The Christmas holidays are getting closer and so is everlasting tradition of most families:
Everyone happily gathers at the christmas table and cheerfully talks about life, job or new neighbour's car.
Suddenly uncle Janusz mentions something about Law and Justice, and then nightmare begins.
If you have ever experienced such a situation, I'm sure there was a fool or two you couldn't agree with or even you couldn't stand it so much you had to leave a room.
Hopefully there's someone who can help you. Robb Willer, social psychologist, clearly explains how to talk with others about politics, have nice, constructive conversation and educate the uncle.
Hope you like it!
Everyone happily gathers at the christmas table and cheerfully talks about life, job or new neighbour's car.
Suddenly uncle Janusz mentions something about Law and Justice, and then nightmare begins.
If you have ever experienced such a situation, I'm sure there was a fool or two you couldn't agree with or even you couldn't stand it so much you had to leave a room.
Hopefully there's someone who can help you. Robb Willer, social psychologist, clearly explains how to talk with others about politics, have nice, constructive conversation and educate the uncle.
Hope you like it!
Comments
Speaking about slogans - they are disgusting, they are making us argue with each other and they are showing, how society can be inadequate when something goes wrong(revolutions,civil wars and etc.)
It may however be the case of left wing politicians using the argument that only resonate with their own voters. You might think that this kind of empathy would be a key skill for every successful politician, but in truth it's an extremely rare ability to be able to fully put yourself into another person's shoes. Or maybe it's just that they don't care enough.
*win by shouting
*using the arguments resonating only with
The presented concept of reframing statements to emphasize common values is an interesting one. I believe it could work in many instances. I'm not sure about other instances. It will work depending on how much uncle Janusz is determined to cooperate with us and not get into the details of why there must be two Smolensk monuments on Krakowiskie Przedmiescie.
However, I like his message at the end. We should, first and foremost, have empathy and respect for one another.
Do not talk about politics. If you want to sidestep fights, broken bonds and friendship:) However i have a bestfriend that i can talk with about politics even tho we have different ideas when with my second bestfriend i can't talk about this topic at all without his rage:)
For example, no matter how much a person believes that abortion should be legal, and basically a woman's right to decide about her life and body, there will always be another person who will say that a woman should have no say in this, and defend his/her opinion by any means. Even techniques presented in the video above won't make the majority of people to realize "Maybe they are right, maybe abortion is not all that ethical after all" or "Maybe that is true, that the woman should be able to choose if she wants to risk her life while giving birth; maybe its not healthy to raise a rapists child, or maybe she should decide if she is willing and capable of taking care of a mentally/physically handicapped child for the rest of her life". What adds petrol to the fire is, that many people do not respect others opinions/beliefs, not even within the same family, and that is why it usually is better to avoid the topic of politics between friends and family.
Thank you Tomasz to link for such presentations. It was really enjoying to watch such point of view about conversations about politics.
This should be for us developing instead of causing a tense atmosphere.
Being thoughtful people, we have the right to have our opinion, but through such conversations we have the possibility to discover some new aspects for us of other views or to confirm in our minds.
One of the really important things that even the real politicians can't achieve is the calm atmosphere of the meetings and trying to put themselves in other people's shoes. They don't want to listen to other people's arguments since they are so sure about their own opinions. If only they could stop being so arrogant, we could achieve so much more even as an entire species.
That should be the first rule of any conversation: do not talk about politics, provided that you are not politician itself.
Speech was a good entertainment, thanks to Robb Willer (and thanks to publisher too!).
Just don't.
For me personally politics is just a bunch of bull****. Nothing good comes out of it and everybody lies.
If you want to see how does it all work, you should watch House of Cards(Netflix), or listen to Korn - politics ;).
- "Do you think we have a good president and good prime minister ?"
- "It depends on which TV you are watching".
Currently it is House Of Cards live.. but in the first one we can see how it is done.
I would like people rather to learn how to discuss without ending up with a knife in your hand than learn how to persuade. World never was all left or all right sided.
Finally, I don't see anything special about the research he carried. It might sound as I'm biased or so but I honestly don't think he gave it enough thought. In my opinion all this information was already available and provided. Just google 'eristic' and 'art of presentation' for example. Combine them and I believe anyone who studies those will end up with similar conclusions.
If i had to say something I usually says something like: "You are right.. and you are right.. and you too. I dont have enough knowledge about that topic so it's better to me to just listening to you".
Understanding, compassion, empathy are those too much or too passe to still be valuing? Imagine if we had it more in us, how would we talk out our differences.
Personally, if I want to change the world, I start with myself. So I try to not judge your political views but rather understand it.