Empathy and Respect of People's Opinions

[aussiekirkland]

This is sort of related to 

But I want to talk about it anyway.

 

What I want to talk about is respecting people's opinions. There have been plenty of people in my life who do not know how to do this, and even more so online. While this post isn't targeting any particular people, I think we can all agree that this mentality is particularly common in The Discourse. But this post isn't about that, I promise.

 

What this post is about is the ability to respect other people's opinions. Too many times in my life I've come across someone  with vastly different opinions to my own. This is fine, and while I don't agree with them I will listen to them and kindly say "I don't agree with what you're saying because..." What really irks me is when the other person refuses to listen to what I'm saying, because they think their opinion is fact and that I must be wrong. My sister is like this, it's not fun.

 

The problem here is that there is no right or wrong, those are our opinions, and with a little bit of empathy it's easier to understand where other people are coming from.

 

I just wish there were less people in the world who don't know how to be respectful and empathetic of other people's opinions. Personally, I feel like this is one of the main causes of a lot of fighting online.

 

One of the reasons I really love Arocalypse is our community's ability to do what I mentioned. We listen to each other's opinions, are empathetic and are able to have a lot of civilised discussions about difficult topics. I hope Arocalypse continues to be a safe place for discussion as it gains more members.

[Philbo Wiseroot]

1 hour ago, aussiekirkland said:

My sister is like this, it's not fun.

My brother is kinda like this too. "I don't know about X, therefore X must be wrong". And some of his arguments make no sense, such as if you label a thing, you're discriminating against everything that that thing doesn't fall into.

 

But anyway: I do think that the people who don't respect others opinions, or use their opinions as fact (like the recent user), are few and far between, but tend to target particular groups with their "opinion-as-fact" ideas. If we use AVEN as a model, the disrespectful people (at least to me), appear to be few, while the respectful people are more in number. Hopefully this forum stays that way too. As I said in my post to the user, people can identify and express themselves however they wish.

[cute kitty Meow! Mewo!]

I recently heard someone talking about the skill, of listening to people as if they know something worth saying that you don't know yet. I realized it's something I was sort of moving towards, and so now it's something I'm trying to learn how to always do. to have the patience to listen to what a person has to say. 

[omitef]

When I get into polarized discussions online, I often feel like there's not really a discussion happening. It's like me and the other debater are in two completely different universes. And usually, we have come from two completely different universes, due to different identities, so we'd never fully understand where the other is coming from. In these polarized discussions, for me, it's actually pretty easy to tell what's "right" and "wrong"--"right" would be respecting someone's existence, and "wrong" would be disrespecting someone's existence. While everyone is allowed to have their own opinion, no one is allowed to express hurtful opinions without facing consequences--and that goes both ways. Even if you're "right," you can't verbally attack your opponent with personal insults. 

 

I think that opinions should be respected up until the point they disrespect someone's existence. The problem about that is, some have really broad criteria for what counts as disrespecting someone's existence, and personally, I don't think I'm allowed to say, "your views are too extreme" without risking invalidation and sounding like gatekeeper. I've been told that telling people not to use certain words with a hurtful history is "too extreme" of a viewpoint. I've been told that demanding respect for those who are non-binary is "too extreme" of a viewpoint. I've been told that being addressed with he/him pronouns as a pre-transition trans man is "too extreme" of a viewpoint. Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I always worry that I'm more on the "wrong" side, however, and that despite not intending harm, I am inflicting harm to others. And I've been on the "wrong" side more than once, because of my privilege. Those with privilege often fail to notice when they have it, and as someone who's suffered a lot due to multiple marginalized identities, the last thing I'd want to do is inflict that same suffering on someone who society has designated below me.

[cute kitty Meow! Mewo!]

@omitef said "I think that opinions should be respected up until the point they disrespect someone's existence"

 

I don't think so really. I think that it's not that simple. no one should have to step around glass just to speak their minds. I agree that if a person is blatantly disregarding another's emotions and voice, despite signs that something is amiss and there needs to be time to stop. actually even so. there's going to be times when you need to be like "hi emergency please move over so the impending car doesn't hit you" but in doing so you bowl the person over. ouch! 

