Quote of the day 25th September 2017

"To disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely. You need to grant your adversary moral respect; give him the intellectual benefit of doubt; have sympathy for his motives and participate empathically with his line of reasoning.

And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded of what he has to say."

(Bret Stephen, from  a lecture delivered at the Lowy Institute Media Award dinner in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday, Sept. 23 and also published in the New York Times. The award recognizes excellence in Australian foreign affairs journalism)

Comments

Jim said…
well yes, that is true. However, when it comes to socialism and things like that well we can just look at a history book.

You see walls and things around socialist states. Then you come to understand that the wall is not there to try to prevent desperate people from trying to get in.

Then a lot of things make sense.
5:24 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
You are right about that, of course.

It is unlikely that anyone will ever persuade me that socialism is a good idea.

Individual socialists can, however, occasionally make sense when talking about specific points - as for example, Corbyn and McDonnell are right that using PFI to build hospitals (as Blair and Brown did) was a huge mistake.

Therefore when I listen to socialists I listen on the basis of my mind being open to the possibility that they may very occasionally say something worth listening to.

Ditto with people whose views are to the right of mine.

One of my problems with many socialists and nearly everyone on the hard-left (and also the extreme right) is that I rarely get the impression that any of them give me, or anyone else, the same consideration.
10:58 pm
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