The topic of this thread is to ask, what approaches have you found if any that help people who are taking an irrational view on an issue, to move to a more rational one?
For example, one of the basic manipulations in communication is termed "FUD", a noun meaning "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt", as a goal for some communications. Examples might be, 'Trying these hairbrained and unproven expensive measures about climate change will do nothing but make the scientists who advocate them rich and bankrupt our country', or 'Obamacare will destroy our healthcare system and make us socialist', or 'You'll pay into Social Security for decades and get nothing for it, so support our privatization plan'.
When tobacco companies were threatened by the Surgeon General - in the days when government more reliably served the public interest - the gained decades of continued smoking by attacking the warnings with claims that 'the science is not conclusive'. It was a marketing strategy. Later they went from the U and D in FUD to the F, with arguments about how smoking restrictions were a step towards losing your freedom.
If you are talking about climate change with someone, and they say they don't think we know for sure what's causing it or how to fix it and we can't afford to waste money on it, how do you get them to take a more rational view of the issue? It'd be nice if you could show them a leaked video of a media master mind saying privately, 'we're being paid good money to lie to the public to get them to think the science is not clear and it's an expensive waste of money', but we don't have that video, and it's not 100% if we did.
One approach I've found sometimes works - nothing works a lot - is analogy. People often are irrational because they have some special interest or haven't thought through an issue. But they might have a more fair view of a similar issue or have realized a rational position on something similar.
An obvious example is equal inter-racial marriage rights and equal gay marriage rights. They may be caught up in gay bigotry or a community that has smothered them in anti-equality views, but they likely at this point are part of the vast majority who have no issue with inter-racial marriage, and they can see the thinking that was so strongly opposed to inter-racial marriage and it might help them realize their own similar mistake.
But it's pretty rare it seems.
I saw a good example this week. A small town mayor had a lot of citizen complaints about the cost of gasoline, there the price was above average but their wages are below average. He decided to try to help by opening up a city-run gast station not for profit to get others to lower their prices, and it worked. Now prices are below average.
The story interviewed a relative of the mayor in the state legislature who is against the policy, and he said 'this is total socialism' as his explanation for opposing it. Now, I find that a pretty irrational position. It has nothing to do with the problem and the measure taken in whether it's good or bad. It's simply putting a label on it he and some others are conditioned to react to with mindless opposition, and that's the argument.
How do you get someone like that to be more rational?
I don't mean getting citizens to support the policy so that he's politically threatened and backs down - that's not making him rational on the issue.
One answer is, it's not clear we can. We just have to write off a large percent of the public as irrational and hope it doesn't spread too much.
Another is that big media campaigns can help, but the problem there is - even if it's the case - there isn't big money being spent on such big media campaigns.
It is spent on the other side - half a billion opposing Obamacare, big money attacking climate change measures, big energy companies are lobbying the state to make the mayor's policy illegal in the story above - but there isn't a lot of money being spent to use the big media approach to educate the people. And that's not really the topic - it's more the one on one topic, you're talking with a person who is not being very rational on an issue.
All in the Family was another approach - satire. Jon Stewart uses the same. Have Archie Bunker or a Stewart correspondent or Stephen Colbert argue for the 'crazy' position in order to help people see that argument is wrong. Watching Archie Bunker look silly about getting a transfusion from a black person helped people who actually would refuse such a transfusion be more rational about the issue. That doesn't usually work as much one on one.
The 'you are being manipulated' argument doesn't work as well as I'd hope. The archetype I use for that issue is, a snake oil salesman comes to a small town and tells the people how great his garbage is, and when the town doctor says 'you know me, and I'm telling you he's a con man', the snake oil salesman attacks the doctor by saying he's protecting his own business - he doesn't want you to get the cure, it'll put him out of business. And people fall for that sort of thing a lot.
Tell them big polluters like the Koch brothers are manipulating them to hate the EPA, and they don't respond by recognizing it and adjusting their position usually.
Once people develop a loyalty to a liar - 'you can only trust Fox News, not the lamestream media' - it takes a lot to shake it.
A logic class can sometimes help, if we could get that in public schools. No time soon.
But this is a pretty important topic for our political discussion culture. Free speech is weak enough with things like the media situation, we can use improvement to the little discussion citizens have who are bombarded by polished propaganda and rarely get to discuss issues with other citizens.
This is just a list of a few things to do.
