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Those with parents who hold opposite political views than you, how do you go about disagreeing? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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To be more specific, my parents raised my siblings and me to "respect" them, saying "yes sir, and "no ma'am" to everything they said. Spankings, all of that. Typical super conservative evangelical parents. Before I learned better, I was that way too. I went to college and since then have embraced the left more and more.

They'll say things now and then that are really distasteful politically. Today I made an Instagram post about DeSantis lying about liberal states allowing post-birth abortions and I got several family members railing against me. I'm tired of staying quiet when this happens. I think that, because how my parents raised me, I'm afraid to speak my mind to older family members. Fuck that though.

Has anyone else had this experience? I wonder if therapy would help. I just don't know how to explain it.

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[–] itsAsin 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

back when i was younger and had the energy and focus to do so, i would engage with my father (whom holds unreasonable opinions such as you are up against with your family).

often, i would catch him making a point which directly contradicted an earlier point of his. i would then circle back to the earlier point and connect the two, breaking both of his arguments and hopefully forcing a concession.

but somehow he was able to blind himself to self-contradiction. it was infuriating.

the moral here is that i do not think it is possible to change anyone's mind, even if you are clear and rational and your point is water-tight.

your love for and enjoyment of them must be independent of political and religious differences. good luck!

[–] Toasteh 4 points 1 year ago

You cannot reason someone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. Most of the time they even think they are being logical and reasoned their way into their beliefs, but because they refuse to rectify their cognitive dissonance, they are stuck with contradictory beliefs which they haven't accepted are incompatible.