Heart Over Mind
Humans are emotional creatures. Don't ever underestimate that. I've found that when it comes to things that matter to us, on a personal level, opinions are worthless without resonance. People will fight to the death to defend what they've come to believe in, the filters they employ to make sense of the world, and it is only through speaking on their level, through the things that they value and that define them, that anything will change.
This encompasses both the fraudulence and naivete of our social-political discourse. We pretend like it's a battle of wits and reason and logic and that we will ultimately be vindicated because we have the moral high-ground and are on the side of truth. The truth is that truth has very little to do with how we interact with each other. Most people are selfish and want the world to conform to them. They don't want you to agree so much as to obey.
Because consensus is hard. Compromise is hard. Patience, tolerance, empathy and sacrifice are hard. People like things easy. It'd be nice if issues could be resolved with a few magic words and we could all come together over some sage words of wisdom. Unfortunately to change what someone thinks you must appeal to how they feel. In the end, how strongly someone FEELS about something often trumps whatever they may espouse to think about something.
This encompasses both the fraudulence and naivete of our social-political discourse. We pretend like it's a battle of wits and reason and logic and that we will ultimately be vindicated because we have the moral high-ground and are on the side of truth. The truth is that truth has very little to do with how we interact with each other. Most people are selfish and want the world to conform to them. They don't want you to agree so much as to obey.
Because consensus is hard. Compromise is hard. Patience, tolerance, empathy and sacrifice are hard. People like things easy. It'd be nice if issues could be resolved with a few magic words and we could all come together over some sage words of wisdom. Unfortunately to change what someone thinks you must appeal to how they feel. In the end, how strongly someone FEELS about something often trumps whatever they may espouse to think about something.