Wouldn't such a goal demand mutual respect and openness to the other person's perspective? How can you demonstrate an openness to an alternative perspective if the purpose of the dialogue is to change someone's mind or prove them wrong? Many of the scripted techniques here lead the conversation down a linear path that is reductive to the opposing perspective, how is this fundamentally different from televised political debates?
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think every dialogue is better when both parties have mutual respect. We probably agree on "openness" but it depends on what you mean by it. I'll clarify with a brief summary of what I mean by openness. I think everybody should be open-minded, as I explain in this video from our Equipped for Life Course: https://youtu.be/ovxAxJUyZA4. But there are lots of misconceptions about what "open-mindedness" means. I don't think it means being wishy washy, and I don't think it means going through life only 50/50 sure of all of your beliefs. I think you have to earn your confidence in your beliefs by analyzing the best arguments on both sides of a given issue. For example, I have about 30% confidence, if that, in my views on illegal immigration, because I haven't really done the work to understand the strongest arguments from both sides. So I hold my views on that with a very open hand. On abortion, the more I study it, the more confidence I earn in my view being true, although I'm not 100% confident that I'm right. My mind could be changed on abortion, just like how my mind could be changed on Christianity and virtually all of my other views. But I'm a lot more confident that I'm right about abortion because of how much work I've done studying both sides of the issue, and I think I've earned that confidence. When I'm in a conversation with someone, I'm trying to love that person as well as I can in that moment. Sometimes that means just listening to them, and sometimes that means making an argument for what I believe to be true, because there is intrinsic (and usually instrumental) value to believing true things. So if a pro-choice person makes what I believe is an illogical argument about why abortion is justified by poverty, I think it's perfectly reasonable to respond with a clarification question or a counter-argument. Notice that doing this doesn't make me closed-minded. I freely admit that I currently have a view, and I will try to persuade people to believe that view is true until someone changes my mind, which is absolutely possible given the right kind of argument. The key is that when I make my counter-argument, the attitude isn't "you're definitely wrong since your conclusion is different from mine and this argument will prove that to you." It's more, "I'm not currently convinced that your premise leads to your conclusion, but I'm open. I'm just not convinced yet. Here's the part of that argument that isn't persuading me at the moment. Maybe you could clarify something for me if I'm misunderstanding your argument, or perhaps your argument is actually not a great one and we'll discover that together as we discuss it further." Those are two VERY different attitudes to have in a dialogue, and I think the best dialogues are had when both parties have the latter attitude. So if that's what you meant by "openness" than we agree there too. As far as "scripted techniques" go, I think our style is the least scripted compared to virtually any other pro-life apologetics organization I'm aware of. And I'm not slamming them. We have a ton of respect for other apologetics group, but our style is certainly a bit different in some ways, and I think this is one of them. We don't really have a flowchart mentality to our dialogues. Certainly there are certain kinds of helpful clarification questions and counter-arguments that we often use if they will be helpful in a given context, but we're not following a script or something. This is why starting at 19:35 in this speech video, https://youtu.be/X59V_IhyaA4?t=19m35s, I teach people to be willing to change topics if that's what will be the most helpful to the person you're talking to. Hope that clarifies things.
Appreciate the response Josh! We are in agreement regarding openness as you've defined it. Your conviction comes from the work you've put in to reach the conclusion you did and confidence in that work. I respect that, it is very rare to find this type of conviction within the abortion debate. I'd also like to compliment you on your presentation, you come across very well on screen. It takes a lot of work to be that comfortable, engaging, and most importantly authentic, while talking into a camera. Unfortunately, that's not quite the kind of openness I was getting at. You state (in a newer post) that your goal is to "change someone's mind about a core belief within the context of genuine friendship." Within this context, you are missing a rather crucial ingredient of "friendship" don't you think? Aren't you missing tolerance? One of the fundamental aspects of any relationship is an acceptance of someone as they are, not as you'd like them to be. Yet, crucially, your advocacy requires an implicit rejection of the status quo. Something must change and you seek to be a catalyst for that change. You state that you seek to love the person in the moment, but one sided love is not a relationship, nor is it friendship. Tolerance is a peace treaty. No side can accept a peace in which their most basic needs are not satisfied. How can you have "friendship" if there is no peace? How can you have civil dialogue when existential conflict is inevitable and desired? Indeed, despite the respectful way you appear to conduct yourself on campus, you often lament that you are, at times, met with uncivil protests. Isn't this to be expected in such a situation? If you desire friendship, where is your peace treaty? How do you remove the fundamental threat your side is perceived to represent to the safety of the other? Within such an existential conflict, mere civility or openness is simply not enough. Two further comments: The argument that you are less scripted than other groups is not a particularly strong or convincing rebuttal for obvious reasons. You are wrong on immigration. From a practical standpoint you do great damage to your advocacy with your current stance. You can't persuade about the importance of fetal rights if your audience believes you to be complicit in the denial of their human rights. Equal rights for some but not others isn't a particularly strong argument.
