Not the GP but I just read it, and I feel like he hit the nail on the head of the smug style. I happen to identify with many of the things he mentioned. It left me at a loss about where to go forward, though.

I hold it close to my core that critical thinking skills go hand-in-hand with a brighter individual and collective future. What do I say to someone who I think is falling into the trap of a logical fallacy that doesn't sound like I know better? If I think someone is misguided, am I supposed to listen to why they feel the way they do, then ask them to consider something not as wrong? What if they hold it true as their own set of Good Facts and are not open to conversation?

Or is the point of the article that maybe I'm objectively wrong about many policies I hold dear? LGBT equality, gender equality, etc, are causes that I'm actually wrong about and I should look at the other side for inspiration, regardless of where their 'Truth' comes from?

I'm deeply saddened that I not only observe and sometimes identify with the smug left, but I also have many conversations with family and friends who I would describe in a similar article with a different bent as the angry, illogical right. What do I do to reach those folks?

I'm also worried that their way of life is actually dying, because it is dying. Their jobs, their biggest source of pride, are disappearing, and attempting to repatriate them will likely result in big business investing in capital (robots) over labor (rural workers).

I want to support a smart policy that helps them get back on their feet. Is thinking that Donald Trump likely won't be able to bring them what they seek a smug liberal policy? If so, am I supposed to feel bad about thinking it, try to convince people about it, shut up about it, or none of the above?

Additionally, I think this is the type of article that appears when both sides live in an echo chamber. Yes, this is an excoriation of the smug left, but the smug left and this article only exists if we live in our own bubbles. The thing nobody knows and everyone wants to figure out is how to break down those barriers.

When you converse with people don't just listen to tell them where they are wrong. That's the biggest issue. You already have an idea what s/he will say, so you just wait for them to finish so you can explain how wrong they are. There are feelings behind those opinions. And don't dare to tell me (or yourself) that smart people think only logically and are unaffected by their feelings. You are, so don't be so quick to dismiss people with different feelings than yours.

Listen, really listen to them and think why do they have this opinion. What feelings are behind it. This is how you have a conversation with a person and not a lecture.

Thanks for your feedback, but I'm still concerned and would appreciate some more.

I think a difference I've seen this election is between verifiable facts and debate-able opinions. I can listen and probe intently until my partners face is blue but, for example, if they believe the world is flat, there's very little middle ground we can get opinion-wise since we fundamentally disagree about the shape of the earth.

I try to be as open as possible to differences in opinions and try my best to accept conflicting evidence to my world view. But, if someone is trying to convince me of something a couple google searches could easily disprove, I end up exasperated by the discussion. What do I do there? Not trust google?

My knee jerk thought is that these folks have been misinformed by people they trust. I want to help fix that, not lecture them. The tactics dont matter as much as the result.

The biggest eye-opener for me was that I shouldn't try to convince people on the spot. Debating political and similar issues is like challenging people. This means that even if at some point they start doubting their position, they will not admit it, they will just raise their shield and double down. Continuing further will just bring resentment. You cannot teach anything to anybody. We have a saying in my country - "You can only take by force, you can't give anything by force".

This lead to rethinking pretty much everything I do. I think it can be summarized in one word - patience. I have to pick my battles carefully. I shouldn't jump to every opportunity to debate. I have to let some things go. I have to identify the good opportunities - where I can say something truly engaging, touching. Most importantly, I have to be brief. No long answers, at most just 1 reply after that. No battles, they can't be won on the spot but perhaps I will make the other party reflect on what I've said later. This means that I have be efficient, leading to thinking about the other people involved, why they have their position and how to bring to their attention that there are other just as credible positions.

A couple of quotes I find worthy:

Plato: "[...]if you talk to any ordinary Spartan, he seems to be stupid, but eventually, like an expert marksman, he shoots in some brief remark that proves you to be only a child".

