How Do You Navigate Different Wold Views between Yourself and Your Loved Ones?

[Emerald City]

I feel superior because I value different perspectives and am aware of my personal biases, because I think self improvement should be an ongoing thing throughout life, because I want to look beyond my personal circumstances and look beyond my own experiences to guide my future thoughts and actions. I feel superior because I doubt sources and search for facts, rather than accepting opinions handed to me on a silver platter. In my view, my "knowing facts" is not accidental. It's intentional.

I know there are people who don't live with the intent to pursue the objective truth.

What constitutes objective truth? FBI crime statistics? Your own eyes? Someone else's reported experiences? Your own emotions?

 

[dk168]

There are many reasons why I will not live with my parents, and live so many time zones apart, after they sent me over to UK to get a better education.

No point trying to change their outlook in life, as they were and my mum still is, very set in their own ways.

When I visit my mum and bro, I look forward to the time when I leave their place for the journey home.

I usually bite my tongue when I am with her, avoiding any contentious subjects. Not an easy thing to do, however, I keep telling myself it is only once very 2 years for about 10 days.

In future, I shall have a side trip on my own, before or after my stay, to make the trip less of a chore.

DK

 

[voce]

What constitutes objective truth? FBI crime statistics? Your own eyes? Someone else's reported experiences? Your own emotions?

A truth that can be proven using science, where data can be repeatedly obtained and definitively supports on conclusion while ruling all the others out.

Such as the existence of a particular pathogen. Or that evolution happens.

When it comes to ideals and politics? No single objective truth exists.

I will state my opinion and recognize it as opinion, instead of insisting it's universal, or right, or "truth". One of these things is the idea that democracy is the worst form of government except the others that have been tried here and there.

*Edit* if I look beyond what Emerald City wrote to what he/she/they quoted from what I wrote, I see that maybe my statement about "the intent to pursue the objective truth" was confusing. I think the pursuit of objective truth, is somewhat like the quest for the Holy Grail; a worthy pursuit, but not a journey that will yield any easy answers. It helps you recognize and cast aside untruths, and not adopt a view and stop right there. My intent to pursue the objective truth is to aspire to analyze any particular issue from more than one perspective. I'm quite good at arguing both sides of a case, and accepting the fact that depending on how you look at it, there could be multiple truths or there is no all-encompassing and objective truth.

 

[Emerald City]

A truth that can be proven using science, where data can be repeatedly obtained and definitively supports on conclusion while ruling all the others out.

Such as the existence of a particular pathogen. Or that evolution happens.

When it comes to ideals and politics? No single objective truth exists.

I will state my opinion and recognize it as opinion, instead of insisting it's universal, or right, or "truth". One of these things is the idea that democracy is the worst form of government except the others that have been tried here and there.

In that case, the FBI crime statistics actually support your mother's opinions about crime, not yours. The problem with "science," specifically with data collection, is that no human is without bias and every study is paid for by someone with an agenda. Even medical studies have been shown repeatedly to be untrustworthy (seriously, it's alarming and worth looking into); statistics about social problems should be taken with a huge grain of salt, no matter which political side is collecting them. I am more of a libertarian than anything, and watching the two parties fight in public is like watching a tennis match of stupidity.

It's easy to jump on the bandwagon of what everyone knows to be the correct opinions; the girl with the rape mattress comes to mind. I viewed her with skepticism from the first because carrying around a mattress stank to me of an agenda of some kind, not to mention attention-getting, which itself speaks to some kind of mental illness. People told me I was a terrible person for not believing her story, but I wanted to wait and see what came of it before really formed a firm opinion. Well, we all know how that turned out. Maintaining intellectual distance and refraining from emoting is hard when groupthink is at the levels it is currently.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Statistics mean nothing if those statistics are coming from a bias, broken system on which there has never been an even playing field.

 

[voce]

In that case, the FBI crime statistics actually support your mother's opinions about crime, not yours. The problem with "science," specifically with data collection, is that no human is without bias and every study is paid for by someone with an agenda. Even medical studies have been shown repeatedly to be untrustworthy (seriously, it's alarming and worth looking into); statistics about social problems should be taken with a huge grain of salt, no matter which political side is collecting them. I am more of a libertarian than anything, and watching the two parties fight in public is like watching a tennis match of stupidity.

