And if I were to try to change your mind about your beliefs, I'd have to start by convincing you you're not a good person."
Not really. You'd just have to convince someone that they were mistaken.
But in this context, the thing they're mistaken about is fundamental to their perception of themselves as good people. Thus, it's the same thing.
That's why it's harder to convince people to change their minds about politics or religion than it is about, say, mathematics or science fiction television trivia. Those things aren't tied into the self-identity of most people. To say "You voted for the wrong candidate" is to say "You support the wrong values," and to say "You support the wrong values" is to say "Everything you thought made you a good person? It didn't."
People don't like to hear that. Weird, huh?
Worse, trying to change their minds means that I'm starting with a postulate that
I'm better than them. That I know more about the world than they do, my perspective is broader, my politics and religion are more sensible than theirs. That I'm a better person.
In other words, attempting to change people's minds about their politics requires me to be an asshole.
I used to do that all the time. For fun, and because I really was convinced that I had the answers. I felt it was my prerogative and my good deed to share those answers with people, and if you didn't see the wisdom of my position, you were just being a stubborn idiot who chose not to think about it enough.
But the older I get, the less appeal I find in being that sort of asshole.
Occasionally I even entertain the notion that I might
not be better than everyone else around me. Again: weird, huh?
Anyway, that failure of perspective, that strange and growing disinterest in rhetorical assholishness, has begun to maladjust me for common political argument. And that's probably just as well, as frankly I don't have the time to spend in debate that I used to have in college. >8->
(Although I still have a strong Devil's Advocate reflex, and tend to poke at
other people's strong opinions, as I did with Russell the other day. My apologies if that, too, was too high on the asshole meter. If I ever overdo it, please don't hesitate to report me to a moderator. I'll let someone besides me decide.) >8->