Epictetus: "Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought. [...] So that if ever any talk should happen among the unlearned concerning philosophic theorems, be you, for the most part, silent. For there is great danger in immediately throwing out what you have not digested. And, if anyone tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you may be sure that you have begun your business. For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk".

Thank you, blahi.

I'm with you word for word. And on top of all this self-doubt and soul-searching, I can't help but think that, should the roles have been reversed, we wouldn't be given the same level of credit we're affording to the "angry, illogical right". As long as we're the ones who are trying our best to support all of humanity, I think our heads and hearts are in the right place - Our expression of these ideas could use work.

That's what's already happening for 25 years in my country (Russia). Even worse, liberals are much smaller group (10-20%) than in USA, but they teach everybody how to live with even more condescension.

That's why people like Putin.

So now you taste by yourself what you did to the world with too much left liberalism. Good luck with that and have your own Putin as a result.

What's the alternative? Centrism? Honestly curious.

I think it's conservatism. And by conservatism I mean not something archaic, stupid and with reliance only on tradition, like leftist think... It's motion to the same goals, only slower. People must have freedom. But too much freedom too fast always creates problems.

Each step must not make revolutions and counterrevolutions. Each step mustn't break people's minds. Each step must consider everything (not "goal for goal"). So conservatism is much more complex because you need to consider everything and with this knowledge make hard decisions, not just run to the sun with some hope that everything will be all right, like drug addicts do. For me, leftism and all modern liberalism is infantile and conservatism is for grownups.

This is a fantastic op-ed that I'm glad you brought my attention to, but I'm most of the way through it and I feel like I can almost sum it up as "Ode to the Backfire Effect"

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect

:)

"Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?"

Wow, considering this was written in April, that ended up being remarkably prescient, eh?

Thanks for posting this great read. I think it belongs on the front page of HN, having witnessed HN's hyperbolic reaction to the election this morning.

It does an excellent job of diagnosing the American Left's political and social ills. It left out the most important part: a solution. It never actually validated either ideology nor proposed a solution beyond "make sure to respect and empathize with the other side."

I feel you never actually addressed the veracity of the parent poster's statement, just the tone. It is a valid criticism, to be sure, but I would like more.

I tried submitting it, and I see it may have (recently!) been on the front page!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12906783

It's getting some great commentary! Thanks!

I immediately thought of this article while reading their post. Both sides like demonizing and trivializing the other, but it's important to remember... these political parties are composed of millions of Americans. Both parties have stupid and genius members. Priorities is the only thing that separates us.

great read. one other thing that is apparent is despite this "we know better" mindset, liberals tend to operate on the emotional level (hence the name calling they resort to immediately as soon as they begin to lose an argument), whereas the republican camp typically appeals to logic.

Interesting - This is opposite my experience. The conservative party on social issues has been almost synonymous with Christian beliefs as long as I've been alive. Many discussions around modern social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) have boiled down to being called a "sinner", which I consider name calling, and a fundamentally impossible to argue with and actually entirely based on emotion (faith). This is not a situation I have faced with all or even most Republicans, but when I have faced the situation, it was with a Republican.

An argument can be made that abortion is a form of murder without resorting to religious arguments.

Things having to do with sexual behavior are in the realm of irrational "out of the box" so to speak, trying to bring logic into the discussion doesn't bode well for either side and can lead down a long and treacherous path deep into the ontology of human psyche.

Things I'm talking about are "simpler" things like:

- gun control. most discussions with liberal anti-gun opponents end up in 2 basic scenarios: "guns are bad mmmk" or "you must be some kind of a gun-toting redneck"

- illegal immigration. this is a huge can of [il]logical blunders from the liberal side. but essentially boils down to "dis rasist".

- global warming or rather it's anthropological component. normally starts and ends by labeling the opponent "a climate change denier" no matter how adamant one is about trying to convey that this is specifically an anthro component of it that is being discussed.

