I just feel more and more it’s a cheap excuse to dismiss debate out of hand rather then confront an uncomfortable truth.

I just don’t buy that anyone online cares if someone is arguing in good or bad faith

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    15·
    10 days ago

    Those that argue in bad faith usually abandon consistency in the process. Because they don’t believe in the argument they are presenting, as soon as they are proven wrong they simply pivot to a new, and likely, contradictory argument. This often occurs because their real reason for their desired outcome is abhorrent (and they are aware of that) but they argue a different reason that would have the same outcome. This is prime red meat for racists and misogynists, as an example.

    • Opinionhaver@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      they don’t believe in the argument they are presenting

      I don’t think that’s the case here. While people might lie when there’s something to gain from it, we generally don’t hold views we don’t believe in - because that creates cognitive dissonance.

      More often, I think it’s that people hold views they feel are true on an intuitive level, but these beliefs usually aren’t something they’ve arrived at independently from first principles. Instead, they’ve adopted them from somewhere else - social groups, media, culture - and haven’t really thought them through.

      The belief becomes part of their identity, and they accept it at face value. They know they’re right, so anyone who disagrees must automatically be wrong. That makes it easy to dismiss or ridicule opposing views rather than trying to understand where that “false belief” comes from. After all, why waste time listening to someone who just doesn’t get what you already know to be true?

      What people need is humility. There’s no way one can be right about literally everything - we just don’t know what we’re wrong about. It might be something trivial but it also might be one of our core beliefs. The truth is not always intuitive or something that we like. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable.

      • Ragnor@feddit.dk
        1·
        10 days ago

        I totally agree. There are three small words that a lot of people need to use more often:

        “I think that…”

        Being able to distinguish between opinions and things that you can prove is right is important for debates. The goal is to reach the best conclusion, and you cannot do that if you base the conclusion on falsehoods.