As the article states, that was not his point. The point of the experiment was for him to stop saying and to start listening to what others are saying, even if its not a perspective or argument he himself supports.
This assume all perspectives/arguments are valid. Should we listen to the arguments put forth by someone who believes the Earth is flat?
Not at all. It only assumes that an understanding of an argument is necessary to engage with it properly.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
What does it mean to lose in a communication? You said "by definition", but what is the definition of losing?
Now obviously, deciding when someone engaged in an argument is acting in bad faith is difficult. But the naive position that it's always good to argue it out is not practically sustainable.
“Never believe that Republicans are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The Republicans have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
“Never believe that Democrats are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The Democrats have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
The "politically correct", "anti-abortionists", "pro-lifers", "Hacker News anklebiters"... it all fits just fine. It's just a way of giving yourself an excuse to not engage with opinions cloaked in the veneer of righteousness.
If I had infinite time and patience then yes, I would engage with all opinions. But I do not.
However, that particular paragraph of slurs is not a reasonable excuse to not engage with everything. That particular paragraph is indeed "just a way of giving yourself an excuse to not engage with opinions cloaked in the veneer of righteousness".
Note that not having time to deal with everything in particular is not "cloaked in the veneer of righteousness"; it simply is a fact of life, not something that one can claim as either righteousness or weakness. The particular problem with that paragraph is the veneer of unearned righteousness it confers on the listener, not the lack of engagement.
It is also not reasonable to expect people to change their minds by virtue of being insulted enough. I don't think I've ever seen that work once no longer in forced school environments, and even then it's a pretty darned weak persuasion technique, despite its enduring popularity.
(I don't think it's entirely fair to replace "anti-Semite" with "Republican" or "Democrat." FWIW I would, as an example, be happy to engage with people who held political positions opposed to mine in general, and concerning immigration in particular, in arguments concerning economic impact and so forth. But, if those people's arguments can be boiled down to axioms I don't share -- e.g., person X deserves the opportunity of living in the United States because they were born there, and person Y does not because they'd weren't -- then I would choose not to engage with them.)
I'm not claiming it's "fair". I'm claiming the rhetoric still fits. Nothing about it was specific to "anti-Semites". I'd bet at least 5% of the people who read that would agree to the Republican one, if you could ask them, and I feel here on HN I'm being fairly conservative with that number. (Especially if we're specifically referring to politicians, and not the general rank and file, in which case I'm stroking my chin and eyeing the paragraph pretty seriously for both the Democrat and the Republican paragraph... but then, the common factor there is politician, rather than whatever specific platform is in play.)
And what that rhetoric is is an excuse. If you don't want to engage, don't, but precisely by your lack of engagement you are in no position to judge anyone's true motives or whether they're just pulling your leg or whatever.
You need to listen to them in order to be able to refute them. So if you want to change their minds you need to listen to understand what their belief is founded on so you know what you need to convince them of.
But in a more open way of seeing it:
It's important to understand where their beliefs are coming from to understand why they believe what they do. Maybe their belief is based on a fear of government and government influence on their lives. So maybe there is merit in talking about where that fear comes from.
The flat Earth portion of their beliefs is not valid. But their reasoning for it might include some interesting points to discuss that can help everyone be able to work together better.
I agree, but I don't think you will get this just by listening to them. My own cynical interpretation is that people are often driven by more selfish desires which are the reasons they are attracted to certain positions, which they then find more palatable justifications for.
The person arguing for free college and paying off existing college debt has many arguments, but the one that actually matters is that they are paying $1,000 a month on a student loan and highly prefer any solution that leaves them with that money back. Even a solution that increases taxes, as long as the taxes aren't more than $1,000, is preferable to their current state.
The person arguing for a reduces/removed minimum wage, while having a lot of argument as to the negative impacts of minimum wage, personally thinks that prices will go up if minimum wage goes up and is against it because of the loss of purchasing power. (Consider that this outcome actually happening or not is irrelevant, only the belief it will happen matters when judging why a person takes the stance they want.)
When I've argued for lowering the drinking age to 18, people will often assume I'm someone under 21 who wants the ability to legally drink. When I've argued for lowering the voting age below 18, people often assume I have political leanings that will be bolstered by under 18 voters. Both cases are false, but personally I cannot fault the people from assuming such based on how often it appears those assumptions are true.
The problem is that regardless of I'd those assumptions are true, those assumptions can stop you from listening to and understanding the actual arguments and beliefs.
Additionally, if left unchallenged, those assumptions can stop at a superficial understanding of the issues that face the person holding the position.
If you assume that the person arguing for the forgiveness of student loans simply wants to save money, you might miss that the real impact is the way that mandatory student loan payments prevent that person from quitting their job and following their dreams or boot strapping a business. That information is critical to find solutions or compromises.
It assumes no such thing.
> Should we listen to the arguments put forth by someone who believes the Earth is flat?
Listening does not imply joining in belief. Listening is the act of developing an understanding of another's perspective and why they hold to that perspective. The keyword being understanding, not agreeing.
What we should learn from John Francis is to always be willing to listen; that if we want to live in a world where people listen to us, we have to be willing to listen to those people as well. If we want a society that uses civil discourse as a means of growing, we are obligated to learn how to listen and understand.
We are under no obligation to agree with what we hear, but we do owe it to others to understand where they are coming from, and why they hold the belief they have. And on the fortunate occasions, perhaps to learn from what they have to say.
An interesting exercise I did way back in the day for fun was to try to debate some of those topics using only arguments within _their_ mental framework (e.g. if X pro-flat-earth argument is true, then why does the Bible contradictorily says Y). If anything, I ended up getting something out of it, as doing my own research to try to formulate these arguments taught me about topics I wasn't nearly as familiar w/ (e.g. history of religious documents)