Often when we are trying to convey our views to another person and the other person is just not receptive to it- they might give counter arguments, be non affected by it or just rubbish your entire point. Why does this happen? How should we approach this problem?
Let us take an example of something like trying to convey a political opinion to another person. First lets backtrack and understand the dynamics of how we came to adopt that opinion - the common notions are that we acquired it by reading some articles, hearing people talk about it or by having experienced some of it in personal life. There is another important aspect to it - it is closely associated with your own personality. An aggressive approach is more likely align to right wing approach, the artistic community will tend to have more liberal leanings etc. - there is some psychology at play here. A right wing approach in my understanding is of prioritizing the individual's interests or the interests of your own community which will seek favour with an aggressive person because his aggression is representative of his holding his own thoughts, beliefs, rights, ego etc at a higher priority than others. The artistic community will have people who are tuned to feedback from others because empathy becomes an important part of their profession - therefore they are more likely to be sympathetic towards needs of others. I know I have painted aggression and artistic community with a very broad brush stroke and that it is never that tight a compartmentalization - there will be a lot of exceptions in both the communities but for the sake of argument, let's consider it.
We tend to believe that our own opinion is based on facts and /or scientific principles that are beyond question - these articles, talks, personal accounts and experiences are what formed our opinion. We feel it is a result of knowledge of truth while the others are ill informed or biased or belonging to the opposing group of liberals/right wingers/leftists etc. But often we do not realize there is a personality component to it. So the political opinion that we have is also a result of cherry picking of information - we will read articles favoring our view, we listen to speakers favoring our view and we tend to experience real life situations also through the lens of our confirmation bias. To us any article, talk or personal experience of opposing view is either false or biased or is downright ignored or is an exception.
The problem is the opinion is too closely tied to our personality for us to be able to see the opposing viewpoint. Our personality attributes are shaped by a combination of several factors primarily nature (stuff you are born with) and nurture (what we learn from our environment). The personality attributes are so well integrated with our belief systems that to adopt a different viewpoint on the subject is akin to adopting a change in your personality which cannot be done without shaking the very foundation of your belief system of not only politics but life in general. We all know that it is a very daunting task. It involves bringing down a complete edifice on which many parts of one's life are resting and one odd article, talk or personal experience will not be able to achieve it. Studies have shown that when people are presented with evidence disproving their opinion or beliefs they disbelieve the evidence or try to find faults with it. The end result is that they end up clinging more dearly to their own opinions.
I believe one way to approach this problem is being aware of these biases existing in all of us. Accepting that we are as much prey to these cognitive biases as others is the stepping stone. Then comes understanding why the person of opposing view came to the subject conclusion on the issue. By that I don't mean thinking that they are misinformed fools or that they have fallen prey to PR stints that you yourself are far too intelligent to fall trap to. It means genuinely trying to understand if there is some merit in their belief and what are the emotions/behavioral attributes at play. The approach has to be similar to the case of a disease treatment where ideally the medical practitioner should try to understand the cause and treat it rather than treating the symptoms. It is not an easy process and it makes a lot of demands on your time and energy - that is why we keep failing miserably at it. We will generally not understand the other person well enough or are not invested enough in the process to indulge the required time and mental energy.
The story of the four blind men and the elephant often comes to mind. In the story four blind men are touching different parts of the elephant and trying to figure out what it is. The one touching its tail thinks its a rope, the one touching its leg thinks its a tree, the one touching its trunk thinks it's a hose and the one touching the tusk feels its some weapon. Each of them is absolutely convinced that he is right and the others are wrong. This is how we tend to take sides in a debate. We tend to think we are absolutely right and others are fools. The truth is generally that there are elements of right in other person's perspective as well. I have often felt that the best approach is to try to genuinely understand why the other person has come to that conclusion. The benefit of practicing this method is that you will end up having a richer and more comprehensive perspective on the subject of discussion. In the example of the four blind men and elephant, if each person was to try and understand the opinion of the other 3 persons, he would have a better, more well rounded appreciation of truth.
Most subjects of debate are complex multifaceted issues with myriad aspects that we are not fully conversant with even when we consider ourselves somewhat of an expert on the subject. In the age of information abundance it is easy to be lulled into believing we know a lot. The Dunning -Kruger effect comes to mind.
Dunning Kruger Effect
It is very difficult to see that random information collected from the net does not translate into knowledge on the subject. We generally tend to have a reductionist or simplistic view of the subject and try to impose it on others as well. It is at best selective and biased. When the starting point is that I know the subject completely you are blocking your chance of getting a more well-rounded understanding of the subject. You cannot pour water into a glass that is full. We have to realize that our comprehension of the subject is also not complete - only then does true learning happen and we will get a more nuanced perspective of the subject.
The beautiful part about the whole process is that when you start to practice this, not only does your comprehension of the subject improve but the other person also starts to get what you are saying. It is very difficult to implement but whenever I have practiced this successfully in personal life I have got the stated result. Maybe its that people start mirroring each other's emotions/behaviour etc. When you yourself are truly open to understanding the others point of view without being judgmental, they tend to follow suit and start to understand your perspective. Another way to think about it is - if someone needs a hundred rupees, you can give it to them only if you possess a hundred rupees i.e. "You cannot give someone something that you yourself do not possess". If we expect others to understand and be receptive of our viewpoint, then we have to first have that quality ourselves. You can give only what you have. I have seen this playing out in real life in many ways. When you are angry and frustrated with your spouse, you will get a similar response from them, if you keep debating with someone feeling that the other person is not understanding your perspective , you will elicit similar response from the other person as well. A corollary to this is - "In any situation desirable or undesirable, we need to realize how we are contributing to the situation". because believe me you are contributing to it. In any undesirable situation , we tend to misplace the blame onto others, circumstances etc . That is true, no doubts - they all have also contributed to the situation. But we also by omission or commission have contributed to it and we fail to see it.
Vector Addition
I feel having a visual reference for a philosophical concept is very handy. To give a visual reference to people who are familiar with vector addition - consider the vector addition depicted in diagram above. Four different forces (F1,F2,F3 and F4) are acting at a point and they can be resolved into a single resultant vector (R) which gives the final output of the forces. The final force(R) acting can be called the resultant force/vector and the resultant's components give the contributing forces/vectors (F1,F2,F3 and F4). We can think of any situation we are faced with as a resultant sum of various forces and it can be broken down into its components which are the contributing factors. Any major issue is a sum total of several contributing factors like circumstances, people etc. One important vector in any situation is our own contribution. That is one vector we can for sure make a change in - a change in that vector of your own contribution will mitigate the resultant vector or situation in life. We should be aware of how we have contributed to it and try to fix it as well. Real life is dynamic unlike the diagram of vectors. I have personally felt that when you work on your own contributing factor, the other contributing factors are more likely to follow suit. This is a subtle twist to the way we approach issues but a very powerful one. It is very difficult to practice but very effective.
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