Public discourse shows confident assertions of simple solutions while failing to persuade those who disagree. Confidence with implied certainty provokes backlash by appearing patronizing, oversimplified, and confirmation-biased. Certainty suppresses doubt and undermines learning; self-deception arises from suppressing doubt and fails to persuade. Persuasion requires positive regard and respectful engagement; accusations, criticism, labeling, and disrespect produce defensiveness. A feedback loop of entitlement and frustration arises from perceived rights to control others' thoughts, generating resentment and anger that further reduce persuasive possibilities and intensify the cycle.
Virtually all of my clients over the years have shown a strong desire to persuade others that they're right, moral, and worthy of admiration, or at least acceptance. Their usual explanations of why persuasion is important are: Achieving goals and implementing ideas Building relationships and social support Influencing decisions and actions Resolving conflict and driving change. How often does any of that happen in our polarized world?
Public discourse these days is marked by great confidence about simple solutions to complex problems. Yet no one seems able to persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with them. That's because confidence with implied certainty is more likely to inspire contradicting responses, if not backlash. Confidence can easily come off as patronizing or condescending. It's usually nested in oversimplification and confirmation bias.
Feelings of certainty are the enemy of learning because everything we know highlights what we don't know. Knowing is an absence of doubt. Self-deception is the suppression of doubt. Self-deception is unlikely to persuade anyone. Persuasion occurs only with positive regard. You'll never convince people that you're right by making them defensive through accusations, criticism, negative characterizations, labelling, name-calling, or other forms of disrespect. Those behaviors are more autobiographical than revealing descriptions of others; that is, they're laden with projections and biases.
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