 

it's like. at the same time it is true that we should strive to be respectful towards others. as we also strive to be enduring of undesirable circumstances. you can't make a world that is free of pain, you can't make a comment that is perfectly set up to be considerate of everyone's feelings. it's like if you got chicks walking in the wind. you can put up a barrier (respect) to decrease the wind going towards the chickens, but if the chickens are too fragile they can't even stand up on their own even if you spent all your resources to make a large room that protects them perfectly from the wind.

 

there are a lot of people in the world. if we need to understand everyone's sensitivity to protect them all, that just isn't a realistic goal. there's situations when it's even better to let go and hurt someone's feelings for the sake of some factor or other. like, we need to fire people, they might go "oh but I can grow" maybe they can, but this competing worker can grow faster, move over, sorry. it's the same with discourse and discussion. like, here, think about it this way - if we disagree, if I need to be perfectly respectful of your oppinions, then I'll never have a chance to speak up and defend mine. we all need to be able to trust that the person we're talking with is able to listen to our discussion even tho it steps on their toes, if either of us is going to say anything at all! 

 

[Zema]

I think what a lot of people need to learn is that people are not their opinions. I've seen plenty of people act like their opinions define them as a person. If you ever want to have a civil discussion about anything, you can't let your opinions define you as a person. All this does is when someone comes along with a differing opinion, it'll make you feel like they're attacking your sense of self. If you become emotionally attached to your opinions, it's hard to grow as a person. In an argument, you have to have the ability to recognise when someone else opinion is better than yours, and to be able to throw away your old opinion to be replaced by a new one. This is extremely difficult when you're emotionally attached to your opinions.

 

This does become a little bit more tricky when dealing with stuff like sexuality and gender. You can't just throw those away and get a new one and I can understand if you become emotionally attached to them. With this sort of stuff though, you just have to remember that you are not your sexuality and gender, they are merely part of what makes you who you are. When someone tries to invalidate these parts of your identity, try not to act like they're attacking your entire identity. This will lessen the blow. Or you can just not give a fuck what they have to say and ignore them as invalidating part of someone's identity is a form of ad hominem.

 

I feel like this doesn't make much sense. I hope it does, but I'm bad at this.

[cute kitty Meow! Mewo!]

I think it definitely makes sense, @Zemaddog! it is very easy for any human to get caught up in opinions, in theories, in beliefs. We believe certain things in order to operate in the world, but in the end what we believe is only such a small part of who we are, it's kind of odd to think that we are our beliefs even! 

 

something that I heard recently. I have to paraphrase it, but it was very thought-provoking. The idea that what is being said when we speak is only a temporary thing. it is not the thing that we are saying, but only a representation of what we say. IDK. I guess I am the one who makes no sense  

[aihpen]

I really don't get why some people seem to have such problems to agree to disagree. It just happens sometimes that you have different opinions and that is totally ok! I like it when people can have a conversation and when they have different opinions they can just discuss why each of them thinks the way they do without getting all defensive and starting to fight. I've seen my friends get into so many fights for so many unneccessary things that they disagreed on and I always have to be the one to explain to them that the other person didn't mean to offend them or whatever the issue was. You don't have to agree with everything others say (You CAN'T agree with EVERYTHING EVERYONE else is saying), but at least accept their opinions that are different from yours because you probably want others to accept you having different opinions as well. I don't get why that is something so difficult to understand for many people. Here however it seems like most people really understand that or maybe we all just agree on everything all the time (I'd say it's the former)

[cute kitty Meow! Mewo!]

heh, I have no ability to comprehend what "agree to disagree" means because my assumption is that humans are diverse. of course we disagree. I like red and you like blue. why should it be any bigger of a deal with anything else? so I hate when people say agree to disagree because, like, idk it feels like an inherently dismissive statement. in fact, if you disagree with me, then I am more interested in listening to you, because I'm curious, I want to understand your thoughts to as well as my own. in fact, in expressing my own beliefs, I find better ways to understand them, even spot issues with them. sometimes even, I argue for a belief that I do not have any faith in, because I want to hear what my "opponent" thinks about what I do agree, for the sake of diversity, and wish also to ponder the counter point which I choose to support during the discussion, hehehe. 

 

to be honest lately I am trying not to "hold on to" beliefs as true or false, that, for me, believing things seems like maybe it's just a tool we can use to operate and make decisions, but outside of the decisions why should beliefs matter? we don't need to decide when we are in the middle of eating. holding onto beliefs while we eat a chocolate we've already committed ourselves to devour will only make us feel guilty. 

 

speaking of chocolate.... *om nom nom*