“Do debates with right-wingers change their minds?”
Debates don’t usually change the minds of the right-wingers, but they very frequently change the minds of open-minded progressives and liberals who engage with the steel-man versions of their enemies ideas. After all, that's what happened to me.
The problem for Stella is that the vast majority of media and higher education in the West tilts to the left, culturally. So if you have gotten a degree at an institution of higher learning then you have been exposed to left-wing ideas. Moreover, if you have worked in Silicone Valley or the Academy you have likely had to write essays declaring your loyalty to the left wing values of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as I have many times.
By contrast, most left wingers have zero exposure to right-wing culture, and encounter it only in a parody form. When they are exposed to the challenges the right makes to left-wing values many balk and almost none are able to answer the strong form of the objection. As such, for many, a calm and collected discourse space, either online or off, tends to be where left-wing illusions go to die.
Case in point, I have been seriously involved in political discourse for ten years, and I have invited many leftist peoples onto my channel to debate hot-button issues, and so have many other right-wingers. And for this last decade, looking at my own channel or one of the others, there really have been no serious refutations or arguments against key right-wing positions such as the following:
Outside of a few very homogeneous and small communities, Democracy does not work
Human groups are NOT interchangeable, biologically or culturally and in fact exhibit large statistical differences when it comes to behavior and competence
Mass migration has massive deleterious effects on native populations’ political, cultural, and economic well-being
Diversity destroys social cohesion
Common religion, common history, and common morality are essential to trust, undergirding everything that functions in society.
Permissiveness around pornography and drugs has been a disaster for human health
Some people need to have their agency overruled by more moral and agentic people
The Sexual Revolution and the LGBTQ+ movement has been a disaster for sex relations and family formation
Global Warming Disaster is overstated and otherwise manageable as outlined by people like Bjorn Lomberg and Richard Lindzen.
I could go on, and Stella is welcome on my show if she wants to debate these points. But once more, I am skeptical that I am going to hear any new defeaters for these positions after 10 years of doing this.
More likely Stella’s objection is that these are all “Cultural Issues” not the important “Economic Issues” that matter.
Well, first off, these aren’t JUST cultural issues. Mass immigration, family formation, and racial ‘equity” have sweeping economic implications beyond just setting the top marginal tax rate. And hey, maybe I would agree with Stella on some points. I hate corporations. I want to tax rich people. I think Banks practicing usury are evil. I am skeptical of globalism. And I am certainly not a fan of what Global Trade has done.
Nevertheless, I am a right-winger because those previous points about politics, anthropology, and morality matter. They set our moral frame for addressing all other issues. Moreover, as the government gets more socialist, these cultural priorities help determine the question "Who, Whom?" which is the critical issue once the government starts picking the winners and the losers. And I am guessing that Stella understands this too, which is why I doubt she would be considered a leftist in good standing if she agreed with my previous 9 points.
One more thing, Stella somehow thinks it's strange that right-wingers don't recognize the heroism and grit of Gretta Thunberg. I genuinely LOLed when I read this, because its transparent to anyone not drinking the leftist Kool-Aid that Thunberg is 100 percent fake, performing the leftist progressive version of Kayfabe. Not only does Thunberg not participate in any conversation with her critics (she just lectures them) -her activism for the "Omni-Cause" (as documented by Mary Harrington) is completely performative,. Gretta has been supposedly arrested for ilegally challenging the government's position on hot political issues, and then she is out the next day going on political talk shows. Stella might be unaware of this historically, but this is not what happens to people who are authentically trying to overthrow the government or interfere with its war machine. If a government thinks you are really trying to fuck with it and its military, it comes down HARD, though I can see why a modern leftist wouldn't understand this.