Have you found other things that work, or are you finding it not very possible to help people change from an irrational view?
For example, one of the basic manipulations in communication is termed "FUD", a noun meaning "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt", as a goal for some communications. Examples might be, 'Trying these hairbrained and unproven expensive measures about climate change will do nothing but make the scientists who advocate them rich and bankrupt our country', or 'Obamacare will destroy our healthcare system and make us socialist', or 'You'll pay into Social Security for decades and get nothing for it, so support our privatization plan'.
When tobacco companies were threatened by the Surgeon General - in the days when government more reliably served the public interest - the gained decades of continued smoking by attacking the warnings with claims that 'the science is not conclusive'. It was a marketing strategy. Later they went from the U and D in FUD to the F, with arguments about how smoking restrictions were a step towards losing your freedom.
If you are talking about climate change with someone, and they say they don't think we know for sure what's causing it or how to fix it and we can't afford to waste money on it, how do you get them to take a more rational view of the issue? It'd be nice if you could show them a leaked video of a media master mind saying privately, 'we're being paid good money to lie to the public to get them to think the science is not clear and it's an expensive waste of money', but we don't have that video, and it's not 100% if we did.
One approach I've found sometimes works - nothing works a lot - is analogy. People often are irrational because they have some special interest or haven't thought through an issue. But they might have a more fair view of a similar issue or have realized a rational position on something similar.
An obvious example is equal inter-racial marriage rights and equal gay marriage rights. They may be caught up in gay bigotry or a community that has smothered them in anti-equality views, but they likely at this point are part of the vast majority who have no issue with inter-racial marriage, and they can see the thinking that was so strongly opposed to inter-racial marriage and it might help them realize their own similar mistake.
But it's pretty rare it seems.
I saw a good example this week. A small town mayor had a lot of citizen complaints about the cost of gasoline, there the price was above average but their wages are below average. He decided to try to help by opening up a city-run gast station not for profit to get others to lower their prices, and it worked. Now prices are below average.
The story interviewed a relative of the mayor in the state legislature who is against the policy, and he said 'this is total socialism' as his explanation for opposing it. Now, I find that a pretty irrational position. It has nothing to do with the problem and the measure taken in whether it's good or bad. It's simply putting a label on it he and some others are conditioned to react to with mindless opposition, and that's the argument.
How do you get someone like that to be more rational?
I don't mean getting citizens to support the policy so that he's politically threatened and backs down - that's not making him rational on the issue.
One answer is, it's not clear we can. We just have to write off a large percent of the public as irrational and hope it doesn't spread too much.
Another is that big media campaigns can help, but the problem there is - even if it's the case - there isn't big money being spent on such big media campaigns.
It is spent on the other side - half a billion opposing Obamacare, big money attacking climate change measures, big energy companies are lobbying the state to make the mayor's policy illegal in the story above - but there isn't a lot of money being spent to use the big media approach to educate the people. And that's not really the topic - it's more the one on one topic, you're talking with a person who is not being very rational on an issue.
All in the Family was another approach - satire. Jon Stewart uses the same. Have Archie Bunker or a Stewart correspondent or Stephen Colbert argue for the 'crazy' position in order to help people see that argument is wrong. Watching Archie Bunker look silly about getting a transfusion from a black person helped people who actually would refuse such a transfusion be more rational about the issue. That doesn't usually work as much one on one.
The 'you are being manipulated' argument doesn't work as well as I'd hope. The archetype I use for that issue is, a snake oil salesman comes to a small town and tells the people how great his garbage is, and when the town doctor says 'you know me, and I'm telling you he's a con man', the snake oil salesman attacks the doctor by saying he's protecting his own business - he doesn't want you to get the cure, it'll put him out of business. And people fall for that sort of thing a lot.
Tell them big polluters like the Koch brothers are manipulating them to hate the EPA, and they don't respond by recognizing it and adjusting their position usually.
Once people develop a loyalty to a liar - 'you can only trust Fox News, not the lamestream media' - it takes a lot to shake it.
A logic class can sometimes help, if we could get that in public schools. No time soon.
But this is a pretty important topic for our political discussion culture. Free speech is weak enough with things like the media situation, we can use improvement to the little discussion citizens have who are bombarded by polished propaganda and rarely get to discuss issues with other citizens.
This is just a list of a few things to do.
Have you found other things that work, or are you finding it not very possible to help people change from an irrational view?