It's easy to jump on the bandwagon of what everyone knows to be the correct opinions; the girl with the rape mattress comes to mind. I viewed her with skepticism from the first because carrying around a mattress stank to me of an agenda of some kind, not to mention attention-getting, which itself speaks to some kind of mental illness. People told me I was a terrible person for not believing her story, but I wanted to wait and see what came of it before really formed a firm opinion. Well, we all know how that turned out. Maintaining intellectual distance and refraining from emoting is hard when groupthink is at the levels it is currently.

Oh, I do not disagree that the FBI crime statistics are what they are, but what about the other factors involved? Poverty, for instance? What makes somebody look at the numbers and think RACE is the most important factor, instead of merely correlated with a more important factor?

Are you willing to subject white people to poverty and then observing, over generations, what their crime rate will then be, as a scientific experiment?

There are too many confounding factors that may not be isolated out, for the statistics to scientifically support a conclusion about a race.

 

[Emerald City]

Oh, I do not disagree that the FBI crime statistics are what they are, but what about the other factors involved? Poverty, for instance? What makes somebody look at the numbers and think RACE is the most important factor, instead of merely correlated with a more important factor?

Are you willing to subject white people to poverty and then observing, over generations, what their crime rate will then be, as a scientific experiment?

There are too many confounding factors that may not be isolated out, for the statistics to scientifically support a conclusion about a race.

Whites in the Appalachians are the poorest people in the US. There is no need to " subject white people to poverty and then [observe], over generations, what their crime rate will then be, as a scientific experiment," because this has been going on for decades. The crime rates are... not good in Appalachia. So there's your answer.

 

[Emerald City]

Statistics mean nothing if those statistics are coming from a bias, broken system on which there has never been an even playing field.

I disagree with this entire sentiment. But you touch on something I find interesting: Whose statistics should we believe, and why?

 

[OreoRosies86]

I disagree with this entire sentiment. But you touch on something I find interesting: Whose statistics should we believe, and why?

If you disagree with the entire sentiment then why does it matter?

 

[Emerald City]

If you disagree with the entire sentiment then why does it matter?

The question "Whose statistics do we believe, and why?" does matter. You're conflating my disagreement with that sentiment with my not caring about the issue at all, which isn't true.

 

[Dee*Jay]

@lovedogs, I haven't been ignoring you, I've just been trying all day to think of an honest way to answer you.

The best I'm going to do here is: (1) yes, as others have said, it is a balance (many many balances... ), (2) civil agreement to disagree is invaluable, and (3) denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Forgive me for copping out on this. I have just had this conversation running in my head the entire time I've been camped here during the pandemic (before frankly... ) and if I really let myself snap I'd have to put down this laptop and go start loading my clothes into my car.

OP, please forgive the threadjack.

 

[OreoRosies86]

The question "Whose statistics do we believe, and why?" does matter. You're conflating my disagreement with that sentiment with my not caring about the issue at all, which isn't true.

You just said the statistics align with OP’s mother’s racist beliefs. Statistics coming from the context of systemic racism don’t matter. Therefore no statistics matter, at least not until the system doesn’t malign an entire group of people spanning hundreds of years.

 

[SallyB]

@voce I try not to navigate different world views with loved ones. I usually just change the subject because it’s not worth damaging the relationship over opinions I can’t change anyway.

If your mom was working to support the family and then had to deal with crimes repeatedly committed by one particular group, I would cut her some slack for not sharing your opinions on race. She’s entitled to her own thoughts, opinions. and fears based upon her own traumatic life experiences. And as you said, she isn’t saying or doing anything to this group of people out in public.

It’s also possible that she has PTSD from these experiences.

 

[Emerald City]

You just said the statistics align with OP’s mother’s racist beliefs. Statistics coming from the context of systemic racism don’t matter. Therefore no statistics matter, at least not until the system doesn’t malign an entire group of people spanning hundreds of years.

I also did not say that I necessarily agree with or trust the FBI statistics. That is a crucial difference. And it is why I want to know why people trust the statistics they do.

For argument's sake: If statistics are true, then does believing them make one racist?

I don't agree with your premise of there being systemic racism. An interesting tangent to this is that a black professor at Harvard released a study of his own a few years ago and found that police don't shoot blacks in disproportionate numbers, that they in fact shoot white people far more often.

In point of fact, I knew a guy in high school who was ratted for growing weed. The police knocked on his door at 10 PM. He answered the door holding a video game controller and they shot him dead, believing he held a gun. There are sadly many stories like this, but have you ever heard of them?

