Hello all, long-time mises.org fan first time poster here. If you’re short on time, just skip to the last paragraph.
As an Austro-libertarian student, I am something of an oddball amongst the teeming masses of hippies and statist do-gooders that dominate the college scene here in Tally. I enjoy being an outsider to the extent that it differentiates me from the conformists, but I’m having a bit of a problem.
As many of you may know, community college is kind of like the thirteenth grade. Many people attend it because they do not have the credentials or the willpower or whatever is necessary to attend a four-year university. The one I attend is more of a place for social interaction than an institution of higher learning. I know some folks who go there just to mope around and could care less about their academic futures. Many of these people have vociferous opinions on a wide range of issues. They are very zealous but very uneducated.
Given these conditions, how is one to debate? I regularly engage people in friendly arguments, but once I bring up ideas above the level of high school economics courses people start to look at me with contempt. Anything intellectual is “uncool.” Emotion-based rhetoric (epitomized by President Obama and talk radio) is the only socially-acceptable method of argument. I like being an outsider, but if social exile is the price of espousing liberty-minded ideas then I’m not sure if it is worth the pain. Humans are social creatures, and if I am to spend the next few semesters with these bozos then I need to at least find a way of connecting with them lest I turn into a cave-dwelling hermit.
So how does one debate the willfully ignorant? How does one make the ideas of Mises and Rothbard appealing to an underachiever who considers wearing his pants around his knees to be the epitome of coolness? Or is it worth even trying? Should I just shut up and stop trying to convert people for the time being?
The answer is don’t get into a pissing contest/debate as it is futile. I recommend going to the website www.theadvocates.org and review their tips on asking questions that spark the person into thinking in a different manner. Otherwise you are fighting 14 years of the finest public schooling/ pro-state indoctrination.
I think my dad once again fits this very description. I decided to go along a bit more statist terms this time around an voila absolutely no success.
I was talking about the military budget and how it could most certainly be reduced (considerably) and that the Neoconservatives have run rampant during the past 10 years. He told me that I was anti-Semitic and that “gutting” our defense was totally unacceptable. He’s like we are a super-power and waving your “theoritical bullshit in front of me, means absolutely nothing”. He then tried to tell me that I can go down my “isolationist” and “kooky” path, but it almost never works.
I’m really starting to believe that being a lifelong listner of Rush Limbaugh renders you brain dead with ZERO chance of recovery.
He also told me that an increase in money supply is NOT inflation and that the recent numbers just happened to work in my favor this time.
I really must say I now having a burning hatred for Fox News and those conservative lummoxes.
Boot Glenn Beck off and replace him with Judge Napolitano!
For your own sake, give up. I’d advice debating only people who look intelligent enough. With them a process of small talks can do miracles. And of course you’ll be entertained too, instead of pounding on you nerves. Anarchism will not come about by us debating, so loosen up and enjoy debates.
I think you really hit the nail on the head there. I cannot compete with a lifetime of indoctrination, but perhaps I can get people to think in a slightly different manner.
“I’m really starting to believe that being a lifelong listner of Rush Limbaugh renders you brain dead with ZERO chance of recovery.”
As a former dedicated fan of Bill O’Reilly, I have to disagree. I have become a big believer in redemption. Perhaps my own transition is what makes me naively believe that I can change people’s way of thinking cold turkey.
Very few people are willing to expose their most sacrosanct beliefs to criticism, especially when attempting to defend them. You cannot force conversion by challenging their beliefs. You have to prove how your ideology will better realize their goals, not give them a new set.
How will libertarianism help President Obama achieve more power? How will it give us all a communal spirit and eliminate greed-driven business practices? How will it convert everyone to followers of organized religion? In other words, how can I possibly make it appealing to people who desire such things?
A philosophy that rests upon the notion of allowing consensual adults to do as they please is unappealing to students being trained by social scientists to micro-manage society’s behavior to fit their model of the perfect, planned, utopian state.
