This borders on non-philosophy, so move it if you need to.

A branch from another thread on facts.

. . .So in the unlikely occasion that you could be having a debate with an Islamic fundamentalist about not allowing females to attend university, how might you go about providing a counter narrative? — Tom Storm

I apologize in advance for a bit of a meandering answer, but here it goes.

As it turns out, there are in-groups and out-groups and the same language out of the mouths members of one group or another will have a different impact on members of one group or another. This is to say that in-group members talking to in-group members can have conversations with one another that they would not entertain with out-group members. Putting aside for a moment code-switching (either speaking differently to members of one group or another or speaking the same knowing it means different things), we must acknowledge at the outset of our analysis that commonality in identity is an important factor in any conversation. The presumption for this thread is that an out-group member is talking to an in-group member and trying to get the in-group member to agree to something seemingly anathema to the dogma of the in-group.

Why do we talk/communicate? My position is that all speech/acts are political, i.e. that any speech is designed to change how other people behave and any act changes the world in a way that effects not only you, but other people. At the same time, “war is politics by other means” is central to the idea of government, i.e. that the role of government is largely to mitigate a person’s (or group’s) resort to violence in order to get what it wants and to provide a system in which people with competing agendas can function towards a common goal (such as peaceful co-existence). Although group violence does not seem to play a prominent role in the way that Western societies deal with one another internally anymore, group violence is a real and constant threat all around the world.

This gives us some context for the way in which people communicate with one another - each group with their own set of convictions acting in a somewhat unified way confronting the other in a world of finite resources. War, i.e. violence, is always an option unless there is some external factor (such as government) that has somehow precluded the resort to violence.

In this mix, we have two people, a featureless out-group me and a scholar of Islam that insists that woman cannot be allowed to attend university based upon the law. How might I debate him?

Firstly I have to consider my audience - this “playing to your audience” is a regular feature of debates and very often the debate is not between the two people debating, but rather point scoring within each person’s respective group. No two-hour talk (regardless of the format) is truly expected to change the minds of people with heavily considered (even if dumb) positions. If I debated the scholar with this goal in mind (increased cohesion amongst the out-group), it would sound very different than if I were to try to speak to the scholar to change his mind (or that of other in-group members who might be listening). I will not address the out-group out-group dynamic because it doesn’t really get to the problem of alternate facts. I will also not treat this like a formal debate (whether the goal is to score points), but rather a debate in which an out-group member is trying to get an in-group member to allow something abhorrent or to at least not resort to violence if the system governing him permits woman to attend university.

Secondly, I would attempt to determine the best method by which to address this particular scholar. Given what I said above (and my general ignorance of Islamic law), a direct attack on the scholar’s interpretation of Islamic law seems a waste of everyone’s time. Even if I spoke in the most sophisticated of ways about Islam, anything I said would be dismissed out of hand. Similarly, assuming a reasonable level of intelligence from the scholar, I would be mindful that the scholar is unlikely to be involved in a good faith debate about his position regarding women, but that he is either going to do what I am about to describe or he is going to try and get me to question my own position.

What is important here is that the reasons are not important - we are debating whether women should be allowed to attend university, not whether we agree on the whys. We will never come to the conclusion for the same reasons even if we share some of the same language in giving our reasons. For instance, we might both declare that harmonious familial relations are a priority and that education contributes to familial harmony, but whatever I mean by those words could be totally at odds by what he means. I just want him to let women attend university.

So what would get him to question his own position? I could deny a bunch of “facts” that ground his position. I might declare that his holy book was written differently than he thinks or that his holy figures did not exist or behaved in ways contrary to his beliefs. I could marshal all of the evidence in the world to show him that based upon our best theories, what he says isn’t so. I might show him studies relating to economic prosperity, levels of happiness, domestic tranquility, or number of children where women are educated, but he is likely to not care because those are irrelevant to how he reached his conclusion. What I might consider facts relevant to the conversation are irrelevant to him and when I discuss things that are relevant to him he won’t hear me because I am member of the out-group.

Unfortunately, this is where it all falls apart. There is nothing I can say besides appealing to his desire for peace in a world where my group is able to foist educating women upon him. I can threaten his children, family, town, etc. with immense amounts of violence to get him to agree to let women attend university, but both he and I know that power shifts and violence heaped upon him may end up being returned. We also know that there is asymmetry in our positions - my concern for general welfare will likely result in a faster retreat from positions than his, so minimal acts of violence from his side will cause a bigger change than minimal acts of violence from mine.

Similarly, I can threaten economic coercion - that my group won’t trade with his group unless they behave how we want them to. Assuming my group doesn’t need him, this has some potential to gain sway. If our blockade will heap more economic pain on them than they are willing to tolerate, perhaps they will permit behavior that they otherwise would not. But regardless of how we got there (violence or economic coercion), how many of their women would go to university and defy their community?

Put simply - I can look like a raging tyrant, an ineffective debater, or a non-participant. I happen to think not-participating is generally the best choice.

For all of these words, the broader point remains - differences in facts are typically emblematic of differences in values/paradigms that are irreconcilable. I cannot, by mere words alone, force someone to change their deeply held beliefs that permit them to maintain claims about the world that appear counter-factual. If the idea was so counter-productive to their continued survival, they would have to change it by force of the world. It is like liberals thinking that in the marketplace of ideas the best ideas will rise to the top despite all of the evidence to the contrary (people like to buy ideas consistent with their previously held beliefs).

The facts are what they are, but people’s minds and beliefs are guided by other factors. As I was once told in the context of legal arguments, “Sophisticated arguments are for sophisticated people”. Most people are simply incapable of independently assessing claims of fact and they defer to their authorities/experts. Let the world impose itself and the “facts” will out.