How about the white man who was shot in Arizona, I think, basically playing Simon Says with police? There is video of him crawling down a hallway, hands over his head, trying to follow a cop's contradictory instructions. Shot dead when he didn't follow the directions exactly. Have you heard of him?

 

[OreoRosies86]

I also did not say that I necessarily agree with or trust the FBI statistics. That is a crucial difference. And it is why I want to know why people trust the statistics they do.

For argument's sake: If statistics are true, then does believing them make one racist?

I don't agree with your premise of there being systemic racism. An interesting tangent to this is that a black professor at Harvard released a study of his own a few years ago and found that police don't shoot blacks in disproportionate numbers, that they in fact shoot white people far more often.

In point of fact, I knew a guy in high school who was ratted for growing weed. The police knocked on his door at 10 PM. He answered the door holding a video game controller and they shot him dead, believing he held a gun. There are sadly many stories like this, but have you ever heard of them?

How about the white man who was shot in Arizona, I think, basically playing Simon Says with police? There is video of him crawling down a hallway, hands over his head, trying to follow a cop's contradictory instructions. Shot dead when he didn't follow the directions exactly. Have you heard of him?

Yes I have, as I follow the news quite closely. The man’s name was Daniel Shaver. Why would you ask other than an attempt to be condescending?

As to the rest of your point, if you do not agree that racism exists in our system I really don’t know what to tell you other than that I have done my research and you can do yours.

 

[Dancing Fire]

@voce , Don't talk politics with your parents ...

 

[Dancing Fire]

This site has a lot of left-leaning opinions and it makes a conservative like myself reluctant to post my political opinions.

A conservative on PS??... you are rarer than a natural red diamond!!...

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I don't engage with my relatives anymore, because they're very toxic. But when I did interact with my father, he had a lot of anger about how he was treated. He is from an Asian country and when he came to the US, he barely spoke English and was treated with obvious racism from day 1. Growing up, I never looked 'white' even though my mother was and was treated differently at school and by the neighbours. I don't use this as a reason to hate mainstream US culture; I put it aside as the actions of fools and go about my business. My father and I both worked for a mostly black university and we both experienced a great deal of blatant racism from the black employees. It makes the cries that only blacks experience racism a bit disingenous.

This site has a lot of left-leaning opinions and it makes a conservative like myself reluctant to post my political opinions.

I think historically in my country Asians have suffered the most racism right up to the present. Yet going back to the gold rush in the 1860s they worked so hard in this country and quietly contributed much.

The right leaning political party i suport has Asian support and involvement

I have a friend with a Chinese born wife who was sent by the communist govt to work in the feilds away from her family at a very young age
From hearing her stories of growing up in those times in China i have sympathy for Voce's mum
the important thing is her mum and dad got to the west and gave Voce a better life for it

isnt it a pretty normal thing since time began to disagree with your parents beliefs ?
I grew up conservative, my sister is so liberal now my dear and loved dad must be turning in his grave
i have moved further to the right but i do not see racism in modern conservatism in my country but i certainly do in the left

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

A conservative on PS??... you are rarer than a natural red diamond!!...

And she's holding her own
I like her
Alot more ballsy than me

 

[missy]

@voce I am sorry you are dealing with this and since you are asking my advice is this. Don't try changing your parents minds. It won't work. Don't try fighting against their views. It's not worth the aggravation and energy. You know in your heart the truth and what is right. Your mom comes from a different perspective and point of view. She loves you and you love her. She is your mom and we don't get to choose who our parents are for better or worse.

All you can control here is your behavior and feelings because you cannot control or change her behavior and the way she feels. That is OK. Make peace with it and keep political conversation to a minimum if you have to discuss things at all. I would just change the subject. It isn't worth it. You don't have to change her mind and you wouldn't be able to no matter how hard you fight it.

Make peace with that fact and move forward and know you love her anyway. Because people are flawed and we all come to things from our different perspective and life views. Her life views are affected by all she has gone through to get to this point and she might never change those views. All you can control is how you react to it and feel about it. That is under your control. Nothing about your mom's behavior is.

I do like the advice to bring home friends of different backgrounds and races and let her get to know them and see if that changes anything about her perspective. But again, I am not sure it is worth the effort though it might be worth a nice evening or two if you do decide to bring home friends of different ethnicities and let your mom get to know them. Doing nothing at all is also a very good option in this specific case IMO.