Case in point, as I mentioned my friends and I have been doing this for ten years. All of us have been Doxed and threatened professionally for our involvement with these "far right" ideas. The government sends spies to our conferences to expose and ruin people, as they did recently to my friend Morgorth. Numerous people in our group have been fired, kicked off their platforms, and even kicked out of their banks. And it gets worse. My acquaintance Laura Towler's husband Sam has been put in jail by the British government for 2 years for his roll in... printing stickers. I can't wire money to my family in Canada without a huge delay because they think I might be transferring it to organizations aligned to the Trucker protests against the liberal party. Lastly, several years ago, a former podcast host that I worked with "Coach Red Pill" decided to courageously do reporting in Ukraine and got arrested. Afterwards what do you think happened, Stella? Did he go on a media tour? No of course not, he died in custody under mysterious circumstances. And it's not surprising, that's what happens when you fuck with governments, they try to kill you and ruin your life, you don't get fake arrested and then go on Steven Colbert the next day.
There is no equivalent response to modern leftist radicalism, and that's how I know that the left hasn't been real in the West for at least 30 years.
1) Neoliberal capitalism chips away at democracy and people blame democracy for it. Just because the trains run on time, it doesn't mean we want to bring back the junta.
2) There are more differences within races than between them, as much as there is such a thing as an identifiable race. Humans adapt. Societies change. Sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly.
3) Immigration and diversity are a fact of life on planet earth, not a choice we can opt out of unless you condone violence, which I do not.
4) Common religion, history and morality are a myth states create to unite electorates behind a common narrative. That's ok, but it's no justification for bigotry.
5) Proliferation of pornography and drugs is a byproduct of capitalism.
6) Definitely, men who get radicalised online into the far right need to have their rights curtailed by sensible, more morally upstanding people.
7) It is capitalism, and not gay rights, that destroyed family formation.
8) Global warming is real, net-zero policies are sometimes counter-productive, but in the long run, it is for the best that we transition to renewables as much as possible.
- The far right is more violent than the fringe left, even if you don't believe the fringe left when they say they are humanitarian and anti-racist you can at least appreciate they try to pretend to be these things. The far right is happy to accept they are racists.
> This women took a ship to a fucking warzone to feed starving children.
This person sailed on a sailboat in the Mediterranean as a publicity stunt to raise awareness, and was not at any point in more danger than other recreational sailors.
Eh, I suspect Greta and crew were not prepared to throw down in an armed battle with the boarding team.
> 124. The Panel accepts, therefore, that soldiers landing from the first helicopter faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they descended onto the Mavi Marmara. Material before the Panel confirms that this group
was armed with iron bars, staves, chains, and slingshots, and there is some indication that they also used knives. Firearms were taken from IDF personnel and passengers disabled at least one by removing the ammunition from it. Two soldiers received gunshot wounds. There is some reason to believe that they may have been shot by passengers, although the Panel is not able to conclusively establish how the gunshot wounds were caused. Nevertheless, seven other soldiers were wounded by passengers, some seriously.
I am a former Democrat now a centrist with no current political party. My thoughts on Democrats.
The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
Working class Americans hate the following three policies foisted on them by Democrats
Working class people have had their wages depressed by illegal immigrants who will work for next to nothing just to be here. Their rents rise because we don’t have enough housing for our own citizens let alone millions of interlopers. The Democrats opened our borders to all with no vetting and now complain when the worst among those who entered illegally are sent home.
Democrats believe that a man can become a woman (he can’t) and should be allowed to play women’s sports and enter women’s private spaces, and that children, many of whom would grow up to be gay, should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible. The vast majority of Americans want to protect women and children.
Democrats discriminate on the basis of race and sex today because in the past there was discrimination on the basis of race and sex. That’s fucking unconstitutional and the working class knows it.
Democrats believe that working class Americans are too stupid to understand what they are doing. They aren’t.
One debate doesn't change anyone's mind, but people DO change their minds after repeated exposure to debates and discussions, it's really not that unusual and it happens both ways (despite the commenters here for some reason thinking it only goes one way, I know tons of former people on the right who moved to the left, I see no indication it happens more or less often either way).
