Classically Abby - January 04, 2021


6 Tips To GET THROUGH To LIBERALS! ｜｜ It is NOT easy to bridge the gap...


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

173.98813

Word Count

2,989

Sentence Count

142

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
00:00:04.760 six ways to talk to liberals.
00:00:09.420 I recently read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind.
00:00:13.340 I've been talking about it a lot on my Twitter and on Instagram, and I just recently finished it.
00:00:18.760 So, the book is talking about the moral psychology underlying left and right on the spectrum of
00:00:25.260 American politics, and how by understanding the differences in approach by the two sides as
00:00:31.060 regards morality, we can actually understand people better as individuals. Now, there were
00:00:36.580 things about this book that I didn't love, because Jonathan Haidt is a liberal, and he was writing
00:00:41.180 this book for liberals so that they could try and understand conservatives. But in doing so,
00:00:46.560 he ended up being a little bit condescending to conservatives and sort of stereotyping our morals
00:00:52.120 and our values. But there were also some really valuable lessons in the book that I think were
00:00:56.500 worth talking about, and will allow us to view people on the other side of the aisle as people
00:01:01.540 and not as enemies. And I think that that's just a really hard thing in American politics today,
00:01:06.660 is that really often across the aisle we view each other not as humans, but just as someone who
00:01:12.320 disagrees with me. We see them as their politics, and people are so much more than that. So even
00:01:17.360 though conservatives and liberals disagree on a lot, we are all people, and it's worth trying to
00:01:23.680 understand the other side. Now, before I get started, I want to get out of the way here and now
00:01:28.740 the difference between leftists and wokest on one hand and liberals on the other. Leftists live out
00:01:34.240 their woke ideology as religion. Even though it doesn't kind of look like a typical religion,
00:01:40.300 it is one. They want to tear down our existing moral structures and society and start over from the
00:01:45.700 beginning. They believe that all of the things that we now accept, things that are common sense,
00:01:51.140 things that define morality, define right and wrong, define our social structure, all of that was
00:01:56.980 created during a time when there was too much anything, too much bias, racism, any ism, to have
00:02:03.100 any value or legitimacy or moral authority. For the woke, for leftists, they believe that they are the
00:02:10.700 only ones who know what true morality is and that we need to tear everything down and start over. Now,
00:02:15.760 think about that. From their words and actions, it is very clear that they believe they are smart
00:02:21.380 enough to tear down everything that we have known and start it over with their woke ideology. And
00:02:28.000 anything that is not their woke ideology is immoral, wrong, evil, bad. We need to get rid of it and start
00:02:35.240 from scratch using their version of morality. We can't really negotiate or have a fruitful conversation
00:02:42.040 with leftists and wokeists because we're starting on entirely different footing. It honestly doesn't
00:02:48.340 make any sense to engage in conversation with someone who doesn't have common ground with us
00:02:53.820 because they don't look at how can we make things better from here. They think we need to tear it down
00:03:00.380 and start over. This is completely different from liberals who, like conservatives, are trying to do
00:03:05.920 the best for everyone but are still working within the same framework as we have about morality and
00:03:11.540 social structures. Our disagreements with liberals can be significant but very often they're more about
00:03:16.360 practice than about principle. I believe that working with and talking to liberals can really create a
00:03:22.320 fruitful conversation and it's something that we should regularly and constantly pursue. And this is
00:03:27.300 especially true because we need liberals on our side to fight against this wokest ideology, this leftist
00:03:33.200 wokest ideology. Conservatives and liberals need to work together to stand against that kind of
00:03:40.500 thinking. But now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about The Righteous Mind by Jonathan
00:03:45.200 Haidt and six ways to talk to liberals. Number one is to make people feel understood before trying to
00:03:52.480 change their mind. Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of a rider and an elephant to describe how people
00:03:58.140 think. The rider is conscious, active reason and logic and the elephant is intuition. It's unconscious
00:04:05.360 impulses. We as people like to believe that the rider is fully in control. That everything that we believe
00:04:11.160 and everything that we do is controlled by our logic and our reason and our conscious mind. But the fact of the
00:04:17.100 matter is that's not really true according to Jonathan Haidt. He says that the elephant is in control more
00:04:22.060 often because think about how heavy an elephant is in comparison to a rider and that the elephant
00:04:27.680 will throw its weight around more than we think, such as a visceral reaction. When the elephant does
00:04:32.480 take control, the rider's role is to justify what the elephant did. And he'll think that it was his own
00:04:38.660 idea to do that even if it's kind of after the fact. We often will have a gut reaction to things. We'll have
00:04:45.100 a feeling and then end up explaining it and justifying it and reasoning for it afterward. We create a
00:04:52.100 sophisticated reason for why we believe it rather than the other way around. It's not that we will
00:04:57.760 have a logical thought and then our emotions follow. Usually our emotions will go first and then our
00:05:03.480 reasoning will explain that emotion for us. Jonathan Haidt writes,
00:05:08.440 therefore if you want to change someone's mind about a moral or political issue, talk to the elephant
