What persuades people?

I love to discuss ideas. I love thinking about and refining ideas, and learning from others with great ideas. I like the finer points of debate. Not a poo-flinging, pissing contest, but a robust exchange of ideas where each party makes their case but shows a willingness to learn and create more understanding. It's healthy for our political environment, and I think it's a plus for human relations in general.

I'll be honest. I wish more people thought the way I do. And I would get a lot of satisfaction seeing someone come around to my way of thinking. That said, I've found it best to set realistic expectations when it comes to that sort of thing. I used to be hard-right politically and an evangelical Christian. To be fair, some of what changed that was seeing or hearing arguments that blew my assumptions out of the water. But that was far from the main catalyst.

Many people are largely products of their own experiences. Not long after I got out on my own the evangelical Christian worldview just didn't make sense any more, then some time after that atheism - just concluding there's no good reason to believe in any gods until solid evidence or strong logical arguments for them - made the most sense to me. Even after I stopped with the evangelical thing, I still had a kind of absolute belief that people make their own luck and each of us needs to just pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

After moving back to my home state and losing jobs twice in a relatively short span, my previous assumptions about self-reliance and rugged individualism started to dissipate as well. I then saw the value of a strong social safety net. My resolve to never accept any form of public assistance started to appear to me like nothing more than grandstanding once I saw that stubbornly keeping that stance wouldn't just effect me, but my spouse too. Being at jobs where the employee base isn't predominately white made me see some of my own ignorance as well.

I see so many people cling to conservative beliefs on economic and social issues, and a great deal of these folks are ones who are themselves hurting. So it often mystifies me that those people seemingly refuse to see what's staring them in the face but continue to swallow the lies such as "trickle-down economics" or the lie that the key to prosperity is to let the "free market" to its own devices. But then I have to remember that I let go of those notions only after first stubbornly clinging to those myself.

The last thing I want is for people to experience a crisis that threatens their ability to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. I don't even want hard-core conservatives to face that. Especially when children are involved. On the other hand, I wonder if it may take something like that to look at issues like taxes, economic stimulus, health care reform, etc. a little differently. In many cases I'll have to accept that I can argue my perspective until I'm blue in the face (and will sometimes continue to do so), but people often come to different conclusions on their own. We can only make our own points so much, but then at some point need to let go and allow others to make their own conclusions. We'll have to accept that if people come around, they'll do it more or less on their own terms. I'll have to accept that experience is often the greatest teacher for others as well as me.

The same thing applies when it comes to the question of religion and gods. Again, I won't hide the fact that I wish fewer people believed in gods. But I've come to accept that it's OK to argue your point on this as well, but after that, let people have their own opinions. And I'd rather people first develop the habits of critical thinking, the habits of questioning their own assumptions as well as what they're told by people they trust. I have no delusions that me making one argument against a particular religious belief will cause someone to say "Oh! How could I have been such a fool?! Now I see that there's no good reason to believe in God. I'm atheist now." There's even a good chance that if it happens that way they're doing it all wrong.

What I do hope to accomplish, in the short term, by expressing my ideas, is to challenge assumptions. To get people to be willing to question their own assumptions (just as I need to be willing to question mine), to sometimes be willing to soften their stances. This holds true regardless of the subject matter.