Apologies if everyone knew this and it was a sitewide bit but I did not and now I feel kinda gross for having used it
EDIT: Converted to an archive link out of concerns about direct linking to reactionary site, mea culpa
To clarify: this is NOT the silly letter quote, that was very real
Tbh I have never seen this quote before. The “”“”“”“”““anti-debate””“”“”“”" quote I know is the “Trotsky has sent in a silly letter” one which is real. I’m wondering if this guy is a new age Kauskyite indulging in hipster leftism.
Thankfully the silly letter quote is real, if we lost that one I would be inconsolable
In the article, they go over some examples of it being used in the mainstream by George Will. There’s also at least one youtuber they cite as using it, for what that’s worth. I haven’t seen it on Hexbear or Lemmygrad, which is good.
From this article alone (never heard of this person before), they’re definitely anti-Kautsky and pro-Lenin.
This whole section is interesting, too:
This quote is fake. More importantly, even if Lenin had said it, a sassy riposte to Kautsky cannot not “prove wrong” the idea that leftists should “convert people who think differently”.
In reality, evidence overwhelmingly shows that persuasion works. For example, these three large-sample experimental studies strongly suggest that factual corrections change minds:
Wood et al 2018: there is no evidence for a consistent “backfire effect”; telling people facts generally changes their minds; among 10100 adults, the effect of factual correction was ~1/3 as large as the effect of ideology on stated belief
Schmid and Betsch 2019: experimental study: among 1661 adults, topic rebuttal (oppose misinformation with facts) and technique rebuttal (refute the methods that science deniers use to mislead their audience) substantially and significantly reduced the influence of science deniers (by about 1/3 of a standard deviation), especially among individuals who vulnerable to antiscience beliefs
Tappin 2021: against “partisan motivated reasoning”: among 5071 adults, evidence changed minds in a sample of 24 policy issues; no significant difference between “evidence + contrary party leader cue” (purple) vs “evidence alone” (black)
Wood et al 2018: there is no evidence for a consistent “backfire effect”; telling people facts generally changes their minds;
I have a VERY hard time believing this is true in given the day and age we’re living in.
I think “generally” is doing a lot of work there. Tons of people dig in if you challenge their opinions, but a lot of people don’t, too. Say 30-40% of people dig in on their positions no matter what evidence they see. That’s enough that it’s a huge factor you’d see all the time, but you could still say that generally (most of the time) people respond to facts.
Another sticky issue is what people consider to be reliable, factual information. If my grandpa sends me a chain email with “facts” from OANN, I’m going to be pretty skeptical. Maybe the information is actually factual, but I would have to choose to take the time to verify it through other sources before it would change my mind.