00:05:14.020 first. You basically want to understand that the person you're talking to, you're actually talking
00:05:18.880 to their elephant and not to their rider. You have to appeal to their emotions first before trying to
00:05:25.320 appeal to their reason. So you want to be nice. You want to be kind. You want to show that you do
00:05:30.160 understand their point of view and that you can work with that. You understand what they're saying
00:05:34.720 and then you can start to appeal to the rider. Because if you were immediately to just say,
00:05:40.320 you're dumb and here's why, then no matter how well you convince the rider, the elephant still won't
00:05:47.260 lean in your direction. And therefore it won't matter that you've convinced them logically and you've
00:05:53.780 given them reason after reason. Because intuition wise, in their stomach, in their visceral reactions,
00:06:00.400 they will not be able to agree with you. So you always want to make sure that when you're talking
00:06:06.080 to someone on the other side of the aisle, you make sure they feel heard, they feel understood,
00:06:10.500 that you are showing them that you have good intentions when you talk to them. Because if it
00:06:17.260 just comes off like, I have to convince you no matter what, then they're not going to feel like
00:06:22.100 they can accept that reasoning. That line of reasoning will not matter and you will lose your
00:06:28.840 opportunity to maybe change someone's mind. Number two is recognizing the thought process
00:06:33.440 someone on the other side of the aisle is having when disagreeing with you. Jonathan Haidt writes,
00:06:38.600 reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach because we ask, can I believe it
00:06:43.540 when we want to believe something, but must I believe it when we don't want to believe? This
00:06:47.880 continues on with the idea of the rider and the elephant. The rider is often sent to find all of
00:06:52.800 the information it needs to prove what the elephant wants him to prove and then ignoring any other
00:06:58.180 information. And the rider will again claim that it was his idea all along to think what he thinks,
00:07:03.960 but really it was the elephant all along. We as humans have the capability to justify all of our
00:07:08.660 feelings because we have both logic and intuition. So when the elephant feels something, the rider will
00:07:15.520 go out and find what it needs to prove that. So if you're having a discussion with someone on the
00:07:20.380 other side of the aisle and you are making logical arguments, you need to understand that they're
00:07:25.400 probably asking themselves, must I believe this? Unless you have proven your point without a doubt
00:07:31.220 and also made sure that the elephant feels comfortable changing gears, you won't have
00:07:36.140 changed the other person's mind. So it's important to do both. Number three is that people in the West
00:07:42.380 are weird. Let me explain what I'm talking about. So Jonathan Haidt writes,
00:07:47.180 nearly all research in psychology is conducted on a very small subset of the human population,
00:07:52.080 people from cultures that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, which forms
00:07:58.360 the acronym WEIRD. Weird people are statistical outliers. They are the least typical, least representative
00:08:04.300 people you could study if you want to make generalizations about human nature. And another
00:08:08.500 interesting point is that so often the people that are used in studies are college students who are
00:08:14.280 even more atypical than the average person. If you think about yourself in college, if someone were
00:08:18.960 to use you as an example, it would just not be really reflective of people generally, of people
00:08:25.520 working in everyday life. So what Jonathan Haidt is talking about here is how people in the West
00:08:31.460 and weird people are people who only look at morality on one dimension, which is harm and fairness.
00:08:39.240 They don't think that morality contains any other dimensions. It's just harm and fairness. But most
00:08:44.160 people from other parts of the world think that morality has many different spectrums. Western
00:08:49.160 liberals analyze morality based on the individual alone and not in the context of communities or
00:08:54.700 social obligations. Conservatives, though, they view morality as the sum of many parts. They see
00:08:59.940 that there's more to morality than just harm and fairness. What this means for conservatives who have
00:09:04.940 a more holistic view of morality is that we have to show liberals that the other parts of morality
00:09:11.900 do fall under the umbrella of harm and fairness. Jonathan Haidt actually doesn't say this in his
00:09:18.560 book, but I think it's really important, and I think it's something he almost missed in the book.
00:09:23.660 He says that there are six foundations of morality. He says there's the care-harm foundation,
00:09:28.640 the fairness-cheating foundation, loyalty-betrayal foundation, authority-subversion foundation,
00:09:34.380 sanctity and degradation foundation, and the liberty-oppression foundation. I would argue that all of
00:09:40.120 these principles of morality are actually also part of the care-harm foundation. And this is something
00:09:46.440 that is super important to liberals because it's the only thing that they see is moral. That's the
00:09:52.360 only part of morality that generally matters to them. So if that's the only one that matters to them,
00:09:58.080 showing them how the five other principles of morality do actually deal with harm and fairness
00:10:04.820 and deal with care and harm is something that can change the game when you're having a conversation
00:10:11.440 with them. We just need to show that there is a deeper, broader, and more meaningful understanding
00:10:16.800 of what care and harm actually means. And if you can present the other five principles of morality
00:10:23.580 as also being about care and harm to a liberal that is weird, then you can actually change their mind
00:10:30.700 because you would be speaking their language. Number four is that just because someone is born