FWIW, I've always loved arguing and discussing with all sorts too, and I've personally changed a bunch of people's minds on "big things", including a few who have told me I'm singularly responsible for fundamentally changing their entire worldview including talking people out of their religion lol. I don't say that to brag or say I'm all powerful (WAYYY more people who's minds I have not changed), but just to point out that if you're the type who likes to argue and does it regularly, it's almost a certainty that you WILL indeed end up changing some minds, even if it's just 5%. So don't sell yourself short. The margins matter.
Also, representation and showing that not all of someone's perceived enemies are the stereotype they think they are is actually probably the most important part of said mind-changing...it happens when you personally embody and violate their priors, and force them to rethink them. Those conversations tend to take months or years, they're not one-offs, and require them to get to know you, but it does happen. I strongly disagree with people who think no one ever changes their mind and it's honestly an insane thing to think IMO. Almost no one I know has the same opinions they did 20 years ago?? People shift in all sorts of ways depending on what and who they're exposed to, and circumstances.
Gosh, I hope some right-wingers become left-wingers because the opposite seems to be people going into full mode crankery. However, people like you, who clearly read and write quickly and enjoy it to some extent, are rare; most people don't engage because they feel overwhelmed. They disagree with someone but don't even know where to start unpicking their argument.
As an exception like you, marinated in a Swiss background, also holding my own with bullies, I think you've nailed the why of it. At Yale, I was a lefty member of its Party of the Right. In general, your role is not an unheard of role at all. For example, a college colleague of mine, Michel Chaouli, who grew up in Germany from an Iranian family, but had no love for Khomeini, became the go-to explainer of the Iranian revolutionaries on German talk shows in the 80s. It was a "vocation" for him too. Why not profit from your openness and from the carapace you developed naturally at home? Actually, in the US, Kaitlan Collins has made a very successful career so far on CNN, not Fox, despite starting on The Daily Caller.
The polarities always exist in one form another but the willingness to engage them beyond the hashtags and talking points is how our real journey back to center begins.
The only pushback I would offer is that of Greta's purported heroism. If she were truly brave, she'd have sailed to Iran during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests or another war zone where the intercepting party would have literally jailed her for life and/or executed her. She knew no such fate was awaiting in the Southern Levant and this was a golden opportunity to have her cake and eat it too.
Have you ever lived in a city taken over by immigrants? Have you ever lived anywhere on “the other side of the tracks”? What kind of jobs or career or profession do you have? What about your parents? Where did you go to school? Was it in a “good neighborhood” or a “not so good” part of town? What is your highest level of educational attainment? At what age did you start working at a real job? At what age did you start supporting yourself as an adult? Have you ever loaned or received money from your parents? Was it a small amount or a larger amount? Have you ever loaned or given money to your parents? Have you ever lived in a rural area? Suburban? Urban? Have you traveled much? Have you lived in a lesser developed country? Have you ever been robbed? Have you ever spent time living among people very different from yourself?
I’m willing to bet $100 that I can guess the correct answer to most of those questions based on your writing. I don’t think you are willing to take me up on it.
I became more conservative after a series of debates with a conservative friend. And no, moving from left to right has not made me less interested in debate. :-P However, I am now more conscientious and less judgmental in debates/discussions. Having been on both sides gives me a greater understanding of all opinions, and why the left/right devide exists in the first place.
It's common for right wingers to change their minds about politics, hence all the jokes about how many used to be on the left (e.g. a conservative is just a liberal who got mugged). How much is driven specifically by debate is hard to say because the effects are slow and cumulative, but the mental flexibility is there. It'd be more accurate to say that people have to think about things a bit, and whilst there might not be immediate huge changes after a debate, a lot of people have found that reading or watching debates (often online) do affect their politics even for people very politically engaged.
The other thing you say is:
> I despair at the straw man left-winger that right-wingers rail against, and at the mirror image they invent in return.
But this has been rigorously studied. People on the right understand those on the left much better than vice-versa. They can answer survey questions whilst pretending to be a leftist and get very close to what real self-declared leftists say, but the left can't do the same for the right. So the "straw man" comment seems inappropriate. My experience of right wing discourse has been that they (we) don't talk about abstracted people much, preferring concrete examples - like Greta - who display the traits in question clearly.
