CDZ Have we literally lost the ability to solve our own problems?

[Circe]

“Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam)—also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy, and the golden mean fallacy—is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth must be found as a compromise between two opposite positions.”

I LOVE that --- I never heard of that one. An informal fallacy which insists that the truth must be a compromise between any two opposite positions. Which is nonsense, of course: the truth is whatever it is, if any such truth exists.

 

[Circe]

If we can't engage in fundamental communication, we simply cannot fix our problems.

I don't know why you think communication would fix our problems. Intractable problems or irreconcilable differences cannot be fixed by communication, because they are by definition unfixable. That's where the country is today.

So it seems simple to me: pick your side and be loyal to it. Why listen to the screaming namecallers?

This is not a question of how to solve differences by compromise. This is a question of which side will win.

Mine, I hope.

 

[Circe]

Do you feel that it's a good strategy, then, to not communicate and just let things take their course without communication?
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Sure. I do sometimes argue and carry on here, but not because I hope to change anyone's mind. I just like the self-expression. Minds aren't likely to be changed by me or anyone else, and it's darned impertinent to try, IMO.

 

[fncceo]

Arguments in a chat room are pointless. Mockery however, lasts forever.

 

[Never3ndr]

Fail to exercise a muscle and it will wither. Fail to exercise a skill and it will do the same.

Is that what has happened to our ability to communicate with those who dare to disagree with us? And if so, precisely how are we supposed to solve ANY problem, improve ANY situation?

How often do you see two people who disagree have a normal, civil, intelligent conversation any more, in the media, online, or in real life? I think we have literally lost the skill to have normal disagreements.

Has Society Lost Its Ability to Debate?

I think, as a society, we have abandoned our ability to do our research and debate. We allow our own allegiances (both in politics, religion, and other issues) to cloud our skills. I see it on my own newsfeed. People arguing, but no one is really saying anything. This lack of conversation divides people. It makes people puff out their chest and scream the loudest or say the nastiest of words in order to assert dominance in an argument. What does that accomplish? Nothing. It just burns more relationships.

We are so convinced that our side is right and the other side is evil that we fail to investigate a situation, understand both sides, and talk with someone whose opinions differ than your own. This type of behavior has highlighted a much more irrational side of our society. A side that causes more problems than solutions. Isn't that the point of conversation? To discuss an issue completely in order to fix it?

Thoughts?
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This guy views the past with rose-tinted glasses. Human history is fraught with our inability to hold reasoned discussion...however, it is filled with examples, on both large and small scales, of people resorting to "baser" means to settle disagreements. This is nothing new, it is the same old story. I think that the only issue is that social media and the 24-hour news cycle may bring it to our attention more often is all.

 

[JoeMoma]

I think the government needs to start a program to force people to be more self-sufficient.

Did you even THINK about that statement before posting it? The government, in an effort to make the populace more self sufficient, should become even MORE involved in our lives? I can only assume you didn't think about it that way, otherwise you really are that short sighted.

How about this:
I think the government should scale back and expect people to become more self sufficient. We don't need another government program, we need fewer. That is what will get people to become more self sufficient.

Perhaps FNCCEO was being sarcastic.

 

[JoeMoma]

The good news is that many people can have a respectable conversation with another person with face to face conservations. If people all behaved like most do on this discussion board in real life, we would have mass murder on our hands.

 

[Anathema]

Do you feel that it's a good strategy, then, to not communicate and just let things take their course without communication?

Just because I won' engage in argument doesn' mean we're not communicating.

My concept is that an exchange of ideas, without the emotion or necessity to be proven correct or change someone else's mind is far more useful than going into a conversation trying to work on counter-arguments rather thsn listening to the other side.

We have turned conversation into combat rather than communication by requiring there to be a winner and a loser at the end of things. THAT is our problem.

 

[Mac1958]

If we can't engage in fundamental communication, we simply cannot fix our problems.

I don't know why you think communication would fix our problems. Intractable problems or irreconcilable differences cannot be fixed by communication, because they are by definition unfixable. That's where the country is today.

