Have you ever tried to communicate an idea to someone who is very angry with you? Probably didn’t have much luck getting your idea across did you?
I watch people on Facebook and in real life arguing about guns or religion or some other political issue and they are trying to communicate their ideas into the face of someone who is in complete disagreement with their view. If you break this down a bit you know that they don’t ‘like’ the other person and really don’t know much about them. So, there is no real communication. Mostly both sides are shouting at a wall.
I had a friend that did not like her daughter-in-law(nothing new in the universe, eh?). Anyway, the son and the mom had a grand falling out and mom is always wanting to get back in touch by ‘sorting out their disagreement’. I have advised her to not continually go in on a point of DISAGREEMENT. Trying to discuss all the details and who is right, etc. gets nowhere. It would not be that hard to find things to agree upon that are completely unrelated to the mom vs daughter-in-law disaster. And talk about that.
When one finds points to agree upon, they will find they start to like each other more and more and will communicate – real communication, where they actually are willing to receive each others ideas. 99% of the time the big thing that was creating the massive upset becomes insignificant. Or they will now have enough willingness to communicate and not just tell the other how wrong they are.
My observation is that most people will think that the person on the other side of the fence is just stupid and not listening. Guess what, they think the exact same thing about you!!
Shouting and directing more and more volume of data to try and convince the person you are right and they are wrong will just create more of a rift and make things more difficult. You will like the person or person’s on the other side less and less; you will think less of them to the point of doing harm to them is not too difficult to conceive.
You can see this every day in the world.
Just calling the other person an idiot, really doesn’t solve anything.
So, if you want to get your point of view to someone that has a completely opposite view to yours you will need some real communication with them. This means that you will have to find points of common agreement. If that person does not like you at least a little bit or have some kind of respect for you(which is a type of liking) then there is no way in the world that are going to ‘get’ your communication.
So, if you want to change the world, if you want the person on the opposing ‘side’ to understand your point of view, you are going to have to ‘get in communication with them. This does not mean throwing more volumes of data. It means finding who they are as a person, what makes them tick. You will probably have to like them at least just a little bit. The goal is not getting them to like you but you liking them – it will never work the other way. If you can’t get yourself to the point of being willing to hear who they are and their side of the story then they will never listen to yours. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they say. I am sure there will be points of agreement. Maybe not on the subject of guns or religion or abortion but maybe it will be on muscle cars or crafts, who knows.
This can apply to individuals and countries.
There are a small percentage of people that will refuse to get in communication – they are a real minority.
