I think you've got a great point. In practice it's much harder to just be rather than try to convince people of something with a good argument. I failed miserably to convince my conservative evangelical Christian parents to get vaccinated--just like I failed to convince them not to vote for Donald Trump again. It's hard to just be when their decisions negatively impact my life, but I think I'm going to have to try it. All the best as the spring semester wraps up.
Hi Paul, thanks for this, and for all your thoughtful comments (I had an earlier comment unread in my inbox for months earlier in the semester and still have not got around to replying; apologies for that). You're right that this is one of those "easier to say than it is to do" kind of scenarios. And I don't see me not writing persuasively (or not teaching to do so), but I've come to think of that work as probably a small step in a much longer process and the effectiveness of my arguments, have a direct correlation to the quality of my relationship with people. To be honest, that's one of the things I love about the community we're building around this newsletter. People are only here because they want to be, and that forms a kind of relationship in which change--on both ends of the keyboard--can happen!
I think you've got a great point. In practice it's much harder to just be rather than try to convince people of something with a good argument. I failed miserably to convince my conservative evangelical Christian parents to get vaccinated--just like I failed to convince them not to vote for Donald Trump again. It's hard to just be when their decisions negatively impact my life, but I think I'm going to have to try it. All the best as the spring semester wraps up.
Hi Paul, thanks for this, and for all your thoughtful comments (I had an earlier comment unread in my inbox for months earlier in the semester and still have not got around to replying; apologies for that). You're right that this is one of those "easier to say than it is to do" kind of scenarios. And I don't see me not writing persuasively (or not teaching to do so), but I've come to think of that work as probably a small step in a much longer process and the effectiveness of my arguments, have a direct correlation to the quality of my relationship with people. To be honest, that's one of the things I love about the community we're building around this newsletter. People are only here because they want to be, and that forms a kind of relationship in which change--on both ends of the keyboard--can happen!