cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/22757703, but revised to try to find less individual focused ideas/responses.
In thinking on the classic Sartre quote concerning the folly of arguing with anti-Semites as if they’re arguing in good faith, as well as the Swift quote regarding reasoning being unable to correct an ill opinion one didn’t reason themselves into…
It’s made me wonder if there might be some ways to play off of these approaches to spread beneficial information more than the harmful info they’ve otherwise enabled to abound. What might be some ways to pass along helpful or generally benign info without getting as caught in the weeds explaining things, continuing to allow more harmful info to flourish?
For those unfamiliar, here are the quotes in question:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre
And: “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.” ― Jonathan Swift.
(This second one takes on various forms.):::
It’s kind of interesting that yours is the first reply in this vein that I’ve seen so far. I honestly expected more.
I think though that there’s possibly more of a gray to this, which is why I was asking. Think somewhere in the space of white lies, benign comments that aren’t as forthcoming as some might prefer, but they often serve to make someone feel a little better, and who knows, maybe that feeling better helps lift their self-esteem enough to improve themselves so that the white lies fall away to be honest compliments or comments.