I was recently talking to someone about israel/gaza in the context of the new iran war. I couldn’t help but notice we were coming to much the same conclusions, but through totally different lines of thought. To summarize, like most lefties, he opposes israel for “what they’re doing to the locals” i.e. from the perspective of “anti-colonialism”. On the other hand, I oppose israel for what they’re doing to do us in the West.
What is your reaction to a situation like this? And more broadly speaking, what do you think about this notion of coming to the same conclusion as someone else, while following wildly different trains of thought? Try and convince them that their entire perception of the world is upside down? Take it as a win, in an “enemy of my enemy” kind of way? Can they be trusted to ever come to the “correct” conclusion again if their rationale is “wrong”? Or is the line of thought more important than the conclusion? If not in general, can it ever be?
I suppose this post is basically just turning that giancarlo esposito (“you dislike X because Y, I dislike X because Z, we are not the same.”) meme into a text post lmao, but I think there’s actually some kind of important discussion to be had, related to this idea
One of the maxims of maximally effective mercenaries: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, nothing more."
Top reply implies a fundamental right and wrong situation, a broken clock analogy effecitvely. But it can also be true that both aligned interests in the one situation are entirely correct within their reasonings and beliefs AND the other side's reasonings and beliefs, just not on much else. For a meme example, look at the "Islam is right about women" campaign: Both Islamists and the more fundie Christians can look at the statement, but you won't see much cooperation or community beyond that between the two groups when the two groups are effectively in a 1500 year holy war.
Finding common ground is important, but in many cases, the similarities are either simply coincidental as a result of sharing an overall basic human condition, or there is some part of their doctrine that forbids true cooperation (because if there wasn't... they'd be doing it already.)
EDIT: One day, I'm sure we'll get a Redditor Atheist negotiating with an Islamist Imam, and saying "yes, we both agree women are just animals with no soul, you're halfway there, we're ALL in the order animalia, and souls don't exist. You'll get there eventually, so make sure you never forget that first half, knowing women don't have souls means you're halfway there, common ground!". One day, I'm sure.