Jordan Peterson consistently claimed that socialists/leftists/non-capitalists/whatever were "afraid" to debate him. But curiously when Peter Joseph offered Jordan debate opportunities he consistently turned them down. Finally to get Peter off his back, Jordan said he would debate him only if Peter paid a fee (?!) for the "privilege" which was beyond what Peter could afford, but on principle why should anyone have to pay a fee for a Zoom or Youtube debate?
People like Jordan Peterson who pull stunts like this in order to save face while avoiding debating thinkers who are out of their league proliferate.
Jordan Peterson is a joke and not right-wing. There are other debates with right-wingers that happened to be total train wrecks but not because they were wrong on principal but because they didn't know what they were talking about.
The facts on most topics don't support leftist positions. I know, I had to revise my views on about everything over the last ten years and I was only able to hold wrong views for so long because in the mainstream there just its no honest debate about these topics.
I think debate is vital for figuring out your own and your sides position. To exploring its weaknesses and also strengthening it too. Also, debate is not always the people debating the issues, but those watching and deciding imo
Greta Thunberg doesn’t choose a cozy life because she’s autistic and a neurotic depressive. Before she began campaigning for the climate, she was a mute. So championing causes and putting herself in perceived danger (in front of a camera crew) gives her a sense of purpose and forward momentum.
She cares because she has nothing if she doesn’t, not because she is brave or pursuing truth.
We don’t respect Thunberg because she’s not real. You’ve fallen for the marketing campaign. We haven’t.
“Do debates with right-wingers change their minds?”
Debates don’t usually change the minds of the right-wingers, but they very frequently change the minds of open-minded progressives and liberals who engage with the steel-man versions of their enemies ideas. After all, that's what happened to me.
The problem for Stella is that the vast majority of media and higher education in the West tilts to the left, culturally. So if you have gotten a degree at an institution of higher learning then you have been exposed to left-wing ideas. Moreover, if you have worked in Silicone Valley or the Academy you have likely had to write essays declaring your loyalty to the left wing values of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as I have many times.
By contrast, most left wingers have zero exposure to right-wing culture, and encounter it only in a parody form. When they are exposed to the challenges the right makes to left-wing values many balk and almost none are able to answer the strong form of the objection. As such, for many, a calm and collected discourse space, either online or off, tends to be where left-wing illusions go to die.
Case in point, I have been seriously involved in political discourse for ten years, and I have invited many leftist peoples onto my channel to debate hot-button issues, and so have many other right-wingers. And for this last decade, looking at my own channel or one of the others, there really have been no serious refutations or arguments against key right-wing positions such as the following:
Outside of a few very homogeneous and small communities, Democracy does not work
Human groups are NOT interchangeable, biologically or culturally and in fact exhibit large statistical differences when it comes to behavior and competence
Mass migration has massive deleterious effects on native populations’ political, cultural, and economic well-being
Diversity destroys social cohesion
Common religion, common history, and common morality are essential to trust, undergirding everything that functions in society.
Permissiveness around pornography and drugs has been a disaster for human health
Some people need to have their agency overruled by more moral and agentic people
The Sexual Revolution and the LGBTQ+ movement has been a disaster for sex relations and family formation
Global Warming Disaster is overstated and otherwise manageable as outlined by people like Bjorn Lomberg and Richard Lindzen.
I could go on, and Stella is welcome on my show if she wants to debate these points. But once more, I am skeptical that I am going to hear any new defeaters for these positions after 10 years of doing this.
More likely Stella’s objection is that these are all “Cultural Issues” not the important “Economic Issues” that matter.
Well, first off, these aren’t JUST cultural issues. Mass immigration, family formation, and racial ‘equity” have sweeping economic implications beyond just setting the top marginal tax rate. And hey, maybe I would agree with Stella on some points. I hate corporations. I want to tax rich people. I think Banks practicing usury are evil. I am skeptical of globalism. And I am certainly not a fan of what Global Trade has done.
