans together via civil dialogue and rational thinking and support the contents of this section being taught in our educational system.
We believe one sided political opinions that are not part of a civil dialogue are to blame for America’s polarization. Especially if they are stated in a divisive way. Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) tweeted: “When did it become more fashionable to undermine and discredit someone who disagrees with you than to offer a reasoned and winning counter argument?” There has been too much arguing and not enough dialogue.
Note: Here’s the difference between dialogue, debate and arguing:
Dialogue is a civil discussion of rational points assuming each side has is partially right and has something to contribute to the search for the truth. Its primary focus is what’s right.
Debate is combative, each side trying to identify flaws in the other side’s points and trying to win, but maintaining logic, rationality, and civility.
Arguing is trying to win by any means without necessarily maintaining logic, rationality, or civility. Its primary focus is who’s right.
Here are some reasons Americans are so polarized and acrimonious:
Confirmation bias (Wikipedia: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for…(and) favor information … that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.)
Groupthink--groups reinforcing our beliefs over and over
Black and white thinking
One sided, divisive political news sources and opinions
Generalization and oversimplification applied to complex issue
Emotionally persuasive labels and slogans designed to suppress debate
When it comes to politics, emotions and preexisting beliefs can overwhelm facts and truth.
What we all need to do:
Study both sides of the issues, using independent rational thinking
Try to see the other side’s point of view
Learn to compromise
Engage in civil dialogue to build bridges to the other side.
But this asks people to give up the pleasure they get from reinforcing their biases and to voluntarily seek out opinions that differ from theirs. That’s uncomfortable, even painful if you realize you might have been wrong. The solution to this problem is to work on reducing biases.
Why are people biased? By the time they are adults, most people have formed a world view based on what they’ve heard from their family, culture, teachers, friends, influential people, news sources, and political party. If you identify with a group (such as Democrats or Republicans), that can further bias your opinions toward the group’s opinions because of something called groupthink.
This world view is then very hard to change, even with facts. Facts are interpreted in a way that supports the existing world view. (Example: President Trump cancels the North Korean summit meeting. The Left says he shouldn’t have done that, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. The Right says he’s a great negotiator showing he’s willing to walk away.)
2. Motivation for Moving Toward Independent Thinking and Reconciliation
Given that the Left and Right have world views that are difficult to change, even with facts, what can be done?
The first step is that people need to be motivated to do the right things.
Here are three things that need to be done along with reasons to do them.
1. Reduce your biases and use rational thinking to think for yourself because you’ll be more intelligent if you do.
Understand that the more biased you are, the less capable you are of rational thinking. In other words, you’ll be smarter if you can become less biased and learn to consider both sides of issues rationally. Warren Buffet said, “I never learn anything from people who agree with me.” Thinking for yourself is how you escape the mental prisons of the past Candace Owens, Kanye West, and Scott Adams talk about.
2. Be less opinionated because:
• One sided opinions are usually not facts
• There are at least two sides to every story
• We don’t know what we don’t know
• The devil is often in the details and many issues don’t have perfect solutions
• Most political solutions are near the Center, a product of reason with a dash of compassion
• Warren Buffet’s right-hand man Charlie Munger said, “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.”
• JFK said: “Too often…we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” The Twitter version of this is: Opinion is easy, truth is hard.
3. If you want to contribute to the world, totally eliminate divisive, polarizing opinions and engage in civil dialogue with the other side.
In a democracy it’s vital that issues are discussed and debated so the electorate can be as informed as possible. But divisive opinions make things worse. You are more likely to get people to agree with you if you are polite, civil and express only well-reasoned arguments supporting your positions. (Read Scott Adams’ book Win Bigly to learn how to be more persuasive when you do this.) And it will help unite our country, bringing Americans with different world views closer together. You will improve your relationships with friends and family members you currently disagree with.
3. Tools and Techniques for Independent Thinking
Your World View: Why Do You Believe What You Do?
• What issues are important to you? (President Trump, race, border security, immigration (legal and illegal), abortion, gender issues, gun violence, healthcare, taxes, welfare, foreign policy, education, other)
• What are your opinions on these issues?
• Where did these opinions come from? (Family, culture, teachers, friends, influential people, news sources, political party)
See this site’s Media, Academia, and Online Bias web page to determine how left, center, or right your news, educational, and online sources are. Note that Mainstream Media sources such as CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, NPR, NBC, CBS, and ABC are biased left as are most of academia, most celebrities, Google and Facebook.
Realize that if you’d grown up with a different family, culture, friends, teachers, news sources, etc., you would probably have a different world view.
A key point from Scott Adams: Since people interpret facts to fit their world view, the only way to evaluate a given world view is to see how well it predicts the future. For example, the view that said Trump was Hitler has not been borne out by his actions, so was not a good world view.
Reducing Bias and Exploring Both Sides of Issues
For each issue: Try to open your mind then:
• Study both sides of the issues
• Try to see the other side’s point of view
• As you look at the other side of the issues, don’t look for what’s wrong, look for what’s true, try to see their point of view
• Practice arguing the other side
A good technique that will make you smarter by developing your critical thinking: When you hear an opinion, immediately try to think of the other side of the story.
