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Comment by Aunche

5 years ago

A missionary may also engage with people with different experiences than their own, but they're only doing so to cement their own world view. When they come across someone they disagree with, they'll just label them as evil without thinking about it.

To be clear, I don't think that it's a right vs left thing. I think that social media incentivizes people to behave poorly. Ben Shapiro had an enlightening discussion with a founder of Vox about the nature of polarization [1], but that's not why he's famous or how he makes money. His audience wants to see him bash unprepared liberals, so that's what he's going to do. Even if he doesn't, some other pundit will simply take his place.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMOUiWCjkn4

4 comments

Aunche

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NeutralCrane  5 years ago

> A missionary may also engage with people with different experiences than their own, but they're only doing so to cement their own world view. When they come across someone they disagree with, they'll just label them as evil without thinking about it.

As a former Mormon missionary, I couldn't disagree more. I didn't meet many people who were interested in the Mormon church, but I didn't consider them evil. If anything, it was my views on my religion and personal spirituality that evolved enormously over the course of the two years, far more than the 19 years previous or the many since. I learned a lot about myself and my worldview. Certainly a lot more than anyone changed their worldview by talking to me.

  • Aunche  5 years ago

    That's fair. I shouldn't have generalized this among all the individual missionaries. My point is to provide an example of engaging with different worldviews does not necessarily imply open-mindedness.