Thanks to the social media and each news outlet catering to a specific demographic, many people now live in echo chambers that are only made worse thanks to the search engines conveniently creating filter bubbles for us. I’m not going to say that recently this problem has gotten worse; in fact, with the advent of the Internet, it might have actually gotten better for some people. If your grandmother grew up in a rural neighborhood where everybody had the same political views and believed in the same religion, she probably never even had a chance to interact with people who were different from her. Nowadays, we at least have the option to choose to interact with people who, at the first glance, might seem alien to us. Living inside an echo chamber might feel comfortable. Preaching to the choir whenever you express your opinions might feel reassuring. Nonetheless, I intend to argue that we should intentionally step out of our comfort zones and try having discussions with people who disagree with us and whom we don’t really like that much.
Personally, I have worked as a teacher in my university’s debate club, I have also participated in countless debates against people who, in my opinion, were very wrong. In this article I will explain what I have learned from all those friendly conversations as well as heated debates I have had with people who were convinced that they were right and I was wrong. I will explain how you can benefit from talking to people you disagree with.
1. To convince them.
That’s what you expected to read, right? Forget it. I’d suggest you to be realistic and accept that probably you aren’t going to convince anybody to change their mind. You might get lucky and actually succeed in convincing somebody else that some opinion they have held for their entire life and cherished so much that it has become a part of their identity is wrong. Occasionally that happens. But don’t count on it. That’s rare. Humans cherish their opinions and cling to them even when they face contradictory evidence. That’s just human nature. A university course or a well-written book might prompt somebody to change their mind, but a 20 minute conversation with some stranger probably won’t do the trick. Even experienced debaters cannot easily convince somebody else. Don’t hope for that and don’t feel disappointed when you fail to convince the other person. There are other better reasons for why you should talk to people who disagree with you.
1. To learn more about other people and their opinions.
What do they believe? Why do they hold certain opinions? Why do they disagree with you? You share this planet with billions of other people, many of whom perceive the world differently from you. Thus it’s beneficial to understand other people better, as that means an improved understanding of our world. A marketing specialist might say that this could allow you to adjust your sales pitch so as to better manipulate other people into buying your crap. A more ethical person might instead say that learning about other people’s opinions might allow you to become a more compassionate and caring person.
2. To become a more understanding, compassionate, and caring person. (See? I’m trying to be nice here.)
Humans have a tendency to ascribe negative stereotypes to those who differ from us. If somebody disagrees with me, they must be stupid, delusional, selfish, evil, etc. Frequently I have heard phrases like “atheists just want to sin” or “believers are incapable of critical thinking.” Actually talking with some person often results in accepting that these stereotypes are false. Other people have had different life experiences and education. Some of them are victims of childhood indoctrination and thus cannot be blamed for believing silly things. Sometimes a person can have very good reasons for holding some opinion that you consider factually incorrect. Let’s assume some woman says that “all men are pigs.” At first, one might get prompted to think “how foolish of her, all men aren’t bad people.” But what if you learned that she has experienced domestic violence for years and every man who had a significant role in her life actually was a pig? At this point, instead of being judgmental about somebody having a factually incorrect opinion, you’d probably feel some sympathy towards an unfortunate person who’s been very unlucky in her life. After all, from her perspective, the claim that “all men are pigs” would be true, because all men she had encountered in her life were exactly that. When people hold bad opinions, they often tend to have good reasons for doing so.
3. To find out about mindsets you didn’t even know existed.
About some questions there is no single truth, and two different viewpoints can simultaneously be both correct. For example, consider aesthetics—if you wanted to define criteria for how to determine what is a great artwork, there would be no single factually correct answer. In such situations, learning about other people’s opinions can broaden your own understanding of the topic.
4. To learn to agree to disagree.
Like it or not, you will have to get along with all kinds of different people. That’s a useful life skill. That being said, you should also know where to set your boundaries. Sometimes you just can’t compromise and pretend that you are fine when, in fact, you are far from it. For example, I’m nonreligious and a genderqueer. I have no problem being friends with people who believe in different religions, but I’m not going to be friendly with transphobes who believe that I’m sick and that my very existence is an abomination.
5. To learn to be more polite. Also towards people you don’t like.
I am an argumentative person; I tend to jump into heated discussions head on. However, unless provoked, I’m never rude to anybody. I value politeness and civility very highly. I have no moral or ethical objections towards rudeness, instead it’s an aesthetic preference—I think that well-spoken, urbane, and courteous people are more pleasant to interact with. Life is simply much more pleasant when people are nice to each other. I previously said that I won’t be friendly with transphobes, but I will definitely be polite to them. Incidentally, being polite doesn’t mean that you have to passively accept insults or permit abuse. If somebody provoked me and forced me into a situation where I had no other choice but to get into an exchange of insults (aka, I couldn’t simply leave and go away), then I would dash out verbal abuse and make the wannabe bully regret trying to mess with me. Incidentally, it’s possible to deliver verbal abuse without saying a single rude word and while remaining sophisticated and eloquent. That’s also a useful life skill.