Because Mainstream Media has so strongly presented the Left’s opinions, we will recommend here the videos at Prager U. for many, well thought out Conservative points of view
Applying General Principles of Rational Thinking
As you explore the issues, keep in mind these principles.
1. Distinguish between facts and opinions. Your beliefs should have a solid foundation on facts, not opinions. When you read or hear something ask yourself. “Is that a fact like the sun rises in the east, or is it an opinion? Sometimes opinions are made to sound like facts. Sentences like these are usually preludes to expressing negative opinions and are often called “fake news:” It is possible …, I took his words to mean…, His words fit the narrative of…, There’s no evidence he is (something negative) but he could be, His words are creating a crisis, What he’s saying reminds me of (something negative).
2. Analyze information you are thinking about for quality, completeness and meaning. Is it accurate? Could it be wrong? Consider the source of the information including the background and possible bias of any humans involved. Ask “Who’s telling me this?” “What’s their background?” “What have they accomplished in the field they’re commenting on.” If someone is criticizing how President Trump is doing something, ask “Are they really qualified to criticize someone who has President Trump’s resume?” “How many big deals have they negotiated and how many world-class projects have they completed?”
Most media and universities today are biased to the Left, and even if they express facts, they may not be all the facts or the important ones.
3. Make sure the terms and variables under consideration are well defined. Socialism, climate change, gun control, open borders, globalization, and many other terms mean different things to different people. For example, I’ve seen the term “Socialism” applied to universal government provided healthcare and/or education, the democratic socialism practiced by some Scandinavian countries, and the socialism of Venezuela.
Clearly the term “socialistic” would be more appropriated in the first two situations, but best of all would be to specifically say what you mean.
Also, climate change has been used to mean:
The earth is in a warming trend
The earth is in a warming trend and humans are contributing
The earth is in a warming trend and humans are the main cause
The earth is in a warming trend, humans are the main cause, and without massive government intervention there will be catastrophic consequences within a few decades.
As you move down this list, there is less and less agreement among scientists as the assertions become more and more dependent on notoriously unreliable mathematical, climate, weather, and economic models attempting to predict the future interaction of multiple complex nonlinear systems. For more about climate change, see this site’s Climate Change web page.
4. Avoid oversimplification. It’s important to consider all variables associated with an issue—look at the entire problem not just a piece of it or its symptoms. Watch out for excluding important variables such as cost, implementation details, unintended consequences, and the effect of new events or discoveries that could change things.
In the climate change example, models predicting the future have not accounted for the possibility of new technologies that will almost certainly come along and contribute to solving any problem that may exist. For example, there are already machines that can extract carbon dioxide from the air.
The use of labels or slogans (see 7) usually means complex issues are being oversimplified.
5. (Related to 4.) Avoid black and white thinking. Human beings have an innate preference for issues and solutions to be simple. So there is a tendency to see them as “black or white.” “Shades of gray” thinking, possibly involving a 0-5 or 0-10 scale is often useful and more rational.
Examples of black and white thinking; Characterizing things as good or bad, right or wrong when in fact there are degrees of goodness, badness, etc. Jaywalking and murder are both wrong but not equally wrong.
6. Keep an open mind—you don’t know what you don’t know and you could be wrong.
7. Prioritize appropriately. This applies on both a large and small scale. Not all issues are equally important, and the variables associated with a given issue are usually not equally important. Recognize what’s important and focus on those issues/variables. Examples:
a. Large scale example: Look how much a meeting Donald Trump Jr. took with a Russian has been blown out of proportion by the Left. It’s been known for a long time that it had no effect on the election. But some of the media has focused on this issue and downplayed far more important ones like the improving economy.
b. Single issue example: The Left has often focused on how President Trump has said or done something or should he have said or done it and not the issue itself. Often the most important variable/metric to evaluate his words or behavior is “Is what he’s doing or trying to do good for America and Americans?”
8. Watch out for emotionally charged terms, phrases, labels and slogans being used to influence you.
Examples:
“Ripping” children from their mothers (when they’re being legally separated), that’s not who we are, war on women (applied when trying to reduce third trimester abortion on healthy babies), tax cuts for the rich (used to describe tax cuts for everyone paying taxes), we’re a nation of immigrants (used to justify illegal immigration), Muslim ban/Muslim majority countries (used to make a terrorist-oriented ban on immigration from six countries sound Islamophobic—in fact there are 44 Muslim majority countries), flip flopper (it’s smart to change your opinion if the facts change).
9. Watch out for invalid generalizations—implying “all” instead of “some,” “always” instead of “sometimes,” “everything” instead of “some things,” etc. For example, saying President Trump criticized the FBI (implying all the FBI) instead of saying he criticized some leaders of the FBI.
10. Argue both sides of issues, considering pros and cons. As you examine multiple points of view, they may have pros and cons that are difficult to measure and compare. Sometimes the “right answer” may be difficult to determine or even unknowable. For example, what is the optimal healthcare system?
