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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "No, you're not entitled to your opinion."  ·  

Ahhh, but see? You're doing it. You're framing that as if his "opinion" was that vaccines cause autism. That's not an opinion - that's a belief. An erroneous one, but still a belief.

It's important to see these arguments for what they are, and how they play out. Otherwise, you lose - yeah, you may have scored all the points, but you didn't convince your friend to vaccinate your kids. We'll use two people in this argument: TNG and AVF (anti-vax friend).

AVF: Here's a link that vaccines cause autism.

TNG: Yeah, but here's a dozen that prove it doesn't, and two more to disprove the notion that your article has any basis in fact.

AVF: Yeah, but that's just, like, your opinion, man.

TNG: Actually it's not. It's a scientific discussion based on evidence, research and general consensus.

AVF: Whatever, I have the right to protect my kids.

Here's what it ACTUALLY looks like:

AVF: Appeal to Logos.

TNG: Counterargument to Logos - your argument is invalid.

AVF: Appeal to Ethos (you do not have the standing to counter-argue - note that this is a red herring that debate teams will tell you to ignore, which you did, but anyone working the art of persuasion would have had you jump on it)

TNG: Counterargument via Logos (I'm not counter-arguing, the universe is - note that you are correct but also losing... how maddening!)

AVF: Appeal to pathos (who will think of the children?)

TNG: Counterargument via Logos (the WHO, the FDA, the AMA, UNICEF and others, jackass)

...and OUT.

The tricky thing about persuading, rather than debating, is you aren't playing for an audience. You're playing solo in a room and the instrument is also the target. The rules of engagement are entirely different. In debate, discrediting your opponent makes the audience stop listening to them. In persuasion, discrediting your opponent makes the audience (of one) stop listening TO YOU. And I can think of no faster way to do that than to say "you are not entitled to your opinion."

The response to "that's just, like, your opinion, man" is "I really don't have an opinion on this. They're your kids. They aren't in my school. Do what you want. I just wanted to point out that if you're going to entrust the health of your children to stuff you read on the internet, you owe it to yourself to read the hell out of stuff on the internet. From what I've been able to see, the guys in favor of vaccines tend to use a lot more facts while the guys against them tend to use alarmist language. Granted, the guys with the facts also tend to be dicks about it because they don't really understand how much confusion and fear plays into this whole discussion. What have you seen? What led you to believe that vaccines cause autism?"

Now we're friends again. The ethos of the opponent has been met and defused ("you are not of standing to make moral choices for my kids" - "I'm not trying to be, I'm upstanding enough to empower you to make those choices and helpful enough to help you work through it").

It's the difference between telling someone they're wrong and rubbing their nose in it and asking someone how firmly they believe they're right and then walking them back through the stuff that got them there. If you let someone realize on their own that they've made an error, they get to be the smart one. If you hit them over the head with it you're only making them feel stupid.





rezzeJ  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Reminds me of a quote I saw today: "The best teachers are those that show you where to look but don't tell you what to see." -Alexandra K. Trenfor

thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're absolutely right, I didn't challenge an opinion, I challenged a belief. It is important to acknowledge the difference. The discipline to not "pounce" and to let your opponent seemingly lead themselves to your conclusion is a hard earned one, which takes practice. In a professional setting I'm quite good at this, but I do fail to bring it to bat irl situations. Thanks for the instructive dialog, that was helpful.

kleinbl00  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I talk a good game, but I often bat people around on the internet like mice. It's a bad habit.

haldean  ·  3870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A bit off topic, but whatever:

I'd love to read more about methods of persuasion; I've done debate, but as you touch on, debate is a great way to have both sides become more entrenched in their beliefs. Any suggestions for reading material that expands on what you're talking about here?

kleinbl00  ·  3870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh hell yeah. Jay Heinrichs has it going on. I wholeheartedly recommend his book Thank You For Arguing.

Beyond that, I think anyone who ever has to convince someone else of something needs to have a pretty good handle on Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide.

Yes, that Jonah Lehrer. It can't all be fake.

If you find something else, let me know.

haldean  ·  3870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Just read the blog post you linked from Heinrichs, then immediately bought his book. And Jonah never lied, he just "borrowed" a bunch, so I'll take a look. Thanks so much!

kleinbl00  ·  3870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, he made up a bunch of quotes. There's a really cool bit in "How we decide" about a Scud missile and a british missile cruiser that I've been unable to find reference to anywhere else. I REALLY want it to be true because it's cool but I'm not sure it is.

b_b  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I found it odd that a university professor himself seems to not get the distinction between belief and opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, because an opinion can't be right or wrong by definition. The only beliefs to which one is entitled are those which can't, in principle, be shown to be true or false.

NikolaiFyodorov  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think the choice of title for this article is largely rhetorical. Stoke's purpose was simply to underscore the point that opinions in his class are worth nothing unless you can defend them.

It's worth mentioning, also, that the editors of The Conversation tend to decide what title the article will receive, rather than the author.

b_b  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I see. Thanks for clarifying. It's a huge pet peeve of mine when the two are used interchangeably when really they aren't qualitatively similar.

thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Stoke's purpose was simply to underscore the point that opinions in his class are worth nothing unless you can defend them.
that was my take as well.