6. To become more confident, to get used to defending your opinions, to learn to handle conflict and heated discussions instead of avoiding them all the time.
Some discussions are friendly. Others less so. Ultimately, it’s useful to be able to handle anything. Personally, I have never in my life been timid, but, as a debate teacher, I have witnessed some of my students overcoming shyness or their fear to speak in public by arguing more often and simply getting used to it.
7. To become more skilled at defending your opinions.
Can you clearly and rationally explain why you believe something? Can you give arguments? Can you prove that you are right? Many people aren’t very skilled at these tasks. Frequently arguing with other people not only helps you to develop your public speaking or writing skills, it also teaches you to express your opinions in a clear and comprehensible way. It teaches you to explain your arguments. The person who disagrees with you is going to scrutinize your words, they won’t accept something like “I feel that I’m right” or “you just have to believe me,” instead you will have to do better than that when defending your opinions.
8. To learn to look past excellent oratory and seek content instead.
Some people are excellent orators, but once you scrutinize their words and search for content in their speeches, it turns out that they didn’t really say anything. They made lots of noise, they used many long words with countless syllables, they sounded very smart, but ultimately they didn’t actually say anything. If you try to summarize the arguments they made, it turns out that there were no arguments. Whenever we agree with what some person is saying, we aren’t very likely to critically analyze their arguments. We don’t scrutinize each word they utter. We listen passively and not very carefully. However, when we listen to somebody we disagree with, we intentionally look for flaws in their reasoning, we scrutinize each word they say, and we pay close attention to their arguments, because we want to prove them wrong. A few months after I joined a debate club, I realized that the way how I listened to politicians’ speeches had changed. I no longer stared at the TV screen thinking that some politician sounded smart, instead I kept noticing every single flaw in their arguments. The more time you spend trying to prove other people wrong, the more attuned you become to listening for flaws in their reasoning and the less you are impressed by excellent oratory. I assume that nobody likes getting tricked by smooth talkers, hence being able to look past excellent oratory can come in handy in all kinds of situations.
9. To test your own opinions.
During a discussion with a person who thinks that you are wrong, you have to come up with rational arguments for why your opinion is, in fact, correct. Once you are done explaining your argument, the other person will try to refute it, they will scrutinize it in an attempt to find flaws in your reasoning. They will also offer counter arguments that defend their own views. This process allows you to test your own opinions, to find out whether they are tenable. Being proven wrong is unpleasant. Having to change your mind isn’t easy. However, if your opinion is wrong, it’s better to find out sooner rather than later. Yes, I have been proven wrong often enough. And yes, whenever that happened, I had to change my mind and abandon my previous views. Personally, I don’t want to hold any wrong opinions, even if the process of abandoning them feels unpleasant, because I must ask myself the question that does the exact opposite of boosting my ego: “How could I be such a fool?”
Discussing your views with a person who disagrees with you also forces you to examine your own opinions. What exactly do you believe? Why do you believe what you believe? What arguments support your position? How can you prove that you are right? How can you be sure? Can you be sure at all? What evidence would it require for you to change your mind? Carefully examining your own opinions as well as your reasons for holding these opinions is the only way how you can be sure that you are probably right. In some cases, I concluded that I have very good reasons for believing something. In other cases, it seemed that I’m likely right, but I couldn’t be certain and I had to keep an open mind and wait for further information. On other occasions, I have concluded that I must completely suspend my judgment until I find further evidence that could sway my mind one way or the other. In some situations, I have concluded that I don’t have an answer and I just cannot know something at all.
10. To have fun.
Yes, debating and arguing with people can be fun. I’m saying this as somebody who has spent several years of my life regularly participating in debates. I enjoy debating for the exact same reason why others might enjoy playing chess. For me it’s a challenge—I have to figure out good arguments for defending my position, I have to refute all the opposing claims. In some way, it’s like a game, an intellectual competition.
If you have read this far, I hope that, by now, I have managed to convince you that sometimes it’s worth trying to talk to people you disagree with. How should you do that? Back when I worked as a debate teacher, I taught an entire course on that. But, frankly, it’s not really that hard for me to give a brief summary of basic guidelines. The truth is that arguing is something people learn best by doing rather than by reading theory about how to argue. No worries, I will keep it short and simple—be polite and be rational. See? I don’t always need hundreds of words to express some point, I’m also capable of summarizing things.
Moreover, you should also keep in mind that in some situations it is not worth talking to people who disagree with you. Sometimes debates are interesting and useful, on other occasions they are just plain useless and boring or frustrating. Here’s when you are better off avoiding a discussion:
1. When the other person is rude towards you. Unless you want to practice and expand your insult-related vocabulary, there’s no point in exchanging rude words. Just leave instead. Discussions are worth having only when both people are polite.
2. When the other person substitutes logical fallacies for rational arguments.
3. When the other person is either too lazy or too inarticulate to comprehensibly explain and defend their opinions.
4. If you have already had this particular discussion ad nauseam or if the other person presents the same old arguments that have been already refuted long ago.
5. If you get bored. Yes, that happens. Very often.