There's a trap that I often feel separates those who seek genuine free thinking from those who simply want to get back at their, parents, teachers or ex girlfriends for not worshiping at the altar of their genius and that is the ability to genuinely empathise and justify the argumentation of those who you feel are out to get you. Unless you are content living your life constantly accepting the steelman ideologies of someone else as your own in order to feel intellectually defended from criticism I think the ability to understand an opposing point of view to your own is utterly imperative. I think there is a correlation between the ability to argue from the perspective of your enemy and the strength of your own argument and world view, this is because although you may passionately disavow that perspective being able to understand, empathise with and even hypothetically defend an idea demonstrates a universal skill that you have honed, the understanding of the real strengths and weaknesses of an opponent's argument or position strongly suggests your ability to reason and critically think is well developed and will massively improve the credibility of your own opinions because if you can understand someone else's perspective genuinely and you’re still choosing to disagree you’re proving it is not because of an inability to understand or a lack of intellectual grasp on their perspective. You are also creating an opportunity for a middle ground to be found, in order to empathise with someone on some level you are investigating what they want, this provides you an opportunity to appeal to them beyond a simple might is right approach, compromise and the ability to build bridges will benefit you in the long term far more than totalitarian partisanship in my opinion. Sometimes that may require you to examine your own beliefs or to genuinely accept their view of you as something you had not considered but it is very important to understand if you are defending an existing idea or identity because you are loyal to it or because it is genuinely what you believe, often times people struggle to distinguish the two and can create unnecessary tension because a disagreement is not founded in authenticity it is instead founded in ego and stubbornness, once again realising this mechanism exists within yourself is the first step to identifying it in others.
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The haters are awfully quiet! Shhhhh @AaronRodgers12 is the goat.
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LUKA DONCIC MVP SZN WE HERE!!! #Lukadoncic #lakeshow
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‘Delighted to become the new manager of Man United. If you break down the words, we’re basically a group of united men…’
