Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.
Since I started working as a pro-life advocate in 2011, I have deeply struggled with how to have productive conversations with moral relativists. I could “win a debate” with them, but I have a loftier goal of actually changing their minds, and I was nowhere near meeting that goal.
For a while my strategy was to ask moral relativists really uncomfortable questions, such as “Is slavery immoral?” But this strategy almost never worked. If they believed morality is subjective to the individual, they would say, “No, I just don’t like it.” If they believed morality is subjective to the culture, they would say, “It’s wrong now, but only because our culture came to decide that.” Strangely, no one ever seemed to be uncomfortable after giving those responses.
Next I tried pointing out the logical inconsistency of them on one hand claiming there is no objective morality, and on the other hand implying I had moral failings for disagreeing with them about something like abortion. That also did not seem to help, either because they could not understand the logic or because they chose to ignore it. One time I even pretended to steal a guy’s bicycle, but he found that to be more cute than persuasive.
Last fall I tried something different when I met an alternative version of me.
I’m pretty sure some people will think this is pretty stupid, but I’m fascinated by learning ways that we can unintentionally miscommunicate with others.
The way that different uses of punctuation in text messages has been the subject of heated debate among several of my friends, but it now appears that researchers at American University have determined that the average person really does read certain things into the punctuation of text messages.
If you haven’t noticed this on your own, it’s worth noting, at the least, to avoid accidentally implying to your friend that you’re mad when you’re not.