How can you demonstrate an openness to an alternative perspective if the purpose of the dialogue is to change someone's mind or prove them wrong?
Many of the scripted techniques here lead the conversation down a linear path that is reductive to the opposing perspective, how is this fundamentally different from televised political debates?
We probably agree on "openness" but it depends on what you mean by it. I'll clarify with a brief summary of what I mean by openness. I think everybody should be open-minded, as I explain in this video from our Equipped for Life Course: https://youtu.be/ovxAxJUyZA4. But there are lots of misconceptions about what "open-mindedness" means. I don't think it means being wishy washy, and I don't think it means going through life only 50/50 sure of all of your beliefs. I think you have to earn your confidence in your beliefs by analyzing the best arguments on both sides of a given issue.
For example, I have about 30% confidence, if that, in my views on illegal immigration, because I haven't really done the work to understand the strongest arguments from both sides. So I hold my views on that with a very open hand. On abortion, the more I study it, the more confidence I earn in my view being true, although I'm not 100% confident that I'm right. My mind could be changed on abortion, just like how my mind could be changed on Christianity and virtually all of my other views. But I'm a lot more confident that I'm right about abortion because of how much work I've done studying both sides of the issue, and I think I've earned that confidence.
When I'm in a conversation with someone, I'm trying to love that person as well as I can in that moment. Sometimes that means just listening to them, and sometimes that means making an argument for what I believe to be true, because there is intrinsic (and usually instrumental) value to believing true things. So if a pro-choice person makes what I believe is an illogical argument about why abortion is justified by poverty, I think it's perfectly reasonable to respond with a clarification question or a counter-argument.
Notice that doing this doesn't make me closed-minded. I freely admit that I currently have a view, and I will try to persuade people to believe that view is true until someone changes my mind, which is absolutely possible given the right kind of argument.
The key is that when I make my counter-argument, the attitude isn't "you're definitely wrong since your conclusion is different from mine and this argument will prove that to you." It's more, "I'm not currently convinced that your premise leads to your conclusion, but I'm open. I'm just not convinced yet. Here's the part of that argument that isn't persuading me at the moment. Maybe you could clarify something for me if I'm misunderstanding your argument, or perhaps your argument is actually not a great one and we'll discover that together as we discuss it further." Those are two VERY different attitudes to have in a dialogue, and I think the best dialogues are had when both parties have the latter attitude.
So if that's what you meant by "openness" than we agree there too.
As far as "scripted techniques" go, I think our style is the least scripted compared to virtually any other pro-life apologetics organization I'm aware of. And I'm not slamming them. We have a ton of respect for other apologetics group, but our style is certainly a bit different in some ways, and I think this is one of them. We don't really have a flowchart mentality to our dialogues. Certainly there are certain kinds of helpful clarification questions and counter-arguments that we often use if they will be helpful in a given context, but we're not following a script or something. This is why starting at 19:35 in this speech video, https://youtu.be/X59V_IhyaA4?t=19m35s, I teach people to be willing to change topics if that's what will be the most helpful to the person you're talking to.
Hope that clarifies things.
We are in agreement regarding openness as you've defined it. Your conviction comes from the work you've put in to reach the conclusion you did and confidence in that work. I respect that, it is very rare to find this type of conviction within the abortion debate. I'd also like to compliment you on your presentation, you come across very well on screen. It takes a lot of work to be that comfortable, engaging, and most importantly authentic, while talking into a camera.
Unfortunately, that's not quite the kind of openness I was getting at. You state (in a newer post) that your goal is to "change someone's mind about a core belief within the context of genuine friendship." Within this context, you are missing a rather crucial ingredient of "friendship" don't you think? Aren't you missing tolerance? One of the fundamental aspects of any relationship is an acceptance of someone as they are, not as you'd like them to be. Yet, crucially, your advocacy requires an implicit rejection of the status quo. Something must change and you seek to be a catalyst for that change. You state that you seek to love the person in the moment, but one sided love is not a relationship, nor is it friendship. Tolerance is a peace treaty. No side can accept a peace in which their most basic needs are not satisfied. How can you have "friendship" if there is no peace? How can you have civil dialogue when existential conflict is inevitable and desired? Indeed, despite the respectful way you appear to conduct yourself on campus, you often lament that you are, at times, met with uncivil protests. Isn't this to be expected in such a situation? If you desire friendship, where is your peace treaty? How do you remove the fundamental threat your side is perceived to represent to the safety of the other? Within such an existential conflict, mere civility or openness is simply not enough.
Two further comments:
The argument that you are less scripted than other groups is not a particularly strong or convincing rebuttal for obvious reasons.
You are wrong on immigration. From a practical standpoint you do great damage to your advocacy with your current stance. You can't persuade about the importance of fetal rights if your audience believes you to be complicit in the denial of their human rights. Equal rights for some but not others isn't a particularly strong argument.