Comment by motohagiography

>Some disagreements can't be resolved other than through power struggles, such as e.g. when one side's position implies the negation of the other side's rights, identity or existence. We can't have a rational, dispassionate debate about whether I should have rights. I can't argue for my existence, I want it.

This statement is an example of one that could be seen as insidious as a scissor. The idea of the scissor is really interesting, as there are ideas I think people are easily seduced by, which produces these kind of statements.

In my house, where politics was dinner discussion from as soon as we could all talk, we have a way to recognize when the discussion switches from comparing interests and experiences, to artifacts of personal experience that are not mutually reconcilable, and that the only remaining interesting topic is how to navigate alien experiences.

It's not always smooth, but it mitigates feuding and using politics as a proxy in relationships with precedents that were set when we were all children.

Of course, for this to even be possible, you need to believe in something greater than your own experience, and have what people now call an "internal locus of control," which is itself a high bar, but we've managed.