Most of my friends can immediately smell when a writer using a truth-oriented approach to politics has a strong hidden agenda, and will respond much differently than they would to truth-oriented writers with weaker agendas. Some of them would even say that, conditional on you having an agenda, it’s dishonest to note that you believe that you’re using a truth-oriented approach; in this case, claiming that you’re using a truth-oriented approach reads as an attempt to hide the fact that you have an agenda. This holds regardless of whether your argument is correct, or whether you have good intentions.
There’s a wide existing literature on concepts which are related to (but don’t directly address) how to best engage in truth seeking on politically charged topics.The books titled Nonviolent Communication, HtWFaIP, and Impro, are all non-obvious examples. I posit that promoting this literature might be one of the best uses of our time, if our strongest desire is to make political discourse more truth-oriented.
One central theme to all of these works is that putting effort into being agreeable and listening to your discussion partners will make them more receptive to evaluating your own claims based on how factual they are. I’m likely to condense most of the relevant insights into a couple posts once I’m in an emotional state amenable to doing so.
Most of my friends can immediately smell when a writer using a truth-oriented approach to politics has a strong hidden agenda, and will respond much differently than they would to truth-oriented writers with weaker agendas. Some of them would even say that, conditional on you having an agenda, it’s dishonest to note that you believe that you’re using a truth-oriented approach; in this case, claiming that you’re using a truth-oriented approach reads as an attempt to hide the fact that you have an agenda. This holds regardless of whether your argument is correct, or whether you have good intentions.
There’s a wide existing literature on concepts which are related to (but don’t directly address) how to best engage in truth seeking on politically charged topics.The books titled Nonviolent Communication, HtWFaIP, and Impro, are all non-obvious examples. I posit that promoting this literature might be one of the best uses of our time, if our strongest desire is to make political discourse more truth-oriented.
One central theme to all of these works is that putting effort into being agreeable and listening to your discussion partners will make them more receptive to evaluating your own claims based on how factual they are. I’m likely to condense most of the relevant insights into a couple posts once I’m in an emotional state amenable to doing so.
well then you have awesome friends and I’m jealous!