So it seems simple to me: pick your side and be loyal to it. Why listen to the screaming namecallers?

This is not a question of how to solve differences by compromise. This is a question of which side will win.

Mine, I hope.

I think the best, most long-lasting answers come from all sides. Kind of like our Constitution.

There is no "winning" in a diverse, dynamic country. This isn't a game. We aren't children.

Adults communicate, cooperate and create things. Like our Constitution.
.

 

[Mac1958]

This is not a question of how to solve differences by compromise. This is a question of which side will win.

↓

We have turned conversation into combat rather than communication by requiring there to be a winner and a loser at the end of things. THAT is our problem.

Bingo.

Communication. Cooperation. Creativity. Everybody wins, some.
.

 

[Mac1958]

This "our side must beat the other and WIN" thing is troubling, and clearly part of the problem.

These people have been sold a bill of goods by others who have a vested professional interest in keeping the "war" going.

 

[Circe]

If we can't engage in fundamental communication, we simply cannot fix our problems.

I don't know why you think communication would fix our problems. Intractable problems or irreconcilable differences cannot be fixed by communication, because they are by definition unfixable. That's where the country is today.

So it seems simple to me: pick your side and be loyal to it. Why listen to the screaming namecallers?

This is not a question of how to solve differences by compromise. This is a question of which side will win.

Mine, I hope.

I think the best, most long-lasting answers come from all sides. Kind of like our Constitution.

There is no "winning" in a diverse, dynamic country. This isn't a game. We aren't children.

Adults communicate, cooperate and create things. Like our Constitution.
.

I like your thread, and I've been thinking about it overnight. When I do a cri de coeur of this sort (too often), it's for one of two reasons: either I don't see how it's possible that people can be so incredibly stupid as not to agree with me! or I just wish real conversation were possible, civil talk, rather than the crowd of stupids with their one-line obscenity posts.

Which aspect of the problem are you worrying about?

I'd say the first we just have to learn to get over: no one will agree with us except people on our side, and those we should treasure, and I do.

The second, we really can fix ourselves at least online by putting the Great Unwashed on ignore. They are not bright, they can't help it, you can't get blood from a turnip. That has the problem here that quotes involving those types are lost so it's sometimes hard to figure out who is replying to whom, or to what, but if confused I see I can bring back the lost posts for a moment. I admit that you can't easily Ignore in-person quarrelers in the knitting circle or book club or at work or Thanksgiving! Or the malignant news people now. I do avoid those situations, however, or refuse to talk about politics or social issues. A lot of relationships went sour in 2016 and since. That's just how it is. America is in a decline and direly disunited, and we have to each cope with that.

 

[Mac1958]

If we can't engage in fundamental communication, we simply cannot fix our problems.

I don't know why you think communication would fix our problems. Intractable problems or irreconcilable differences cannot be fixed by communication, because they are by definition unfixable. That's where the country is today.

So it seems simple to me: pick your side and be loyal to it. Why listen to the screaming namecallers?

This is not a question of how to solve differences by compromise. This is a question of which side will win.

Mine, I hope.

I think the best, most long-lasting answers come from all sides. Kind of like our Constitution.

There is no "winning" in a diverse, dynamic country. This isn't a game. We aren't children.

Adults communicate, cooperate and create things. Like our Constitution.
.

I like your thread, and I've been thinking about it overnight. When I do a cri de coeur of this sort (too often), it's for one of two reasons: either I don't see how it's possible that people can be so incredibly stupid as not to agree with me! or I just wish real conversation were possible, civil talk, rather than the crowd of stupids with their one-line obscenity posts.

Which aspect of the problem are you worrying about?

I'd say the first we just have to learn to get over: no one will agree with us except people on our side, and those we should treasure, and I do.

The second, we really can fix ourselves at least online by putting the Great Unwashed on ignore. They are not bright, they can't help it, you can't get blood from a turnip. That has the problem here that quotes involving those types are lost so it's sometimes hard to figure out who is replying to whom, or to what, but if confused I see I can bring back the lost posts for a moment. I admit that you can't easily Ignore in-person quarrelers in the knitting circle or book club or at work or Thanksgiving! Or the malignant news people now. I do avoid those situations, however, or refuse to talk about politics or social issues. A lot of relationships went sour in 2016 and since. That's just how it is. America is in a decline and direly disunited, and we have to each cope with that.

