[nntwozz]

"It means mutual empathy — they get you and you get them. It's discovering similar values, experiences and perspectives. It's a feeling of trust and comfort where you both feel safe to say what is truly on your mind."

Ah, sounds all fine and dandy!

But what do you do when you discover you don't have similar values?

Maybe there's no answer in todays polarized world; personally aspire to this:

    I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.

    — Abraham Lincoln

[joules77]

Got to go beyond shared values/experiences/perspective.

The deeper commonality lies in the messy hardware we all share - the human mind.

If you take a Philosophy or Psychology class, it usually starts by showing how incoherent and conflict-ridden the mind is.

From Plato’s tripartite soul (reason vs. appetite vs. spirit), to Hume’s (reason is just a slave to our passions), to Freud’s (id vs ego vs superego), to Kahneman (System 1 vs. System 2) there’s a constant theme running - the mind is not unified.

It’s a battlefield of impulses, instincts, ideals, and rationalizations.

And because we all live inside this strange ridiculous machine, one that can easily go off balance, we’re all vulnerable in the same essential way.

We all know what it’s like to be overwhelmed, to act irrationally, to feel pulled in opposite directions. That’s the real basis for connection: shared fragility, not shared ideology.

That’s why systems(and relationships) that are grounded in patience, forgiveness, empathy, compassion etc survive the long term.

They don’t depend on sameness, they depend on the recognition that everyone is doing battle with themselves. When that realization dawns it get easier to speak to the other person showing you understand this fact. And then we get the possibility of connection even across radical differences.

[xelxebar]

> But what do you do when you discover you don't have similar values?

Look deeper? Explicitly held beliefs are just a sliver of the tip of the iceberg that constitutes our experience as humans. The US, in particular, seems particularly fond of declarations of identity, so it helps to understand that such things are about as fundamental as the health of your pancreas.

IMHO, polarizing reactions, whether in others or yourself, look like obvious fear responses, which often respond to empathy and understanding.

More than fear, certainty smells like the mind killer to me.

[op00to]

I’ve spent the better part of 20 years trying to get through to my Trump loving, racist, hateful father in law using compassion and shared understanding. At some point you need to accept that some people don’t respond to that, and usually it’s the people who lean towards the authoritative that are not receptive.

[FearNotDaniel]

Your comment is very confusing. The article is about making a connection with someone, the measure of which is that you have achieved a shared understanding. It sounds as if you have managed that. And yet it seems that this is not enough for you and you are expecting to “get through” to him in some other sense, that he will be “receptive” to something more that goes beyond mutual understanding, that he will “respond to that” shared understanding with something that goes beyond personal connection. What is it you are looking for, that would make that connection complete? That he recants all of his views and changes them to be in line with your own? Or is there something else that you expect shared understanding to lead to, rather than being a goal in itself?

[op00to]

I want him to realize that he achieved what he did not because he’s somehow better than people whose skin is darker than his, but because he was very lucky in where and when he was born, who his parents were, etc. I want him to realize that pulling up the ladder behind him (he often says that minorities don’t deserve the same benefits of society that he got) does nothing but make life worse for other people.

[BobaFloutist]

They were pretty clearly responding to the previous comment more than to the article directly??

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I believe that another quote attributed to Honest Abe, is ”The best way to destroy an enemy, is to make him your friend.”

In my own life, I regularly interact (and connect) with folks that are notoriously difficult to deal with.

This had significant advantages in my career. The folks in the office —regardless of their proclivities— were amateurs, compared to some of the people I hung with, in my free time.

[absoluteunit1]

> This had significant advantages in my career. The folks in the office —regardless of their proclivities— were amateurs, compared to some of the people I hung with, in my free time.

Could expand on this? What advantages in your career? Also, what do you mean by:

> were amateurs, compared to some of the people I hung with, in my free time.

Do you intentionally look to meet people with whom you disagree?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Do you intentionally look to meet people with whom you disagree?

Sort of. I like to develop good relationships with people that have a hard time getting along with others. I consider it to be a bit of a "challenge," and I like to live a life, where I'm constantly challenging myself. Also, I participate in an organization that is focused on helping people recover from significant life trauma. It's sort of my job.

Part of it, is because I'm "on the spectrum," myself, and come from a childhood fraught with atomic wedgies. I have some empathy for outsiders. I don't come from a "superior position," I have very much been an outlier, for most of my life. I know what it feels like.

