How do you listen?
Some dont want to hear the truth because they dont want their illusions destroyed, or if they hear it, they hear to treply, not to understand.
Sadly, this is the case in almost all political and religious arguments, either they dont want to hear something bad about their religions ( most of the time it is a misunderstood fact) or they hear to reply with a ready tailored response.
Dont just hear, go and listen, hearing is the physicsl aspect of the operation, listening is paying attention to what you hear, understand what is being said...develop a skill whereby you put yourself in their shoes and understand where are they coming from and why are they saying that.
Always observe and listen with your inner senses.
Truth is bitter and often discomforting. So we are naturally attuned to abhor it.
That's good advice and I personally do try to do that as much as I can. But I'd freely admit that I'm not perfect at it and I'm sure you'd admit the same if asked to.
I find it interesting and enlightening to actively seek open conversation with people I disagree with and even if I don't change my position, it at least helps me understand why a person would hold a different one.
Something that happens way too often right now (as you have also pointed out in your post) is that people are too set in their ways and often view people holding different positions from them as intellectually inferior or deficient. While we all vary in our abilities to reason, argue, question, think and assess evidence, most people do have reasons for holding the positions they are holding and talking to them helps view them as regular people with regular thoughts instead of as imbeciles. Demonizing disagreement is divisive and unproductive and we see it happen alongside with the consequences more and more each day.
You have concluded your answer with a very beautiful statement " Demonizing disagreement is divisive and unproductive" you are totally right, now people think that everyone either should conform to their views or they are then potential enemies.
Diversity is what makes us humans actually, it is this uniqueness of each person that i believe makes our race productive and evolving, when this diversity is used in the right manner.
I wholeheartedly agree :)
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