Nevertheless, I am a right-winger because those previous points about politics, anthropology, and morality matter. They set our moral frame for addressing all other issues. Moreover, as the government gets more socialist, these cultural priorities help determine the question "Who, Whom?" which is the critical issue once the government starts picking the winners and the losers. And I am guessing that Stella understands this too, which is why I doubt she would be considered a leftist in good standing if she agreed with my previous 9 points.
One more thing, Stella somehow thinks it's strange that right-wingers don't recognize the heroism and grit of Gretta Thunberg. I genuinely LOLed when I read this, because its transparent to anyone not drinking the leftist Kool-Aid that Thunberg is 100 percent fake, performing the leftist progressive version of Kayfabe. Not only does Thunberg not participate in any conversation with her critics (she just lectures them) -her activism for the "Omni-Cause" (as documented by Mary Harrington) is completely performative,. Gretta has been supposedly arrested for ilegally challenging the government's position on hot political issues, and then she is out the next day going on political talk shows. Stella might be unaware of this historically, but this is not what happens to people who are authentically trying to overthrow the government or interfere with its war machine. If a government thinks you are really trying to fuck with it and its military, it comes down HARD, though I can see why a modern leftist wouldn't understand this.
Case in point, as I mentioned my friends and I have been doing this for ten years. All of us have been Doxed and threatened professionally for our involvement with these "far right" ideas. The government sends spies to our conferences to expose and ruin people, as they did recently to my friend Morgorth. Numerous people in our group have been fired, kicked off their platforms, and even kicked out of their banks. And it gets worse. My acquaintance Laura Towler's husband Sam has been put in jail by the British government for 2 years for his roll in... printing stickers. I can't wire money to my family in Canada without a huge delay because they think I might be transferring it to organizations aligned to the Trucker protests against the liberal party. Lastly, several years ago, a former podcast host that I worked with "Coach Red Pill" decided to courageously do reporting in Ukraine and got arrested. Afterwards what do you think happened, Stella? Did he go on a media tour? No of course not, he died in custody under mysterious circumstances. And it's not surprising, that's what happens when you fuck with governments, they try to kill you and ruin your life, you don't get fake arrested and then go on Steven Colbert the next day.
There is no equivalent response to modern leftist radicalism, and that's how I know that the left hasn't been real in the West for at least 30 years.
1) Neoliberal capitalism chips away at democracy and people blame democracy for it. Just because the trains run on time, it doesn't mean we want to bring back the junta.
2) There are more differences within races than between them, as much as there is such a thing as an identifiable race. Humans adapt. Societies change. Sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly.
3) Immigration and diversity are a fact of life on planet earth, not a choice we can opt out of unless you condone violence, which I do not.
4) Common religion, history and morality are a myth states create to unite electorates behind a common narrative. That's ok, but it's no justification for bigotry.
5) Proliferation of pornography and drugs is a byproduct of capitalism.
6) Definitely, men who get radicalised online into the far right need to have their rights curtailed by sensible, more morally upstanding people.
7) It is capitalism, and not gay rights, that destroyed family formation.
8) Global warming is real, net-zero policies are sometimes counter-productive, but in the long run, it is for the best that we transition to renewables as much as possible.
- The far right is more violent than the fringe left, even if you don't believe the fringe left when they say they are humanitarian and anti-racist you can at least appreciate they try to pretend to be these things. The far right is happy to accept they are racists.
> This women took a ship to a fucking warzone to feed starving children.
This person sailed on a sailboat in the Mediterranean as a publicity stunt to raise awareness, and was not at any point in more danger than other recreational sailors.
In a previous similar attempt (the Gaza Freedom Flotilla) in 2010, 9 people were killed and 30 injured. The IDF are not known for being gentle.
Eh, I suspect Greta and crew were not prepared to throw down in an armed battle with the boarding team.
