Dealing with Feelers
Thinking about: Other people
Author’s note: In these posts, I include lots of links. Some are to outside sources, but most are to earlier posts of mine. I encourage you to click on them if you need a refresher on one of the concepts I am discussing.
If you are reading this substack, you are probably toward the Thinker end of the intellectual spectrum. In other words, you are consciously making an effort to think rather than feel your way to conclusions. In a world awash in Feelers, this makes you something of an intellectual outlier.
Because Feelers are so common, there is a good chance that you interact with them. You encounter them on social media and on mainstream media. Politics is awash with them, but this is only to be expected in a democracy in which the majority of voters would appear to be Feelers. You might also encounter Feelers at close range, maybe in your workplace or at social gatherings. Your relatives might also be Feelers. Consider, for example, your grandmother who is a big fan of The Tucker Carlson Show or your brother-in-law who is an equally big fan of The Rachel Maddow Show.
Before continuing, some reminders are in order. The individuals I refer to as Thinkers—with a capital T—don’t simply think a lot. Everyone thinks a lot! Thinkers are special because they consciously attempt to think rather than feel their way to conclusions. This attempt will involve the use of open-minded critical thinking. Stated in terms of an anatomical metaphor, Thinkers rely on their head to reach conclusions, whereas Feelers rely on their heart and gut.
Having said this, the usual qualifications are in order. The world is not neatly divided into Feelers and Thinkers. There is instead an intellectual spectrum, with Feelers at one endpoint and Thinkers at the other, and with most people occupying the middle portion of the spectrum, with some being closer to the Thinker end than others. Furthermore, although there exist “pure Feelers” who exclusively feel their way to conclusions—indeed, as a baby, you were one—there are no “pure Thinkers.” And finally, people can be Thinkers with respect to some topics but Feelers with respect to others.
You can’t argue with a Feeler. Actually, you can argue in one sense of the word “argue”: You can have a heated discussion with them, in which reason is overwhelmed by emotions. What you can’t do is have a thoughtful conversation with them. Tell a Feeler that you don’t share their beliefs, and their feelings might get hurt. Openly challenge their beliefs, and they might get upset or even angry.
In contrast, if you challenge the beliefs of a Thinker, they will calmly, rationally explain why they hold them. Not only aren’t they emotionally attached to their beliefs, but they might sincerely thank you for talking them out of holding a mistaken belief. What accounts for this difference? A Feeler relies on their heart and gut rather than on their head to arrive at their conclusions. Unlike their head, though, their heart and gut, although quite proficient at emoting, are incapable of reasoning.
On encountering someone with different beliefs, a Thinker will want to get to the root of the matter. They might therefore present their evidence and describe the reasoning that led them from it to their conclusion. If the other party is a Feeler, though, they might reject the Thinker’s evidence out of hand. In particular, if that Feeler has fallen into a filter bubble, they might have a radically different perception of reality than the Thinker does. The inferences that the Feeler draws from the evidence might also have been skewed by cognitive biases.
Suppose, then, that in talking to someone, you realize that they are a Feeler. You might have been led to this conclusion by the fact that although they are willing to tell you how they feel about a topic—and how deeply their feelings run—they seem unwilling or unable to give a reasoned defense of their belief. Suppose you also realize that because the belief they hold is mistaken, it is a belief that, if acted on, could hurt them and maybe other people as well. Under these circumstances, you might feel obligated to talk them out of their belief.
This is difficult to do if the encounter is a one-off event, but if it is only one of many repeated encounters, progress might be possible. This was the case in the college classes I taught before retiring at the end of 2020. I would meet with the same students three times a week for several weeks. In these classes, I would keep outright lecturing to a minimum. I would instead assign readings, and in class we would discuss them. More precisely, I would call on students to share their thoughts about the assigned readings.
This afforded me a splendid opportunity to explore my students’ beliefs. Once it became clear that they felt strongly about a topic, I would ask them to explain how they came to hold their belief, to explicate it, and to support it. In the process of doing so, I made it clear that I did not care what they thought; I cared only that they thought. I measured my success in these encounters not by whether students changed their mind about a topic, but by whether they came away with a more nuanced belief—one that acknowledges “special cases”—as well as a reduced level of certainty about its truth.
In a one-off encounter, I don’t have this luxury. I therefore take a different tack. One of my strategies is to reveal an inconsistency in someone’s thinking. In response, they might not change their mind, but it will make them “intellectually unsettled.” More precisely, they might experience what cognitive psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance. I plan to say more about this phenomenon in a future post.
When I encounter someone who has taken an absolutist position with respect to a topic, I typically point out interesting cases that they might have ignored. If you tell me that you think abortion is, without exception, morally impermissible, I will likely respond by asking whether you have taken account of ectopic pregnancies in which, unless an abortion is performed, the mother and fetus will both die.
When I am dealing with someone who is very far toward the Feeler end of the intellectual spectrum, I might bypass rational argumentation altogether in favor of storytelling. Instead of showering them with statistics about how many people die as the result of vaccinations, compared to how many people die as the result of not getting vaccinated, I might tell the story of a single named person who could have gotten vaccinated against a disease, decided not to get vaccinated, and died as a result.
It pains me to resort to this strategy. It makes me feel like I am treating a person like a child. But then again, if someone insists on feeling rather than thinking their way to conclusions, they are engaging in intellectually childish behavior. Furthermore, it is likely that with a bit of effort and guidance, they can make great strides toward the Thinker end of the intellectual spectrum.
Are you, perchance, in search of such guidance? If so, you have come to the right place!