You Don't Know What to Think, You're Not Going to Tell Me What to Think

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When we're talking to another adult about a political phenomenon or a policy disagreement, a lot of the intellectual sparking that takes place is about control. Don't make this feel like i need to win and you need to lose. I am right and you are wrong. Just get out of that frame. You can be very much correct but if you generate reactions in the other person, ths what we're talking about, you will not be able to change their bot. And it's a very difficult thing to offer a person the space and give them the respect that would avoid reactons when you are dealing with a person that you feel like doesn't deserve that treatment from you. That works for

To the Founding Fathers it was free libraries. To the 19th century rationalist philosophers it was a system of public schools. Today it's access to the internet. Since its beginnings, Americans have believed that if facts and information were available to all, a democratic utopia would prevail. But missing from these well-intentioned efforts, says author and journalist David McRaney, is the awareness that people's opinions are unrelated to their knowledge and intelligence. In fact, he explains, the better educated we become, the better we are at rationalizing what we already believe. Listen as the author of How Minds Change speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why it's so hard to change someone's mind, the best way to make it happen (if you absolutely must), and why teens are hard-wired not to take good advice from older people even if they are actually wiser.