> 124. The Panel accepts, therefore, that soldiers landing from the first helicopter faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they descended onto the Mavi Marmara. Material before the Panel confirms that this group
was armed with iron bars, staves, chains, and slingshots, and there is some indication that they also used knives. Firearms were taken from IDF personnel and passengers disabled at least one by removing the ammunition from it. Two soldiers received gunshot wounds. There is some reason to believe that they may have been shot by passengers, although the Panel is not able to conclusively establish how the gunshot wounds were caused. Nevertheless, seven other soldiers were wounded by passengers, some seriously.
https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/Palmer-Committee-Final-report.pdf
I am a former Democrat now a centrist with no current political party. My thoughts on Democrats.
The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
Working class Americans hate the following three policies foisted on them by Democrats
Working class people have had their wages depressed by illegal immigrants who will work for next to nothing just to be here. Their rents rise because we don’t have enough housing for our own citizens let alone millions of interlopers. The Democrats opened our borders to all with no vetting and now complain when the worst among those who entered illegally are sent home.
Democrats believe that a man can become a woman (he can’t) and should be allowed to play women’s sports and enter women’s private spaces, and that children, many of whom would grow up to be gay, should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible. The vast majority of Americans want to protect women and children.
Democrats discriminate on the basis of race and sex today because in the past there was discrimination on the basis of race and sex. That’s fucking unconstitutional and the working class knows it.
Democrats believe that working class Americans are too stupid to understand what they are doing. They aren’t.
One debate doesn't change anyone's mind, but people DO change their minds after repeated exposure to debates and discussions, it's really not that unusual and it happens both ways (despite the commenters here for some reason thinking it only goes one way, I know tons of former people on the right who moved to the left, I see no indication it happens more or less often either way).
FWIW, I've always loved arguing and discussing with all sorts too, and I've personally changed a bunch of people's minds on "big things", including a few who have told me I'm singularly responsible for fundamentally changing their entire worldview including talking people out of their religion lol. I don't say that to brag or say I'm all powerful (WAYYY more people who's minds I have not changed), but just to point out that if you're the type who likes to argue and does it regularly, it's almost a certainty that you WILL indeed end up changing some minds, even if it's just 5%. So don't sell yourself short. The margins matter.
Also, representation and showing that not all of someone's perceived enemies are the stereotype they think they are is actually probably the most important part of said mind-changing...it happens when you personally embody and violate their priors, and force them to rethink them. Those conversations tend to take months or years, they're not one-offs, and require them to get to know you, but it does happen. I strongly disagree with people who think no one ever changes their mind and it's honestly an insane thing to think IMO. Almost no one I know has the same opinions they did 20 years ago?? People shift in all sorts of ways depending on what and who they're exposed to, and circumstances.
Keep it up.
Gosh, I hope some right-wingers become left-wingers because the opposite seems to be people going into full mode crankery. However, people like you, who clearly read and write quickly and enjoy it to some extent, are rare; most people don't engage because they feel overwhelmed. They disagree with someone but don't even know where to start unpicking their argument.
As an exception like you, marinated in a Swiss background, also holding my own with bullies, I think you've nailed the why of it. At Yale, I was a lefty member of its Party of the Right. In general, your role is not an unheard of role at all. For example, a college colleague of mine, Michel Chaouli, who grew up in Germany from an Iranian family, but had no love for Khomeini, became the go-to explainer of the Iranian revolutionaries on German talk shows in the 80s. It was a "vocation" for him too. Why not profit from your openness and from the carapace you developed naturally at home? Actually, in the US, Kaitlan Collins has made a very successful career so far on CNN, not Fox, despite starting on The Daily Caller.
The polarities always exist in one form another but the willingness to engage them beyond the hashtags and talking points is how our real journey back to center begins.
The only pushback I would offer is that of Greta's purported heroism. If she were truly brave, she'd have sailed to Iran during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests or another war zone where the intercepting party would have literally jailed her for life and/or executed her. She knew no such fate was awaiting in the Southern Levant and this was a golden opportunity to have her cake and eat it too.