00:10:36.340 with a certain disposition, that doesn't make them predestined to be left-wing or right-wing.
00:10:42.020 Their temperament could make them more predisposed, but it's not for sure. It's not guaranteed.
00:10:49.140 And even if your elephant, it tends to lean one way or another, right? Is maybe more libertine or is
00:10:56.300 maybe more strict, and your rider can easily justify that because that's what riders do,
00:11:02.560 that doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to end up being a liberal or a conservative.
00:11:07.960 Honestly, people just aren't that simple and aren't that shallow. A good example is if you have
00:11:14.280 actually been convinced of an idea that doesn't seem natural to your personality, you can successfully
00:11:20.000 live a lifestyle that doesn't fit with who you are, in a sense. For example, if you're a more libertine
00:11:25.340 person who has low anxiety, maybe wants to try a lot of new things, but you've been convinced about
00:11:31.340 conservative ideas and conservative values and the meaning of religion, then you can live a
00:11:36.100 conservative life. You can be a conservative, and vice versa. There are people who are conservative
00:11:41.500 people who tend to feel more nervous about things or more strict, who are convinced of liberal ideas
00:11:48.220 and then end up being more liberal. Life and people are broader than the categories we try to fit them
00:11:53.200 into. So with that in mind, if you meet someone that has a personality that seems to fit more in one
00:11:59.160 box or the other, that doesn't mean that they have to be that one thing. If you meet somebody who is
00:12:05.220 more libertine and you think, well, they have to be liberal, that doesn't necessarily ring true.
00:12:11.920 Number five is understand why liberals are skeptical of religion and groupishness so that you can really
00:12:18.200 try and address their concerns. It's so important to recognize the differences between real religion and
00:12:24.040 good community and the version of those things that are bad. In discussing the new atheist perception of
00:12:30.040 religion, Jonathan Haidt writes, if religion is a virus or a parasite that exploits a set of cognitive
00:12:35.720 byproducts for its benefit, not ours, then we ought to rid ourselves of it. But what's fascinating is that
00:12:41.880 religion actually binds people together and has done so for thousands of years. Religion has encouraged
00:12:47.960 people to be trustworthy and do the right thing in the eyes of God and in the eyes of each other.
00:12:52.680 And only the groups whose gods encouraged cooperation survived. True happiness only comes
00:12:57.720 from the feeling of being part of something greater. That's why you have leftists and wokest
00:13:03.720 treating that philosophy as a religion because it feels like they're a part of something greater than
00:13:08.840 themselves. When you don't have real religion, you make one up. And so for people who are participating
00:13:15.960 in religion, it brings them joy, it brings them happiness, and it's super important to creating
00:13:21.240 communities, creating good behavior among societies. It's really important. And being able to show why
00:13:29.240 from a societal perspective religion is a good thing and not a bad thing is going to be a really good
00:13:34.680 talking point with liberals. Rabbi Jonathan Sachs of Blessed Memory said,
00:13:38.920 the meaning of a system cannot arise within the system. The meaning of our lives must come from
00:13:44.040 outside of ourselves. Number six is that liberals don't understand conservative ideology the way that
00:13:49.800 conservatives understand liberal ideology. The reason that liberals don't give conservatives the
00:13:54.680 benefit of the doubt is because they truly do not understand the way that we think. They don't
00:13:59.400 understand that conservatives are really trying to bring about more happiness in society by encouraging
00:14:05.240 society to be a community built on values that are accurate about human nature and moral virtue and
00:14:11.240 which have rules that are the proper balance of humility and aspiration. And the reason liberals don't
00:14:16.680 understand this is because they're weird. They view everyone as individuals. They do not see the communal
00:14:22.760 binds that make people happier. And in doing so, in breaking people apart into individuals, they are
00:14:30.360 making people lonelier and sadder because they don't see what the connections actually bring. They believe
00:14:37.480 that personal freedom in every moment is the highest possible good. And they have forgot that in the
00:14:43.320 pursuit of liberty in this sense, they have actually made people sadder and more alone and deprived them of
00:14:51.000 the duties and obligations that give people meaning. So the thing that's super important as conservatives
00:14:57.000 is to show them what conservatives really think and to show them how we think instead of just random rules
00:15:04.920 and puritanism that they think that we believe in because of social media and movies and pop culture.
00:15:11.000 So you want to make sure that they give credence to your arguments in the first place just because you are
00:15:17.000 giving them reason to understand how you think and why you think that way. So those were my six ways to talk
00:15:25.080 to liberals, to convince liberals, to have a conversation with liberals, and to really try and understand
00:15:31.400 them and have them understand us. I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. Let me know in the comments,
00:15:36.760 have you read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind? I really enjoyed it. I thought that it had a lot to teach us
00:15:42.760 and I would love to hear your thoughts. If you haven't read the book, let me know in the comments
00:15:46.920 which of these you would like to incorporate into your next conversation with someone who disagrees
00:15:51.640 with you. I'd love to hear. Thank you guys so much for watching today's video. Please subscribe to my
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00:16:25.240 and I'll see you guys in my next one. Bye!
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