 

[jaaron]

I've been thinking about this thread and really don't have any good advice, except to say that people are imperfect. I think at this very charged moment in time it's hard to see someone you love as taking a stance that feels like part of the problem, even if they personally aren't actively part of the problem.

I also wonder if there's a deeper pain of feeling generally out of step with your parents and their style of interaction/parenting that makes it hard to connect. I have three kids, and four out of the five of us are quite similar in certain ways-- we're fast moving, sort of type-a, multitaskers. One is very dreamy, creative, artistic. He was the five year old who I could tell ten times to go upstairs and get his shoes on or we'd be late for school and fifteen minutes later he was upstairs, lost in a book, having totally forgotten what he went up there for. I know there were ways in which we had to adjust and be different parents with him so he didn't feel completely out of step with the rest of us. And there were times when I had to really force myself to veer from my straight line, point A to point B thinking, and came to see something differently because he was looking at it from a completely different angle.

I wonder if, with your parents, having come to a totally new culture and new life--which is difficult no matter how desperate they might have been to get there--clinging to the rigid boundaries and expectations they'd always known provided them with some sense of comfort and stability?

 

[kenny]

... rarer than a natural red diamond!!...

Rare? Naw.
I'm holding one right here, over my sink.
Hope it doesn't fall down the drain.

 

[qubitasaurus]

This sounds like some bigger kind of cultural clash. Asian parents love being involved in, disaproving of, making authoritive (auspicious) decisions in their childrens lives. And it sounds very much like you dont share many of their values or views, which might make them even more concerned about whether you'll make good choices without their input.

I would suggest you get very good at changing the topic. People change, various events in their lives often force shifts. For instance they're likely to see things differently once you have kids -- if they're signed up to take the kids to story time at the library or playgroup theyll naturally have different life experiences and thus new perspectives. This likely isnt a static forever thing.

I know it's hard-- I bait and straight up yell at my mother in law. But nothing good ever comes of it.

A major showdown argument usually just galvanise both sides into different camps. In my case it doesnt help her see my opinion. It does not stop her doing or saying whatever it was again within minutes. I remember sitting in a fancy 5* asian hotel basically yelling my head off (to the surprise of the rich/well behaved asians arround me) that my mother in law was to stop calling my husband fat fat fat repeatedly every time he touched a brealfast buffet food item she did not approve of (My husband is so slim he often doesnt fit XXS). So she simply switched the mandarin phrase she was using to something else that also meant fat and then said it again in front of me repeatedly -- admittedly my mandarin isnt that good but it's not that bad either. If you're saying something nasty about me, then I'll just be much angrier for having to translate it. Eventually I learned not to go to breakfast with her or to dinner with her if at all avoidable. Months later she was sincerely hurt that I hid a pregnancy from her over that period. I wonder why.... admittedly I get the feeling my mother in law is much more liberal than your parents. She learned English when she immigrated, she just prefers mandarin as her English is still a little broken.

I wont change her. I can reach a common ground with her though. But not by arguing. By finding other things we have common ground over. There are still plenty of these despite our very different life experiences/educational differences. Essential to this is working out how to change the topic when we disagree.

 

[JPie]

@voce I think a productive conversation about politics and race would depend on sufficient levels of mutual respect to start. Given that your parents already feel that you don’t respect them, I agree with others that maybe it’s best to change the subject.

 

[lovedogs]

I don’t disagree with you on this. I would add homophobia as well, as a result of convos with partner and his family members. I’m unhappy that we disagree on gay marriage rights, as it is especially relevant to me personally.

Sorry for the threadjack, OP.

@lovedogs, I haven't been ignoring you, I've just been trying all day to think of an honest way to answer you.

The best I'm going to do here is: (1) yes, as others have said, it is a balance (many many balances... ), (2) civil agreement to disagree is invaluable, and (3) denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Forgive me for copping out on this. I have just had this conversation running in my head the entire time I've been camped here during the pandemic (before frankly... ) and if I really let myself snap I'd have to put down this laptop and go start loading my clothes into my car.

OP, please forgive the threadjack.

I am sorry you are struggling @Dee*Jay and I didnt mean to open up an already sensitive wound. Apologies! Thank you to both you and @PreRaphaelite for answering!

 

[chrono]

This is another topic / relationship where I put on my “mask” to keep the peace. I don’t bring up these type of topics and if they are brought up, I just Hmmm and nod my head, and it’ll just fizzle out eventually.

