Many hold strong beliefs and opinions, however not many know the roots of their belief. If a person agrees to explore it, both of you will learn something new and fascinating. The problem is finding someone who wants to think and ask the questions. This goes for both. Many want to “convince” someone, but how much do you truly know about the thing you’re trying to prove?
This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth? Play the game, find out how deep you lake of knowledge goes
Hmmm, but why?
Because if we did that all the time and everywhere, we would become smarter as a whole human race and maybe gain enough knowledge to stop slaughtering each other ❤️
Because every human is continuously forced to check why they believe in what they believe and if it still makes sense. You build on pillars you once assume are stable. But with your latest knowledge and the question „Why?“, you may recognize some to be more brittle than you thought.
I think the key is to remember you are trying to discuss opinions/convictions not facts.
When B says something like “C is a nazi”, A correctly asks why B believes C is a nazi, not why C is a literal nazi. So when you go down one level, A’s next question should be something like “why do you think these are nazi tactics?” and “why are nazi tactics bad?” It really requires both sides to be intellectually honest and curious about someone’s actual beliefs, otherwise the technique doesn’t work. I also think limiting yourself to just “why” isn’t always helpful. Sometimes you need to ask for clarification or the entire conversation becomes a farce.
Remember the goal is to learn something about the other persons views, not to set each other up with rhetorical questions.
Or, alternatively - you’ll be accused of Sealioning
Haha, yes that indeed might be a problem! Any idea how to approach this without being incredibly annoying?
Haven’t we all.
More annoying though, is when you are really trying to understand the other person’s point of view and they shut down debate by the accusation of sealioning. There should be a word for that
The word is “tired”, I think. A lot of people just don’t have the energy to answer the whys and are used to bad actors using why to exhaust them. So when it comes to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia…etc… it’s a) an exhausting subject to begin with when its aimed at you, and b) a magnet for disingenuous bigots and trolls, so people will just shut down the conversation rather than try and explain their whole existence.
Honestly, I think isms are the only times when sealioning is sealioning, because that’s the only time you get people arguing in such bad faith.
