I'm curious what people think before attempting to post on material that I know is important but it is also complex, big and not going to be easily digestible. Especially not by those who are polarized already and think that they have their finger on the target.
And I include myself in the polarization camp. The only difference is that over the decades I have been fortunate enough to pull back for a second look when I suspect a reexamination is due.
It is like the old onion argument. You get through some layers, think you are at the core only to later figure out that well shit, bunch of more layers to go.
There are certain uncomfortable truths that everyone has to recognize. 1. Everyone is polarized because of their grooming/upbringing. 2. Everyone are not capable of overcoming these indoctrinations. 3. What is the rational approach to people who are beyond reproach.
Focus on making the trains run on time, and welcome them into the fold when they come around to your way of thinking once you succeed.
You missed the beyond reproach part
I didn't miss it: I simply think the overwhelming majority of them disappear once you make the trains run on time. Lot of people can't be convinced by words but are convinced by results.
How to deal with the few holdouts? I don't know, because to talk about such things is to talk about something that may not even happen in my lifetime, and that are heavily dependent on the circumstances of the time and people involved.
There’s a difference between holdouts and zealots, that’s the better way to phrase it.
Probably has to be figured out on a case by case basis but I'm sure there are people who have a stockpile of tactics to pick from after they size a person up. I think that most of the time it is the individual who notices that some ideas or data is in conflict and they start of the process of sorting that out which is basically the red pill or truth seeking process.
I take issue with point one.
We put ourselves in the red or the blue camp either because of or in defiance of our upbringing.
I was raised in a conservative household of Eastern European immigrants who fled Stalin and so throughout my high school years and slightly beyond I spent all my time trying to understand my gut feeling: they were wrong and stupid and bigoted and unenlightened and my hippie ethos was right and true and part of a movement that would usher in a Paradise on Earth, if only everyone would drop enough acid and study Buddhism.
As I read more and read my way through a lengthy college experience as both student and teacher, I arrived at my current mostly Right/Libertarian outlook.
Number 2 I agree with, and I have decided that, when discussing politics no rational approach is possible with true believers of any stripe, especially the Red stripe.