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Trevor_Blake comments on In Defense of Tone Arguments - Less Wrong Discussion
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On convincing others to change their minds:
"[Alfred] Reynolds was in Army Intelligence during the war, and in 1945 was given the almost impossible task of ‘de-Nazifying’ young Nazi officers who had been captured. Reynolds has described how, when he first entered the room, there was an atmosphere of cold hostility. They stared at him, prepared - like [Dr Jerome] Bruner’s cat - to ‘cut out’ anything he had to say at the level of the ear-drum. To their surprise, there was no homily on the evils of Nazism. Instead, he asked them to explain to him what they understood by National Socialism. Once they were convinced he really wanted to know, they began to talk. He listened quietly, asked questions, and pointed out contradictions. Within a matter of days, there was not a Nazi left among them." - Colin Wilson, "A Criminal History of Mankind"
A similar technique worked on Ingo Hasselbach (described in his autobiography "Führer Ex"). A TV crew asked him to explain neo-nazi philosophy, and the more he saw himself in repeat on TV the less he believed himself.
A similar technique worked when I was employed at a homeless shelter. I'd ask aggravated clients what they wanted to have happen. Turns out, for many of them, no one had ever asked them that in their entire lives. That question usually stopped aggravation cold, even if what they wanted to have happen wasn't possible.
Does tone matter? You bet. Tone matters so much I question myself when I get answers that seem to work this well, to try and detect unknowingly adopting pretty / useful answers instead of truthful ones.
Really? De-Nazified all of them in days? I notice I am confused; I deny this data - either that, or I really want the videotapes.
The tapes are archived right next to the chat logs of the AI-Box experiment.
Also, might be nice to get a source who has less of a history of writing nonfiction books embracing a variety of parapsychological woo than Colin Wilson.
So what would happen if you did this with religious fundamentalists?
I have had similar conversations with religious believers (I'll not comment on whether they were fundamentalists or not). Listening quietly, asking questions, and pointing out contradictions has changed specific parts of their beliefs that were less considered or more harmful. They remained religious believers. On occasion, I've had to revise my beliefs about religious beliefs as well - mutual benefit, both of us hopefully less wrong.
Homilies on the evils of religion have their place as well - for me, in essays. Conversations go better with quiet listening.
I did that with mormon preachers one time because I was seriously bored. Doesn't seem to work. They can repeat themselves infinitely, especially if faced with contradictions.
I think there's a crucial difference with the nazi officers: the nazi officers were more or less sane guys in an environment where they had to profess a belief in belief and rationalize other's errors of thought; they didn't really face a lot of alternatives, and furthermore had pretty damn good deep survival related reasons to drop their beliefs. The religious folks are self selected true believers, or children of self selected true believers, and however strong was the propaganda it is but a drop in the ocean compared to upbringing. Some believers genuinely possess the failures of thought that create their beliefs; some merely imitate this; and among the self selected there's much more of the former.