Changing Minds

I had a friend in both middle and high school that I enjoyed arguing with about religion, and politics. He was my polar opposite in both subjects. He was an atheist, and I was highly religious. He was extremely liberal in his political opinions, and I was extremely conservative in mine. We would debate everything, and I had a lot of fun. In my freshman year of high school, we debated population control for about 2 weeks straight because of a video we had seen in our biology class. He was for population control, and I was against it. Every day we would bring up new arguments and then at the end of the school day we would go home and research new ways to disprove each other. At the end of those two weeks, I identified a hypocrisy in the foundation of his argument, that I could see running through all of our previous debates.

We had Spanish class together, and that was our biggest debate stage. Our teacher was on maternity leave, and we had a long-term sub who didn’t care, so we used the class to argue almost every day. During the previous two weeks tensions ran high and that day things got especially heated. I got angry and gave into pride. Rather than disproving his opinion on this one issue, I decided to attack him on everything. I spoke extra loudly to get everyone’s attention and then I used my argument to disprove and discredit him on every issue I could think of in front of a crowd. I technically won the debate, but it was a pyrrhic victory. I lost one of my best friends that day, and he never talked to me about politics again.

Pride is the enemy of real success in politics. When we allow pride to control our actions, we see ourselves as inherently better than others. The disagreements they have with our opinions become attacks on us personally. We end up caring more about being right than getting it right. We get defensive whenever someone disagrees with us rather than seeing their differing views as an opportunity to refine our own. If I hadn’t been prideful, I might have had the latitude to use my argument in a way that would have changed his mind and brought him over to my side. This friend was incredibly smart and we might have accomplished some great things together. Instead, I pushed him away from politics entirely.

One of the keys to changing minds is to prevent defensiveness on both sides. When any person becomes defensive, it closes them off from change and places them in a position to attack. Our defensiveness prevents us from refining our views and advocating for them in a way that creates common ground. Our opponent’s defensiveness will likewise close them off from hearing what we have to say. When either party gets defensive everyone loses.

Navigating a political discussion in this way isn’t easy. Even the best of us struggle with pride to some degree, but there are a few things all of us can do to get better at this. The first is to recognize that our political opinions are imperfect. When we show this kind of humility it allows us to grow and refine our opinions and listen to our opponents. When we listen, that then helps us to prevent our political opponents from getting defensive. The next thing we can do is to actively show our opponents that we hear and understand their opinions and concerns. An easy way to do this is to restate their points and ask them if we understand them correctly. When we do this, we lower their defenses because we show them that we are a friend who is genuinely interested in finding common ground and coming to a productive consensus. Once we’ve done that, we can then address those concerns by politely and genuinely questioning their arguments while offering our own as a solution. This creates a dialogue that enables both parties to consider all the facts and arguments before coming to a final decision.

Doing these things might not change anybody’s mind in the first discussion, but it at least leaves the door open for future conversation. So many people today completely give up on politics because of the divisiveness and anger they see, but this way of doing politics creates an environment where civil and productive political discourse can exist. Rather than pushing people away from politics, humble consideration and an emphasis on changing minds invites more to join. It transforms political discussion from a vitriolic battlefield into a real attempt to solve problems and make the world a better place.