On these types of forums it’s easy to jump into an argument about the technicalities or a post or comment.
You should know, though, that there is a theory called Ways of Knowing which defines Separate Knowing and Connected Knowing. It’s been a part of my masters program I’m taking.
Separate knowing disconnects the humanity and context from what’s being said and tries to only argue the “facts”. But facts, and the things people say, don’t just occur in a vacuum. It often is the case when people are arguing past each other, like on the internet.
Connected Knowing is approaching the thing someone said with the understanding that there is a context, humanity, biases, different experiences, and human error that can all jumble up when people are sharing information.
Maybe even just knowing that there’s different ways to know would be helpful for us to engage in a different level of conversation here. I’m not sure. I just wanted to share!
https://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/sites/default/files/Critical Thinking Article_0.pdf
Intetesing. But doesn’t that like forget about bad actors? People arguing in bad faith and so on?
Also it’s obviously waay different if you “debate” someone on the internet vs someone say at work when eating together.
Something I’ve encountered constantly online is the pedantic type who simply wants to “win” the argument at any cost, and will very much argue in bad faith and ignore (or pretend to not understand) a solid counter-argument or facts that don’t fit their narrative.
I think making a good effort at radical empathy and trying one’s best to see the other side can potentially help expose the bad faith arguments. But, there are a lot of dirty tricks out there like the Gish Gallop, etc.
And I don’t always have the energy if I’m being honest! Connected knowing takes energy and heart and it’s not always available for me to use. I have to pick my battles with this one too.
Same here. I prefer discussion with reasonable folks. When it starts getting nasty I usually disengage or even block the person. I respect the radical empathy approach, and I try to use it with people I engage with in person. But I have little patience with online trolls and pendants anymore. It’s a waste of time and energy.
Fair yes!
The pedantic type is one thing; the propagandist troll is another. “Making a good effort at radical empathy” won’t do a damn thing against the latter; in that case the correct tactic is to call out their bullshit and mock them mercilessly until they’re driven away (or get the mods to ban them, but you can’t always count on that).
I guess it’s also getting curious about their intentions and that would be part of learning about the context. Bad people say true things for evil reasons sometimes, does that bad intention matter?
It probably matters if the goal is to harm you or your close friends.
It’s always a good idea to understand ppl and their views, because it helps to confirm or reject your own hypotheses, which are plenty. But there’s a reason you always have to take any claim from an unknown or untrusted source with varying grains of salt. Especially considering we are living in a world where the internet is the one central source of information and bad actors are starting to flood all channels that provide information.
Agreed! Because the way I understand it, connected knowing isn’t trusting the other peoples truths as fact, it’s understanding that it’s true for them and getting curious about that. We can’t just go around equating other people’s beliefs with fact and losing our sense of reason, science, and truth.
God, I hope amber turd doesnt flood the channels