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Arguing a point has never changed my mind. As a philosopher, that’s a brazen thing to say. It’s pig-headed, closed-minded, and stubborn. But, it’s also very human. Of course, I’ve changed my beliefs over the years. I would have to have been an especially enlightened 10-year-old to have been right about everything from the get-go, talking in Confucian aphorisms over a bowl of cereal.
What I mean is that I have never changed my mind in the heated throes of a point-scoring debate. I’ve never paused midsentence to say, “Oh, yeah, you’re right” or “How could I have been so wrong?” I get too riled up. I feel my heart race and my blood starts to flow. I’m a philosophical bull seeing red.
It turns out that I’m not alone. While the supposed “backfire effect” — the idea that people tend to double-down on false beliefs when someone tries to correct them — is almost certainly exaggerated, it’s fair to say that who, when, and how someone says something are almost always more important than what they say. Our beliefs are formed adjacent to “the facts” but rarely depend on them.
So, what are we to do about those who hold radical beliefs? How can we help people who are ideologically extreme in a way that doesn’t involve locking them away or putting them on a watch list?
This is what I spoke to the political neuroscientist Leor Zmigrod about in our Mini Philosophy interview, where she explains that there are traditionally two “deradicalization” techniques. One is often the “official” program of many countries. But for Zmigrod, the other works better.
The moderate way
One of the most common approaches to deradicalization involves diluting a radical belief in steps. It’s a technique used in Saudi Arabia’s Munasaha (“counselling”) program and Western “EXIT” programs, beginning with Norway in 1997.
It works by getting the person talking — usually to someone they already trust, and, crucially, someone from inside their own world. “If it’s a religious fanaticism, bring in a more moderate preacher,” Zmigrod said. “If it’s a political fanaticism, you bring in someone they might consider as part of their group, but on a less extreme version of that doctrine.” It has to be someone who speaks the language, shares the references, and can’t be locked out as “the enemy.” These moderates then, gently and over many conversations, try to “pull [the extremist] away from the edges and towards a more mainstream, more peaceful view.”
EXIT programs like this can be effective. But they don’t fix the person’s underlying rigidity. They don’t turn a closed mind into an open one or break down the barricades. The idea that there’s an “us” and a “them” is part of the problem. Arguably, it’s the only problem. Any person who sees their ideology as pure or righteous and the enemy as corrupted or unrighteous can be motivated to do terrible things.
So, this technique helps with the immediate issue — violent, criminal, murderous extremism. But it doesn’t resolve the underlying cognitive habits.
The better way
If softening the edges isn’t enough, what’s the alternative? According to Zmigrod, the most effective move has nothing to do with the content of ideology at all.
“One of the best ways is actually to have them in contact with the people that they’ve dehumanized,” she told me. “Because once you have contact between groups and between individuals, you suddenly remember the other person’s humanity.”
In other words, you put the person in the same room as the very people they’ve been taught to hate. You get them to talk to the “enemy.” You get them working towards some shared task.
“Getting people who’ve been on opposite sides to do something creative together,” she said, “is a really effective way of reducing people’s prejudices against each other. It works better than just tackling the other person’s ideologies.”
Rigid ideologies will often feature a caricature of the enemy. The immigrant. The believer. The lefty. The other. It’s a stereotype that feeds on disconnect and lives only in the imagination.
The best way to banish the terrible, invented fears of the mind is to get outside. Meet reality. When you do, you often find it’s hard to hold on to your caricatures. Actual human beings are funnier, kinder, and more complicated than the invented image ever portrayed them.
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Credit: William Holbrook Beard / Public Domain / Artvee
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