- then there's the ever present "dis rasist" and "h8r" labels used every time there is a racial component to the issue. these are applied at will. don't like Obamacare (or anything Obama)? - "rasist h8r"; think the dude had a gun and not a book when a [black] cop shot him? - "major league racist"... etc ad nauseum.

there are other liberal sacred cows but these are just some of the ones talked about more often esp lately with the election and all.

An argument can be made that if abortion WAS murder, and prosecutable as murder, then every time an innocent woman had a miscarriage or stillbirth (which happens much more often than you realize), there would have to be a murder investigation (due to the possibility of the mom having induced the abortion somehow).

If the prospect of forcing millions of innocent women already suffering from a miscarriage through a trial (not to mention ALL the added cost and effort) doesn't horrify you, it should.

Secondly, over 50% of fertilized eggs never actually implant into the uterus and get washed out. If nature itself is tossing fully half of the fertilized eggs out, then a few more won't make much of an ethical difference.

>> Secondly, over 50% of fertilized eggs never actually implant into the uterus and get washed out. If nature itself is tossing fully half of the fertilized eggs out, then a few more won't make much of an ethical difference.

you saying there's no difference between a fertilized egg and the fetus 2 hrs before childbirth?

I see your point, but, based on your portrayal of your opponents, you appear to be arguing primarily on the internet. Or are you seeing similar short-sighted arguments in person with friends, strangers, family?

To be honest lately its to the point where liberals (or rather their media hate machine) painted themselves a picture of a "big bad republican" which takes any discussion down that path pretty quickly in any setting.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear - You've had in person arguments with self-proclaimed liberals (strangers, friends, or otherwise) that all resulted in calling you names rather than continuing a civil discussion? And you have additionally not seen self-proclaimed republicans do similar?

I'm making the distinction of in-person discussions only because I do think sweeping negative statements have been made on both sides incessantly for years, but nowhere nearly as toxic or shameless as from the safety of anonymity. If that's the major source of "seeing both sides" for the public majority, seeing venomous Tweets and dismissive Facebook posts, it's no wonder that we're dealing with such a schism of understanding and fundamental respect.

In person arguments tend to be more civil, no doubt, although that also depends on the settings.

Liberal crowds tend to be passive-aggressive in general ("give us our safe space you fn bigots or we'll burn something" :) ) so these in person discussions also only work in "private" settings.

Observing this as we speak - "stupid rural whites ("hicks" from the article we're discussing) are to blame for trump's victory" type vibe in the lib news + street protests.

Right. I think we can agree here that fewer actual /discussions/ take place in support of shouting matches and veiled spite. I don't think that is constructive for anyone and, in my opinion, this is a technique cultivated by the fringes of the political spectrum made popular as well as easier than ever before.

If opinions are voiced in a respectful manner with the goal of achieving an understanding between those who think differently rather than a victory then the responses you receive are absolutely unacceptable, at least to me. I do hope you'll understand how someone can be wary to unquestionably validate generalizations about anyone, including liberals, without being provided much insight to the specific statements or situations that have preceded them. I personally respond well to self-reflection, as I find it important to keep mental context for my own emotions and motivations. From our conversation, allow me to offer some: I don't make the negative statements you've experienced but I have not dismayed them, not seeing them as equal to pain evoked from other derogatory statements like ethnic/gay slurs. Part of this is because my experience includes those derogatory statements coming from the mouths of those rural Americans so there is some "logical" motivation behind the statements being thrown back in their direction. Respect was not received, respect is not provided, and now here we are, worse off than before. Now aware of this, I will not enable a platform for those comments to be made regardless of the situation.

>>> I do hope you'll understand how someone can be wary to unquestionably validate generalizations about anyone, including liberals, without being provided much insight to the specific statements or situations that have preceded them.

Sure. But, as an example, one would have to be [intellectually?] dishonest to turn a blind eye to rampant namecalling and smear campaign tactics "the left" has employed during the elections. Don't think you need to go as deep as to analyze specific situations to see that.