The challenge of reason... how do you reveal reason to those who don't know how to use it?

I've watched a lot of debates (though they were more a person yelling and insisting they were right and not listening) lately. For some of these people the thing I've been wondering is how do you get them to stop yelling long enough to learn and listen?

The term Fake News for example. Another reason it is backfiring is some of the people use it as ANYTHING I DON'T LIKE. It is not actually based upon facts, it is pure emotion and not liking some belief of theirs being challenged. This is irrational. How do we go about waking these people up?

When I say waking up... I am not saying GET THEM TO AGREE with anything in particular.

I am saying to wake them up to using their own minds and teach them how to once again listen.

Here are some things I'd like to tell everyone (for my actual targets would likely believe I am not talking to them):

• Everyone is wrong about things. Far more often than you may suspect.
• If someone said something you disagree with... did they back what they said with something you can research?
• Did the person use an absolute, all, every, never, everyone, etc?

Let's look at what these three points can do for you as a person. They actually can help ALL (applies in this case) of us.

Everyone is wrong about things

It is okay to be wrong. It is actually GOOD to be wrong as long as we acknowledge it and learn from it. You will rarely learn more than when you allow things you are wrong about to be corrected. Refusing to listen simply because we don't like what someone has said at any point is actually you shutting down the doors of communication. You can listen without agreeing, but it is important to actually LISTEN and HEAR what the person says. We all are potentially wrong on any issue we hold dear.

Did they give you something researchable?

Did the person that you disagree with and don't like what you are hearing actually give you anything that you can research? If so, this is a good thing. It doesn't mean they are right or you are wrong. It does however, give an avenue for you to determine that. Also it is important to know RESEARCH is not talking to people you agree with. Actually go and use google and look up the information. If you want to make sure that you are getting the best information try to find people talking about it who are one side of information, and those who are on the other. If any of them are pushing agendas then by comparing them you'll hopefully get the details either(or multiple) side is intentionally leaving out to make their agenda make more sense. This is a danger with research. What information did someone choose to leave out so you would be more likely to agree with them?

All, Every, Never, Everyone

I have used some of these in this article. Yet I double checked and I do believe in the places I used them they are actually applicable.

These are called absolutes.

When talking about absolutes they are very rarely true. So when a person chooses to use them they can immediately invalidate what they are saying. The absolute made their statement untrue. This is important to know not simply so you can decide things are untrue. It is important so you TOO will try not to use absolutes except when they are true.

Examples:
All Alt-Right people are Nazis and White Supremacists.
All people on the left are communists.

Both of those statements are false. You would be safest replacing the word with Some, Most, A lot, etc. Those do not simply try to dump all the people under a label into your bucket.

I recently actually argued about that first one concerning the Alt-Right. I didn't argue because I am Alt-Right, Left, etc. I argued because of the absolute and I knew that made the statement false.

The person proceeded to share a lot of websites I had never heard of or been to and some people like Richard Spencer that I had seen a video of once before, but kind of forgot him. So I learned some things in the research.

I also learned that the statement WAS indeed false because of the existence of the word. All. In the case of that statement the word Some, or saying "The original alt-right" would have been true.

In my research I found Richard Spencer on a wayback machine copy of a web page using that term in 2009. In researching Richard Spencer he definitely pushes the white supremacist, and nazi agenda. So his core adherents that began with him tend to also carry this same agenda. This would imply that it is likely there was a period where all of Alt-Right were white supremacists. Yet even that is dangerous to say all. Talking to a white supremacist, and knowing a white supremacist does not mean you have to agree with the person. Guilt by association is also a falsity. It does not meet the burden of proof. It may prove they associate with people that have ideas you find distasteful, yet it does not prove they share those ideas.

I also knew that ALL was false in that statement because I'd been encountering a lot of people calling themselves Alt-Right, and Alt-Right media and it was clear they were not white supremacists or nazis. I've encountered more in my research.

Labels in general are dangerous to generalize/stereotype around. They are simply WORDS. Where the person first encountered them matters a great deal. Did they encounter them because they were listening to Richard Spencer and decide they were Alt-Right too? If so then they very well may be white supremacist. Did they encounter them because they were reading an article on infowars, zero hedge, etc that was talking about alt-right and had nothing to do with white supremacy? If they were then deciding they were alt-right based upon what they encountered there would not suddenly make them a white supremacist. In fact that is but TWO examples of how someone might encounter that and truly there are an infinite variety of ways people might encounter something.

I guarantee you that a lot of the people calling themselves Alt-Right don't know who Richard Spencer is. They likely have never been to websites like Stormcaller.

I explained this to my friend I was debating that absolute with. He stated then they shouldn't be using that label. I tried to explain to him that a person choosing to use a label based upon information they KNOW is all they can do. They have no way of knowing EVERYTHING and thus even being aware there is another distasteful group using the same label. He didn't quite agree with me on this YET.

The key thing about absolutes of All, Never, Everyone, Every, etc is that it only takes ONE case where that is not the case to invalidate your entire statement. So if you want to be closer to what you likely intend while not speaking a false statement then use a qualifier such as most, a lot, some, a few, etc.

Yet I will warn you now there are media outlets that like to use phrases like "some people say" as though that was important when reporting the news. In many of those cases the SOME PEOPLE they were referring to was the reporter themselves. They might as well have said I SAY. Instead they leave a vague sourceless SOME out there in the hope you'll buy into the bandwagon and agree because there are some people saying that. Sadly, this works on a lot of people. This is what I am trying to change.

Waking up, freeing your mind, and using critical thinking does not mean you have to agree with anyone including me. In fact, you should be an individual and not agree with ANY (absolute) other individual completely. You are your own person, you have your own mind. Use it, exercise it, make it stronger, make it faster, make it more resistant to manipulation.

Steem On!