Also the thing where we keep on insisting on pretending there’s good faith and good intentions everywhere and taking the arguments at face value and being cautious about bias arguments and not calling people liars or frauds and etc etc?
IMO, this a mix of two things: First, typical mind fallacy (and wishful thinking) that it’s just unlikely that many people are so different from me that they really don’t care at all about things that are pretty foundational in my moral calculus (honesty and truth-seeking). But also, there’s a bit of strategy in ignoring (or at least not directly addressing) that case—even if it’s true that they see only conflict, I can reduce their status by ignoring that element and focusing on things which reinforce my side’s beliefs by making it seem more objectively true and less about the conflict.
In a sense, it’s a sort of meta-conflict-theory: I prefer calm rational discourse, and by engaging in it even when I know it’s not effective for changing some minds or resolving conflicts, I make it a little more respected and useful. I don’t have to change their minds if I can show that they’re neanderthal-level thinkers whose minds aren’t relevant. There’s far more subtlety here than in these few paragraphs, but sometimes ignoring someone’s motives, especially someones unlikely to ever directly converse with or read my thoughts, is more effective than addressing them.
IMO, this a mix of two things: First, typical mind fallacy (and wishful thinking) that it’s just unlikely that many people are so different from me that they really don’t care at all about things that are pretty foundational in my moral calculus (honesty and truth-seeking). But also, there’s a bit of strategy in ignoring (or at least not directly addressing) that case—even if it’s true that they see only conflict, I can reduce their status by ignoring that element and focusing on things which reinforce my side’s beliefs by making it seem more objectively true and less about the conflict.
In a sense, it’s a sort of meta-conflict-theory: I prefer calm rational discourse, and by engaging in it even when I know it’s not effective for changing some minds or resolving conflicts, I make it a little more respected and useful. I don’t have to change their minds if I can show that they’re neanderthal-level thinkers whose minds aren’t relevant. There’s far more subtlety here than in these few paragraphs, but sometimes ignoring someone’s motives, especially someones unlikely to ever directly converse with or read my thoughts, is more effective than addressing them.