Sometimes the urge to correct disinformation is *so* strong.
But it's not always the right time, and people aren't always receptive.
(Sometimes they know they're bending the truth, but pursuing other ends when doing so.)
At those moments, one can "use the tools"...
But a humanist strategy is to learn to sit with and learn from the discomfort of not being able to fix every factually incorrect belief.
We're not always going to share the same convictions.
We *do* have to share the same world.
@MLClark I think sometimes we try to hard to be the "adult in the room". I realize the argument for "now isn't the time" is a respectful position to take, but then you have to ask; When is a good time? If misinformation or disinformation is rearing it's ugly head my opinion is that it is our responsibility, our duty to call it out. The key is on how you deliver it. If your combative then it will be combative. Maintaining reason and calm is best. It isn't easy, but it is necessary.
"When is a good time?"
When there's capacity to hear it. We often think of the internet as the most important battleground, but it's really not.
There's a lot of bluster online that stumps at meaningful discourse - but mostly, we're dealing with people working through trauma, or deflecting from discomfort.
"If you're combative then it will be combative."
Unfortunately, disinformation doesn't work like that; propagandists will leverage *any* engagement to more hostile ends.
Yes, I was also thinking, when the argument has a chance of producing some desired outcome.
This was my favourite lesson from New Atheism: we are far too enamoured by the idea that a "good argument" will bring us all to an amicably shared truth.
The lie of "rationalism" is that we're ever operating at a remove from biochemistry.
We carry into every debate not only core values shaped by experience, but also an understanding of how discourse can be leveraged for power.
Online, very few of us are playing for "truth" so much as "security in our initial POV".
No author - I'm referring to the whole flawed spectacle of the era. Even well-intended thinkers tended to get caught up in the charisma of performance, and their elevated platforms also made these humans deeply vulnerable to conflating positions that already aligned with cultural preference with self-evidently rational perspectives.
(Harris, for sure. Hitchens, Dawkins, Pinker, and Shermer, too. It is VERY easy to rest on one's laurels when widely acclaimed for them.)
(And I say that with no animus toward any of them. Celebrity does weird things to human beings - rarely good for their critical thinking in the long run.)
As an atheist who tries not to be dismissive, I certainly hope that it's possible! 🤞😬
In all seriousness, I focus more on secular humanism, because I find that arguing over baseline cosmology isn't as important as asking what each of us *does* with our respective cosmologies. That said, I'm sorely chuffed to know that O'Connell's still doing a good job holding the line respectfully in the realm of atheist/theist discourse.
@MLClark Alex O'Connell is really good at seeing both sides of a position and regularly has interviews with people who would never sit down with Harris or Krauss. He is an atheist, but not a dismissive one. If that makes sense? He'll call out pure bunk, but he's careful to not be offensive. @ceorl