“I didn’t let it touch me!”

This is basically a conversation I overheard between two libertarians. A depressing, but informative conversation. Basically, one of them was talking about how he had listened to the arguments of a “Marxist” professor (the professor is not a Marxist, he simply understands Marxist critique of capitalism) about the flaws, especially the information flaws, of capitalism. He acknowledged that the professor’s arguments were well-thought-out, well-backed up, and matched empirically reality.

But, he said “I didn’t let it touch me.” He didn’t see the argument as an argument that he could settle in his own mind. In fact, after listening to this argument he said he ‘read some Libertarian blogs for awhile just to reassure myself’. He didn’t seek out arguments that actually defeated the critique (which, y’know, there aren’t any), he was looking to them for reassurance, as a religious person in a time of personal agony might read his bible.

This correlates, to me, with another fact: many people who change their minds on a subject are more often depressed afterwards than not, regardless of whether the change of mind led to a better outcome. People who have been taking echinachea and willow bark for their cancer, who finally choose to use real therapies and see them work are more depressed afterwards. This is, of course, in US society, and it obviously to me is culturally bounded, but it’s still one of the major problems we have here in the US. Getting the libertarian to acknowledge that the other’s argument completely demolished his own wasn’t hard. Getting that to make him actually change his mind would be very hard, and would revolve, I think, around ameliorating this embarrassment/shame/pain that is felt by many of those who change their minds.