It's been my experience that people that are difficult to deal with, come from some kind of personal trauma. I have found that they are often quite open to getting along with folks that are willing to accept the idiosyncrasies that arise from their coping mechanisms.

So if I can accept, and even be close friends with, someone that has spent significant time in Ossining, for violent offenses, having an employee throw a minor tantrum because I said "no," is a cakewalk.

[taneq]

Maybe you don't need to connect with everyone? If someone has a few different opinions to me, that's fine, I'm sure there's plenty of other things we agree on. Maybe we can find common ground and connect over that. If someone has fundamentally incompatible values to mine about things that I consider important, then I probably consider them a bad person. Like, I don't know how else to define "bad person". Definitely not someone I want to connect with.

[daymanstep]

[flagged]

[dang]

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[daymanstep]

Sorry if I came across as criticizing a weak version of the rule. But I have had trouble trying to think of what a strong version might look like: "In most cases, if you don't like someone, then it just means you don't know them well enough" ? The assumption here seems to be that if you get to know someone well, then you will come to like them most of the time? I get that people are complicated but I don't think coming to understand a person more fully will necessarily lead to liking them more - but I suppose this depends on what type of person you are - someone who generally doesn't like people, or someone who is very picky etc, likely will not ever come to like most people even if they gain full knowledge of them, which makes the rule even more subjective.

On the other hand, some may argue that not liking someone means that you ought to study them more, which makes sense in the general sense of "you ought to know your enemy", but this seems incongruent with the original context of the quote.

I suppose I did oversimplify the rule in order to make it easier to apply, which reduces it to absurdity. But trying to find a way to make the rule work is also making my head hurt.

In any case I hereby apologize if I have broken any rules.

[dang]

No worries! If you had added a version of this current comment to the original one, i.e. if you had spelled out your underlying thinking more, it would have been fine. The issue from a moderation point of view is the reductionist/snarkyy/inflammatory style. It's not what we're going for, and it evokes worse from others.

In other words I think this is a case of the 'rebound' thing I posted about earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44687473.

p.s. Btw, I don't think the "I must get to know him better" line is intended as a rule (maybe the word 'must' is a bit misleading in there). It's more an expression of an attitude that one can choose to take or not. To quote that line is to say "this is how I want to be".

[tuvang]

I get this is sarcastic but getting to know people like that is literally how the field of criminal psychology was born and helped stop many people like Bundy.

[throwaway290]

Maybe if you understand how that happened you would have an idea how to make the world have fewer people like that?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

One of the most important things, in my experience, when in an adversarial relationship, is to understand, and, quite often, to respect my opponent. I need to understand why they are doing what they do, so I can make plans to counter them. Often, I can find ways to defuse the conflict, by negotiating compromises.

A pithy way to put it, is if you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator.

[4gotunameagain]

Using one of the most of extreme of examples to discredit an argument that is meant to bring unity, makes me not like you, and not wanting to know you better ;)_

[optimlayer]

which would make you not like him even more, and thus wanting to know him better :D

[dang]

This is offtopic but can you please email [e-mail]? I want to ask you about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523452.

[scarface_74]

I have no desire to get to know someone who is racist or homophobic. We can disagree on supply side economics or universal healthcare all day long. I don’t owe my energy to get to know assholes.

[anonymars]

A black man befriended a KKK wizard and has convinced over 200 klansmen to give up their robes

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...

[taneq]

I don't think this is an unreasonable stance. I guess we're going with downvote=disagree for this one.

It's great if you can understand and connect with someone who's fundamentally decent but uninformed/misinformed and so holds some questionable views. I don't know if those views really count as "values" in this sense, though. Values tend to be either innate, or deeply ingrained and mostly immutable. If someone feels it's okay to kick puppies, maybe I can convince them that kicking puppies is bad and they should stop, but they're still a person who is capable of being okay with kicking puppies and that's not someone I want to be friends with.

[em-bee]

Values tend to be either innate, or deeply ingrained and mostly immutable

i strongly disagree with that. values are learned, and they can be unlearned. people can change, and someone who kicks puppies can not only be made aware of the pain they are inflicting, and also completely turn around and reject their previous behavior. there is no invisible line that if you'd cross it, you wouldn't be able to turn back from. believing that denies others the power to change themselves.