I didn't go into my "big picture" thinking on this, but here's why this whole thing bothers me: If these behaviors were confined to the internet, then I wouldn't care one bit. But (and this is just my observation, I'd love to be wrong) it really seems to me that this behavior has spread far beyond the internet. This is now cultural, it's everywhere from politics to the street to sports to entertainment. I'm not seeing reasonable, adult, constructive communication ANYWHERE.

Regarding us being in decline, I agree, and it's about more than just this topic - I think the roots there are cultural, too. But whether it's personal relationships or politics or business, no problem can be fully addressed without communication. That's where the door has to open first, that's where it has to begin. Otherwise, there is nothing but decay.
.

 

[Circe]

We have turned conversation into combat rather than communication by requiring there to be a winner and a loser at the end of things. THAT is our problem.

Bingo.

Communication. Cooperation. Creativity. Everybody wins, some.

I agree with Anathema, but I don't think he is providing a solution, as you seem to think he is. I don't think there IS a solution to intractable problems: grey is not the solution to black or white. (The Grey Fallacy) Black or white is the solution and the other lot loses.

The country has been here before. There was MUCH worse animosity in the 1850s, I read three books on pre-Civil War history during the run-up to the election, and it was three times as bad as today, and how are you really going to choose between slavery spreading and ending slavery? They were incompatible positions. It was solved by war and one side losing.

Vietnam wasn't as bad as the divisions now, I don't think, but again, can't solve it with the Grey Fallacy. Either the war stopped, or you nuked Hanoi ---- there was no compromise possible. One side had to lose, and the war side did lose, when Congress finally stopped war funding and stopped the draft, afraid that the young college people of the nation were all going to rebel politically.

That's what is going on now: incompatible demands. One side will lose, one side will win on every such issue.

You can't compromise these issues. You could trash the obscenity posters, however. They are useless.

 

[Mac1958]

We have turned conversation into combat rather than communication by requiring there to be a winner and a loser at the end of things. THAT is our problem.

Bingo.

Communication. Cooperation. Creativity. Everybody wins, some.

I agree with Anathema, but I don't think he is providing a solution, as you seem to think he is. I don't think there IS a solution to intractable problems: grey is not the solution to black or white. (The Grey Fallacy) Black or white is the solution and the other lot loses.

The country has been here before. There was MUCH worse animosity in the 1850s, I read three books on pre-Civil War history during the run-up to the election, and it was three times as bad as today, and how are you really going to choose between slavery spreading and ending slavery? They were incompatible positions. It was solved by war and one side losing.

Vietnam wasn't as bad as the divisions now, I don't think, but again, can't solve it with the Grey Fallacy. Either the war stopped, or you nuked Hanoi ---- there was no compromise possible. One side had to lose, and the war side did lose, when Congress finally stopped war funding and stopped the draft, afraid that the young college people of the nation were all going to rebel politically.

That's what is going on now: incompatible demands. One side will lose, one side will win on every such issue.

You can't compromise these issues. You could trash the obscenity posters, however. They are useless.

I agree with the specific point that Anathema made. I just don't, not for a moment, think that our differences are intractable. The problem is the winner/loser dynamic that has infected our national discourse. This kind of binary, us vs. them, all or nothing, zero sum thinking just doesn't work in ANY relationship. Would you agree with that?

This has become about ego. I must win. You must lose. No matter what I have to do. That isn't the way the Constitution was created, that isn't the way we became what we are.

If we're in permanent decay and just headed into the crapper, then my point is moot. But when I see a problem, my impulse is to fix it, whether it's my way or someone else's.
.

 

[Circe]

I didn't go into my "big picture" thinking on this, but here's why this whole thing bothers me: If these behaviors were confined to the internet, then I wouldn't care one bit. But (and this is just my observation, I'd love to be wrong) it really seems to me that this behavior has spread far beyond the internet. This is now cultural, it's everywhere from politics to the street to sports to entertainment. I'm not seeing reasonable, adult, constructive communication ANYWHERE.