Have you ever lived in a city taken over by immigrants? Have you ever lived anywhere on “the other side of the tracks”? What kind of jobs or career or profession do you have? What about your parents? Where did you go to school? Was it in a “good neighborhood” or a “not so good” part of town? What is your highest level of educational attainment? At what age did you start working at a real job? At what age did you start supporting yourself as an adult? Have you ever loaned or received money from your parents? Was it a small amount or a larger amount? Have you ever loaned or given money to your parents? Have you ever lived in a rural area? Suburban? Urban? Have you traveled much? Have you lived in a lesser developed country? Have you ever been robbed? Have you ever spent time living among people very different from yourself?
I’m willing to bet $100 that I can guess the correct answer to most of those questions based on your writing. I don’t think you are willing to take me up on it.
I became more conservative after a series of debates with a conservative friend. And no, moving from left to right has not made me less interested in debate. :-P However, I am now more conscientious and less judgmental in debates/discussions. Having been on both sides gives me a greater understanding of all opinions, and why the left/right devide exists in the first place.
It's common for right wingers to change their minds about politics, hence all the jokes about how many used to be on the left (e.g. a conservative is just a liberal who got mugged). How much is driven specifically by debate is hard to say because the effects are slow and cumulative, but the mental flexibility is there. It'd be more accurate to say that people have to think about things a bit, and whilst there might not be immediate huge changes after a debate, a lot of people have found that reading or watching debates (often online) do affect their politics even for people very politically engaged.
The other thing you say is:
> I despair at the straw man left-winger that right-wingers rail against, and at the mirror image they invent in return.
But this has been rigorously studied. People on the right understand those on the left much better than vice-versa. They can answer survey questions whilst pretending to be a leftist and get very close to what real self-declared leftists say, but the left can't do the same for the right. So the "straw man" comment seems inappropriate. My experience of right wing discourse has been that they (we) don't talk about abstracted people much, preferring concrete examples - like Greta - who display the traits in question clearly.
You have it wrong. Peter Boghossian has proven conclusively that the Left (except for maybe Destiny) wont even debate, they refuse to engage.
Jordan Peterson consistently claimed that socialists/leftists/non-capitalists/whatever were "afraid" to debate him. But curiously when Peter Joseph offered Jordan debate opportunities he consistently turned them down. Finally to get Peter off his back, Jordan said he would debate him only if Peter paid a fee (?!) for the "privilege" which was beyond what Peter could afford, but on principle why should anyone have to pay a fee for a Zoom or Youtube debate?
People like Jordan Peterson who pull stunts like this in order to save face while avoiding debating thinkers who are out of their league proliferate.
Jordan Peterson is a joke and not right-wing. There are other debates with right-wingers that happened to be total train wrecks but not because they were wrong on principal but because they didn't know what they were talking about.
The facts on most topics don't support leftist positions. I know, I had to revise my views on about everything over the last ten years and I was only able to hold wrong views for so long because in the mainstream there just its no honest debate about these topics.
Fuck off.
I think debate is vital for figuring out your own and your sides position. To exploring its weaknesses and also strengthening it too. Also, debate is not always the people debating the issues, but those watching and deciding imo
Rarely do debates change anyone's mind, or even get those on the fence to take a side. Humans rarely decide anything based on truth or falsehood.
If debates have any value, it is in concretizing and testing one's own ideas.
Greta Thunberg doesn’t choose a cozy life because she’s autistic and a neurotic depressive. Before she began campaigning for the climate, she was a mute. So championing causes and putting herself in perceived danger (in front of a camera crew) gives her a sense of purpose and forward momentum.
She cares because she has nothing if she doesn’t, not because she is brave or pursuing truth.
We don’t respect Thunberg because she’s not real. You’ve fallen for the marketing campaign. We haven’t.
Humorously, if you invert all the descriptions this essay applies to the left perfectly. That's why we call it the horseshoe theory.