11. Often solutions to problems (especially economic problems) involve where to “draw the line.” For example, what should the top tax rate or the minimum wage be? Here again there may not be a right answer.
12. Recognize and employ thresholds, the concept of “good enough” where appropriate. Perhaps a solution doesn’t solve every problem completely but it’s good enough and better than alternatives.
13. Don’t confuse correlation with causation. Under President Obama the economy improved, the stock market went up, and unemployment went down. But this does not mean he was responsible for those positive results. See this site’s Economy/Trade/Tariffs web page for details.
14. Watch out for the improper use of analogies, specifically drawing inferences from them. Just because A and B have some things in common does not mean A and B are alike in other ways.
15. Watch out for what Scott Adams calls “mind reading”—someone assuming they know what a person thinks or why they do something. Example: President Trump is doing that because…
16. Watch out for citing beliefs, opinions, or poems instead of facts or laws.
Example: Some have quoted the poem on the Statue of Liberty written in 1883: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses...,” as justification for illegal or unrestricted immigration.
17. Positions supported with name calling, sarcasm, ridicule, shouting, or obscenity should be discounted because this usually indicates a lack of sound arguments.
18. Do not believe any argument that has to redefine common words.
19. Before drawing conclusions, consider the effects of new events or discoveries, payoffs, tradeoffs, risks, obvious consequences, and unintended costs/consequences. Ask “What happens next?” and “What could go wrong?”
There is some overlap among the 19 principles. For example, defining terms may involve using shades of gray. “Sexual assault” has been used to mean a wide range of actions from inappropriate touching to rape. Adding a degree of assault or being specific about the assault would be better.
As you explore the issues using rational thinking, be on the lookout for possibilities and solutions that might work or that might inspire people to take positive action. In particular, be aware that one benefit of independent thinking is that you become free to choose a path that is good for you. You make your life, and independent thinking will allow you to make good choices along the way.
4. Tips for Discussing Issues with the Other Side
As more people practice independent thinking, we believe they will have less extreme beliefs and opinions and be less polarized. This will make a civil reconciliation between the Left and the Right more likely. One element of such reconciliation is civil discussions between the Left and Right—this section includes tips for such discussions. A motivator for such discussions is to remember what Warren Buffet said: “I never learn anything from people who agree with me.”
Much of the Left has had an extreme emotional reaction to the election of President Trump, called cognitive dissonance by psychologists. As a result, it will difficult discussing political issues with them because as Scott Adams says, where emotions are involved, facts don’t matter. Approaching people like this may only be possible if a foundation of love or trust can be established first. Then focus on why they believe what they do, not the beliefs themselves.
To be fair, there are people on the Right emotionally bound to many of their opinions, but they are not feeling as much pain because their side won.
But many people both left and right of center are willing to discuss issues. When you do discuss issues with people who disagree with you, everyone must agree to apply the general principles of rational thinking and follow these
guidelines:
Be less opinionated. Keep an open mind—you don’t know what you don’t know and you could be wrong.
Ensure that you are having a dialogue, not a debate. A debate is combative, each side claiming they are right and trying to prove the other side wrong. A dialogue is collaborative, both sides working together to find the truth or solution.
Aim to maintain these qualities: Be nice, courteous, and above all respectful.
Avoid criticism, contempt, sarcasm, name calling, accusations, and demeaning or divisive statements.
Try not to say “No”—be at least partially positive.
Work at being a good listener.
Try to see and feel things as the other person does emotionally as well as intellectually. If someone’s beliefs and opinions are based on emotions/feelings try to address why they feel that way rather than try to change their opinions directly.
Ask questions to increase your understanding.
Refrain from interrupting, evaluating, advising, or interpreting from your frame of reference.
Act in good faith and assume your participant is too—be careful not to make false assumptions about your participant’s motives, thoughts, or feelings.
Rephrase what the other person is saying to confirm that you understand their thoughts and feelings. The ultimate way to do this is switch roles and take the other person’s position.
Stay positive and look for the humor in things.
Differentiate between facts and opinions and be careful not to act on opinions as if they were facts.
You can be hard on the issue but not the other person. Be solution oriented.
Search for initial areas of agreement and try to develop more by thinking win/win. Try to allow both participants to save face.
If things start getting out of control, try to calm yourself and the other person quickly with humor, etc.
It’s difficult to consistently apply all communication skills. When mistakes are made it’s important for one participant to apologize and the other to understand that the mistake may not represent a lack of respect or interest.
Accept that some conflicts can never be resolved. Agree to disagree, accept differences, and learn from them.
Note: You’ll get better results in your discussions with others if you learn some persuasion techniques, especially framing, pacing and leading, from Scott Adams’ book, Win Bigly.
References for this web page:
Adams, Scott, Loserthink. New York, Portfolio/Penguin 2019.
Adams, Scott, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter. New York, Portfolio/Penguin 2017.
McMurrey Brad, The Success Ladder. Self-Published, 2011.
McMurrey, Brad, The Love Ladder. Self-Published, 2011.