[scarface_74]

So go out and try to change the values of your typical rural evangelical Christian about gay rights or trans issues today. I’m not going to speak about other religions that I don’t know about personally.

When was the last time you hung around a group of conservative Christians? I am emphasizing a certain cohort of Christianity. I am well aware of the more liberal Christian churches that fight/fought for civil rights and treating all human beings decently.

How much time have you spent in the Bible Belt?

There are places in the south that held segregated proms as recently as 2014.

Once (the royal) you hurt my family or insult anyone I care about because of the color of their skin or about their sexuality, I don’t owe you forgiveness or an explanation for my right to exist overall or be in “your space”.

[em-bee]

i am not saying you have any kind of obligation to do anything to change someones mind. nor am i saying that it would be easy. i am just suggesting not to dismiss that change is possible. if daryl davis can change members of the kkk, then we can change conservative christians too. it takes effort and time, but it's not impossible.

[scarface_74]

Yes and if I tell my kids to drop out of school it’s also possible for them to become a billionaire because I read about a few people who did so….

[idiotsecant]

There's little better than helping someone like that expand their understanding of the world and their place in it. In the end, influencing hearts and minds is one of the few things you can do that will have a lasting impact after you're gone.

[em-bee]

we should all aspire to be a little bit like daryl davis. just a bit. i am not going out of my way to seek out people like that, like he did, but when i discover that one of my friends is leaning into that direction, then i look to daryl davis for inspiration.

[JustExAWS]

Why do I have the feeling you are not a minority, have never been stopped or questioned for being some place you “didn’t belong” or had to tell your six foot 3 step son to make sure that he and his other Black friend (two of five Black guys in the entire school) didn’t walk to the Waffle House to meet their friends after the football game unless their White friend was going with them because they would get harassed by the police?

No I’m not saying “everyone is racist”. But it’s not my responsibility to spend my energy educating racist and to proffer myself as “one of the good ones”.

[anonymars]

The Daryl Davis that was mentioned is a black man who befriended many KKK members and resulted in them giving up their robes

https://www.ted.com/talks/daryl_davis_klan_we_talk

[raw_anon_1111]

You didn’t answer the question - are you a minority?

Do you also think Hispanic people who are here legally should have a chat with a bunch of ICE agents to change their hearts and minds?

If you are White, would you go out of your way to reach out to someone who belongs to a group who actively hates White people? I’m not naming a specific group even though I’m sure they exists because I honestly have no idea what groups they are and I would no more spend energy trying to change their minds either. If anyone in my family said anything that was outright racist or homophobic I would check them also.

My dad (now 83) on the other hand did slightly change his opinion on sexuality when he had to admit that one of his nephews were gay. But even then on a macro level he isn’t going to be waving a Pride flag around and he still thinks being gay is a moral sin that is going to damn a person to hell.

It’s just like a White guy I was friends with for years on a personal level, I had no doubt that if I needed him or if he saw someone harassing me or my family he would take out one of his many guns and defend me.

But once Trump came on the scene and I saw some of his posts on FB, I realized that he treated me as “one of the good ones” and if I was some random guy that he met on the street he would’ve treated me differently. He went on a racist tirade on Facebook about his daughter dating a Black guy for instance.

[em-bee]

i didn't say that you should. please reread what i said: i would not go out of my way to find these people, but if one of my friends turned out to be one of them, then i would try to slowly change their mind. using daryl davis as inspiration means that if he can befriend complete strangers to change their mind, then i can make an effort with the friends that i already have. that's all i am suggesting here. and in particular this call goes out to people who are not a minority themselves.

[scarface_74]

By definition, as a Black guy, how would I have White friends who didn’t like Black people? I mentioned I go down to the bar downstairs from where I live where I’m friends with the bartender to hang out with him and whoever comes by - all tourists who I will probably never see again (near Disney world). I’ve met and spoken to people all over the world and even had a few shallow conversations with people who only spoke Spanish using my very limited (B1) level Spanish speaking skills.

What I’m not going to do is go to a rural evangelical church in Alabama to let them get to know me.

I hate the narrative that I’m suppose to be “the better person”. I don’t owe anyone my energy. I don’t owe people “forgiveness” who want to bring harm to me or my family. I have no need to show people that I’m “the model negro”.