Maybe it’s defeatist and an incorrect attitude but if I sense they aren’t going to change their opinion, best to let it be. It is difficult enough to straddle the fine line between open thinking and old cultural expectations.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

In the recent thread that was closed by Bayek, Matata posted an article from the New Yorker on why we behave as we do. We are not always rational and thinking clearly, and behaviors are shown not to be always influenced by facts or reason, but by other factors. The article gives experiments from different researchers to explore the whys. Please either retrieve the article and place here or just look for it and read it. Its my kind of article.

Thanks,

Annette
The thread was abut killing young servicemen for bounties. It is closed.

 

[GliderPoss]

All you can control here is your behavior and feelings because you cannot control or change her behavior and the way she feels. That is OK. Make peace with it and keep political conversation to a minimum if you have to discuss things at all. I would just change the subject. It isn't worth it. You don't have to change her mind and you wouldn't be able to no matter how hard you fight it.

Make peace with that fact and move forward and know you love her anyway.

I think @missy hit the nail on the head, you cannot change everyone's opinion as it will inevitably be a result of their life experiences so just change the subject and show your love in other ways. I realise it may be largely cultural but you simply cannot go through life attempting to make everyone happy!

On a side note: I can relate to your Mother in a sense that I grew up with some quite bad experiences with a minority group and it was consistently awful which left me and many others in my town feeling fearful and negative about them. I already KNOW logically this shouldn't be applied to all people in this group, however being "preached at" by adults who have had little/no experience in this sphere is honestly somewhat irritating and shows a lack of empathy. I do not engage in arguments about it & as Missy suggested I just leave that topic alone and genuinely hope for more positive experiences in the future. I guess what I'm saying is humans aren't always rational, it's a fault we constantly will struggle with!

 

[Obscura]

Ok. Middle of the road here.

Let's look at science: most things we know to be "true" aren't necessarily *absolutely* true. As in it is a "theory" in the scientific definition of "explained, but always can be modified, added to, or completely disproved with new evidence." Now this is planetary and universal functionality we're talking about, never mind the erroneous soft science of human nature.

There is something I heard, and it has stuck with me. We've all heard the saying "Every truth has two sides" but that is not always correct. In fact truth is THREE sided: 1) their truth 2) your truth and 3) the absolute truth.

Unfortunately for us, the third is unknowable due to biases and limitations. By definition we cannot know everything about everything. To do so you would have to know how everything works, how everything interacts with every other thing as well as with the intangible such as thoughts, feelings, experiences and how those influence everything at. Every. Given. Moment. Can you imagine?

IMHO that is where the current problems are arising. Each side has their nose in the air thinking they are superior, more intelligent, a better person, more informed, more bsz than the other side. That their biases, their cherry picked facts, their truth is the absolute truth when it is not. Their/your/my truth is true only for that person at that moment in time.

That is why you see all kinds of people on both sides of the arguments. It's not like all Vs are for 87 and all Ls are against it. Nope, you see a smorgasbord of everything on both sides... of everything. Especially in a country that is so individualistic as the U.S.

When I disagree with someone I usually acknowledge their side (most will have valid points) and say "that's true, but what's also true is ___(my fact)___." Though there will be things that you just can't agree with, and that's ok, what's not ok is trying to impose your beliefs onto others. That is called fascism. Fascism bad lol.

So in short, no one is "wrong" for an opinion or how they view the word. It's not math. Now if they say 2+2= 7 feel free to tell them they are wrong.

Very few things can be black and white; most lie in the grey area. But what we should do is listen to each other and treat each other with respect and kindness so long as they are doing so in return.

*Note: this is generalities. There is a vast and notable difference between believing something or not liking something and acting upon that belief/opinion.

And to try to bring it back to the OP, I think if you try to look at it that way: as neither you nor your parents are wrong, just different, it might ease the problem. As unless one of you changes your views it is still a sore spot and unlikely to resolve completely.

So sorry this is atrociously long and I hope it doesn't sound preachy. I don't intend it to be that way, I just have thought about this a lot lately and hoped that it might help to think of it analytically in a time when our emotions are entering nuclear meltdown.

 

[missy]

I think @missy hit the nail on the head, you cannot change everyone's opinion as it will inevitably be a result of their life experiences so just change the subject and show your love in other ways. I realise it may be largely cultural but you simply cannot go through life attempting to make everyone happy!

Yes, in fact if you go through life trying to make everyone happy you are sure to make yourself miserable. IMO.