It will allow freedom. People can live in a commune if they want and attempt to from communal ties and bonds. Furthermore it will ensure that only those firms which supply consumer demand with the least amount of waste will be sucessful and get teh moneyz
Same as above
Well I agree with alot of people here, you really just should not try for the most part. However the best strategy would almost certianly be to appeal to emotion and the idea of free exchange, freedom, and voluntary interaction. Anyone who has a problem with this must go back upon everything that they believe in and must advocate slavery, just keep pressing home “freedom, freedom, freedom”
Also I when arguing talk about how the state decreases the quality of life for most people, only when they ask you to back up your assertion should you bring out the economics, and then if they don’t want to hear it they’ve basically conceded that you have a better idea of what is going on than they do.
Yes, which is probably why it is best to just not try.
I don’t know if the folks you argue with want to concentrate executive power. Ask them what happens once a more G.W. bush like guy gets voted into office.
Voluntary cooperation and exchange will be much more likely to foster community spirit than coercive means of expropriation to the benefit of anonymous recipients on government programs.
Ask them to define greed. Is Bill Gates greedy? He’s one of the world’s most charitable people. Also, it really helps to explain to them how the state allows large evil corporations to exist through regulation. Companies wouldn’t grow nearly as large without all of the legal protection they receive from the state.
Yeah, fundamentalists are tough. Ask them why they care about infidels in the first place.
Yes, but what are the goals of the planning? Show them how these goals would be better served by freedom.
Thanks for addressing my initial problem (explaining economics to people who only value emotional arguments). I normally try the opposite of what you suggested by starting with praxeological arguments and then pounding home how freedom improves quality of life in this or that area. Since explaining economic concepts (minimum wage creates unemployment) is more difficult and takes longer than making general statements (freedom is the way to go), I tend to start with the former. But I can see how it would turn some people off.
That’s what’s funny. Prior to the '08 election, my leftist professors/friends were terrified by the executive’s power grabs. Now that their guy is in, most are not the least-bit concerned. The reverse applies to the unprincipled conservatives–all for a powerful executive under Bush, and now they’re suddenly becoming libertarian toward the issue. Put Palin in office and they’ll be statists again.
Well put.
I can see what you are getting at, and I wish it would work. The problem is that this approach usually requires a discussion of economic concepts, such as how zero-prices create shortages, or how licensing schemes shift supply to the left and drive up prices. I once used such arguments to attack the argument that government involvment in health care helps the poor. I was derided as being “too intellectual.”
Make it harder for them to defend. I think the “government helps the bad capitalists” is usually fairly effective against the misguided left, as they want to level the playing field. Ask them if the government, even of supposed socialist countries, has managed to accomplish that.
I’ve had very little success in debating with statists. Not because I lack knowledge of the position I’m advocating, or because they manage to “out-logic” me or some such, but simply because they tend to refuse to even entertain certain positions of libertarianism–regardless of how much reason, logic or historical, empirical, analytical evidence you present to reinforce your case. I find that when I attempt the technique of asking questions in order to get them to alter their perspective a bit, they just don’t answer them–either because they can’t or they simply won’t. Half the time it feels like you’re talking to a brick wall. It’s quite frustrating, and rather crushing to my faith in the human race, tbh.
You still have faith in the human race? When you come across these types, you know, the ones who just tighten the ideological blinders when their faith is brought into question, just remember who they are, so you know who you can’t trust.
Calling capitalists “bad” would mean conceding the central Marxist premise that they are exploiters. Plus it’s wrong, being that they are, well, good. Except for when they conspire with politicians, in which case they are bad.
I’ll try that one then. Governments are incapable of making us equal, they only prop up bad capitalists and oppress everyone, including disadvantaged groups, like the poor and minorities. Protecing these groups is high on the list of most everyone I talk to regularly. When someone challenges that politics has nothing but the best interests of these groups at heart, then I’ll whip out the Austrian economics.
All business men want to exploit as much as possible, and externalize as much as possible. That’s how prisoners maximize profits. I abstain from a moral judgment, but when you hear about Bhopal, or round-up ready soybeans, it’s hard to not call it exploitation.
I would say, “when the power structures exist to grant them the means to exploit”.
Or explain to them how the class struggle based on production is an illusion. The struggle should be the state vs the individual.