I also wouldn’t have “friends” of any color who spew racists or homophobic BS. Again I have plenty of friends who are traditional Reagan/Bush/Romney pre-2016 conservatives. We disagree on certain things. But we agree on common human decency.

I also find the “allyship” crap that I see in leftist circles vomit worthy.

On another post here on HN, someone posted on an “Ask HN” how could they find a job as someone with cerebral palsy. I mentioned that I had “CP” that mostly affected my left hand and went on about the post.

Then I had I guess people who called themselves “disability allies” chastise me for using the abbreviation “CP” because it was also an abbreviation for child porn.

I had to point out that every single disability organization like Easter Seal (the place I went growing up) abbreviated it CP.

It’s no different than I assume White people telling me that I should befriend a Klansmen to change their mind. Until you have walked in my skin, you have no right to tell me how I should spend my time changing the minds of a bunch of racists pricks.

[JustExAWS]

This is honestly a naive take and probably comes from someone who is not a minority (I am) or someone who didn’t grow up in the south.

It reminds me of the vomit inducing DEI training I was forced to endure and the “allyship” BS when I did my stint at BigTech between 2020-2023.

There are deeply religious people who sincerely think from decades of growing up being indoctrinated in the church who believe that miscegenation is a sin and that by allowing “the gays” to get married that God will destroy the country.

I also lived in what was a famous “sundown town” until recently for eight years (yes this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErjPmFulQ0). I didn’t live there myself until 2016. Where we lived is approximately a 10 minute drive from where that outdoor scene was shot. We had a house built in the burbs there. Even though I made by myself twice the household income on what has become the most affluent burb of Atlanta, my 6 foot 3 stepson who had grown up in the burbs of Atlanta all of his life still got questioned by a Karen when he was in the neighborhood pool because she didn’t think he belong there. Was I suppose to approach her and we sit down and have a coffee while introduce her to Black culture? It’s not my duty to be an ambassador to anyone.

Right now, 40% of the country is cheering Trump’s treatment of LGBT and especially trans and immigrants.

And even if someone who is a racist sees me - a successful “articulate”, Black person who happens to know how to code switch on demand, in their mind they probably see ne as “not like other Black people).

Don’t get me wrong, I always “assume positive intent” and I am not at all uncomfortable in spaces where most people think I should be uncomfortable.

[idiotsecant]

It's not naive to choose to see the best parts of people and hope that they can change to be the best version of themselves. Not everyone will change, but some will. When we let our damage accumulate to the point that we stop believing that we do a disservice to ourselves most of all. It doesn't mean we should march into a pit of bears wearing a pineapple glaze, it means that we hope for the best and don't let it break our spirit if we're wrong.

[scarface_74]

My spirit isn’t “broken” those people - the ones who actively support the demonization of “other” are irrelevant to me unless they are in a position to bring me harm - mostly law enforcement these days.

I see people individually how they treat people and who they surround themselves with. Don’t tell me there are “good people” who support Liberty University or who don’t speak out in churches when the leadership supports politicians and policies that demonize others.

And even then, I’m fine with ministers who say they refuse to marry gay people or allow the ceremonies in their churches. That’s there right to have a backwards belief.

[squigz]

Out of curiosity, how do you think society should deal with such people?

[JustExAWS]

At 51, that’s not my responsibility. We have seen that much of rural America have no desire to get out of their Fox News induced bubble.

It’s even worse than I thought it was before 2020. When Fox News called the election fairly in 2020 and any other time it veers slightly off the Trump bandwagon, even it is punished by the viewers.

It’s just like with religious people (subject change I’m not trying to imply all religious people are racist). I once read about a deeply religious lady who had 7 kids and 6 of them died during a tsunami and she said she was so grateful to God and how good he was for saving one.

You can’t change people’s deeply held beliefs. Sure you might be able to get people to see different about right vs left policy decisions or at least respect your viewpoint. But people’s value systems are about identity and community especially in the rural Bible Belt where their shared culture and since of belonging is based on the church and now the church has based its culture on populism.

[squigz]

I'm sure the 51 year olds in the population you're referring to don't consider themselves absolved of their responsibility (as they see it)

Maybe the fact that so many people are so willing to entirely wipe their hands of things and write off half the country as racist idiots is contributing more to the problem than churches.