So lets say you’re in a discussion with someone and you have conflicting viewpoints. You capture the moral high ground. You’ve established that you really have mankind’s best interests at heart, and that they are just acting from ulterior motives.
The turn off. They stop engaging you. Other people keep listening to them. What can be done?
Unfortunately, there’s really nothing you can do. It’s their choice whether to keep engaging you. But maybe you can reach out to the other people?
What makes you sure you took the moral high ground? (I don’t mean that snidely, perhaps they just didn’t believe your position was more moral)
Unfortunately tho, I have found that morals are some of the most subjective positions we have. Trying to debate them is all for naught. Make subtle hints towards the morals and continue trying to find a flaw in their descriptions.
If you’re trying to convince them, rather than berate them, the last thing you want to do is make them feel immoral. Steer it towards ignorance as their excuse. Try to find great historical figures that explicitly (no bones about it) agree with your positions, ones that they would know and have great respect for.
Not much made me question my leftistness (?) other than when I started reading about Jefferson and Franklin.
Let’s take a really simple case. Someone is advocating policy X, I say that not only is policy X bad, but their fundamental reason for advocating it is racist. You point it out and they start shutting you out.
Its like, how many times can you keep getting beaten and still take yourself seriously? I think even if they shut off that deep down they really know they’re intellectually and morally bankrupt. Hopefully…
Sounds like a popularity contest. You have to get into the forum’s politics and win over key members. Have them take your side. It’ll give you more credibility.
Although in 95% of those situations, it may be too much work that it just isn’t worth it.
I think the problem is that you’re very skilled at debate but not as skilled at rhetoric.
I learned something really important from the Lou Church memorial lecture a couple years ago. Judge action not intent. Whether something is advocated on racist grounds (which is not fundamentally unliberatarian) or not, it only matters if the policy or idea is actually unlibertarian, not whether it is racist.
Another thing is, once you point out someone is contradicting themselves, the conversation is usually over.
Random thoughts:
Congratulations for discovering this secret at such an early age. People don’t like being criticized, no matter what. And you have seen with your own eyes what they will do about it.
That’s why I like Mises’ line of reasoning. Accepting the other fellow’s goals and showing him how his desired course of action will produce the opposite of what he wants. Of course, being a genius like him who knows how to show this helps.
In the case you posited, instead of saying he is racist, a personal attack that will certainly make him tune you out, you could say, “Well that sounds like a well thought out plan [= always agree with him about something first], but doesn’t it harm black people much more than whites? After all, it will do such and such.”
Realize that the “moral high ground” is an illusion and try to figure out some new position.
Thanks for the advice guys.
Thought about this last night. Being able to influence people is an important skill. Making your case in a manner which is inclusive and inspiring is hard to do, but yields much better results than the alternative.
Yeah. I’m also going to go with the belief that people don’t really like to be criticized. If someone say something that you disagree with what you do in that situation is that you say what you think and then you go on from there. Real life isn’t quite like the internet where you can say just whatever the heck you feel like to someone and expect to get away with it. Other people have feelings too.
I was talking about the internet. I do much better in real life when people can see I’m patient and understanding. It’s also a little harder to run away in real life.
Sieben, I wouldn’t recommend taking the moral high-ground in internet discussions because that usually distances yourself from the other person. I usually try the common-ground method and try to find things which everyone agrees upon. Once I’ve minimized the opposition and other people can begin to understand what I’m saying I start differentiating and saying my point of view, but taking the moral high-ground sounds as if you’re minimalizing the other person or their views when you should be trying to find common ground since that would help your cause more.
Hmm, what about bloomj31 types? Guys who understand all the consequences of the things they advocate but still go ahead out of racism or misanthropy? There’s not much you can do… if they try to dress up their bigotry in fancy words like “patriotism” or “traditionalism”, my instinct is to expose them. Even that might not be enough, since the audience might be predisposed to whatever misanthrophic value system 
To be honest, trolling people in real life is good fun.
All you have to do is say you’re a capitalist and mouths drop open. It just seems that I’m addicted to being the lone libertarian amongst a majority of socialists and other collectivists.
Study the Socratic method and you’ll win every time. Rhetoric and argument winning in short exchanges is just something that needs to be learned like everything else. All you need is practice and application.
my entire goal in arguing or conversing with someone of an opposing viewpoint is not to convince them but to convince the listeners.
so I’d have a cigarette to celebrate the victory.
As sport, I can see it but if you are trying to make friends and change minds, it’s not worth your time. Guys like that aren’t interested in intellectual rigor, or epistemology. You’re arguing against bad ideas 4th and 5th hand at best, from someone who can’t articulate a fraction of the original argument.