Yeah.......I do think you are right. People's manners in person just collapsed in 2016, and I saw some of the most amazing bad behavior from, you know, relatives and Episcopal types who had NEVER done that before. The whole college scene with the yelling at speakers and mobbing them, wow, what just happened there?

I suspect that the Internet is what caused bad Internet behavior to leak over into real-life interactions. I don't put up with it anymore: I shut it down or leave. Took me a year to work that out! But if I normalize, pretend that it's okay that they are acting like that, they always get worse and worse.

Any big improvement in communications technology always causes wars (basic communications theory). Like the 200 years of religious wars that followed directly on Gutenberg's printing press. The Internet rapid and wide communications is much more dramatic than even Gutenberg and has caused an explosion in revolutions, rebellions, uprisings, rioting, terrorism, and I'm expecting world war.

Because consider: when people suddenly get to say what they think more easily, what it turns out that they think, is how much they hate each other.

 

[Circe]

I agree with the specific point that Anathema made. I just don't, not for a moment, think that our differences are intractable. The problem is the winner/loser dynamic that has infected our national discourse. This kind of binary, us vs. them, all or nothing, zero sum thinking just doesn't work in ANY relationship. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I do agree. Well said.

Certainly for relationships per se (which doesn't really apply to most interactions on a discussion forum, but some, yes): You lose and I win is no good. And I SURE don't use win/lose in my marriage.

But this past year I've seen relatives and supposed friends do it over and over, and relationships just collapse. I know a churchwoman who is being sued for libel because of this sort of hostile behavior! I think that until another civil war actually breaks out, we should try to preserve relationships rather than playing you lose/I win.

 

[Mac1958]

I didn't go into my "big picture" thinking on this, but here's why this whole thing bothers me: If these behaviors were confined to the internet, then I wouldn't care one bit. But (and this is just my observation, I'd love to be wrong) it really seems to me that this behavior has spread far beyond the internet. This is now cultural, it's everywhere from politics to the street to sports to entertainment. I'm not seeing reasonable, adult, constructive communication ANYWHERE.

Yeah.......I do think you are right. People's manners in person just collapsed in 2016, and I saw some of the most amazing bad behavior from, you know, relatives and Episcopal types who had NEVER done that before. The whole college scene with the yelling at speakers and mobbing them, wow, what just happened there?

I suspect that the Internet is what caused bad Internet behavior to leak over into real-life interactions. I don't put up with it anymore: I shut it down or leave. Took me a year to work that out! But if I normalize, pretend that it's okay that they are acting like that, they always get worse and worse.

Any big improvement in communications technology always causes wars (basic communications theory). Like the 200 years of religious wars that followed directly on Gutenberg's printing press. The Internet rapid and wide communications is much more dramatic than even Gutenberg and has caused an explosion in revolutions, rebellions, uprisings, rioting, terrorism, and I'm expecting world war.

Because consider: when people suddenly get to say what they think more easily, what it turns out that they think, is how much they hate each other.

Absolutely, no doubt the internet is behind much of this. It allows people to either express their darkest thoughts or pretend to be something they aren't.

I don't know what fixes this. My best guess is that it would take some kind of event, and then a national reaction to it. Some kind of momentum that would wake people up.

And example of that is the "Me Too" thing that arose from essentially one case. There has to be some kind of driver.
.

 

[Circe]

The good news is that many people can have a respectable conversation with another person with face to face conservations. If people all behaved like most do on this discussion board in real life, we would have mass murder on our hands.

Maybe some people CAN still do conversation, but a lot more people than ever don't, since 2016. I know several people who make explicit rules for dinners with others, and say them at the start (no politics, always). Migod. I've stopped going to some meetings and events because people just spout off!

 

[peach174]

The far left took over the Democratic Party and silenced the conservative and moderates.
One ideology does not work in this country for either party.
It was the few moderates that are left in the Dems party that worked just recently.
Compromise .