How might one turn bad faith on its head to help rather than harm?

In thinking on the classic Sartre quote concerning the folly of arguing with anti-Semites as if they're arguing in good faith, as well as the Swift quote regarding reasoning being unable to correct an ill opinion one didn't reason themselves into...It's left me thinking that perhaps a way to alter the path of those astray is to "play" them out of it, so to speak, but what might this look like?

After all, despite Sartre's last somewhat optimistic sentence, you may easily find that many that argue in bad faith rarely fall silent for long, if at all, when pressed.

::: spoiler For those unfamiliar, here are the quotes in question: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

And: "Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired." ― Jonathan Swift.

(This second one takes on various forms.):::

9 comments

In my experience, it's most important to give them a path to leave their position without losing face.
Many times, it may look like someone is arguing in bad faith, even though they're really just wrong about something or may even just have a different perspective on things.
If you approach them by saying "Hey, this is a common misconception, here's why it's wrong." or "Hey, my experience is like this, is yours different?", then they can easily come back around and learn from you, or teach you something.
If you're assuming they're arguing in bad faith, chances are, they think the same of you, so breaking that up before you try to bring in your best arguments, is in the interest of everyone involved.
For the rare cases that someone is genuinely arguing in bad faith (i.e. trolling, really), I find it most effective to make it clear that you're not personally invested in them not being an asshole. If they want to be intolerant, so be it.
But that does not mean that you tolerate their intolerance. If they're intolerant, they break with the social contract of tolerance and will be treated as lesser.
That way, you:
nix the fun of trolling you.
make it clear that they're being dumb.
give them a clear path out of there (i.e. simply not being an asshole).
- I think this is all pretty good advice, thanks!
  However, this & the other replies, have made me realize I should have taken more time with the body text of this question. What I was a little more interested in was less the one-on-one interactions, and more something like..."How might one co-opt bad faith methods to spread helpful, good information?"
  It's so easy to to toss out bad, harmful information, but might there be some ways to more easily put out good, helpful information that sticks with people? Or at a minimum, more benign info that doesn't gradually push people down darker paths? 🤔

You can if others are paying attention. You can get the other person to display their true selves. So you can convince a third party, and furthermore it can create peer pressure for the bad actor.
Further, you can decide to focus on the sycophants surrounding them. They're generally in this follower mode and if you play you cards right their support will buckle.
Especially effective if you combine the two.

Interesting question. Funnily enough, i‘ve been asking myself about bad faith arguments a lot since the last couple of days. Seems like lemmy is getting run over again.
I personally dont immediately detect bad faith arguments so I always treat them like normal arguments. People then often get really annoyed at me, probably because they wanted me to be outraged or shocked. Then they lose it which really amuses me.
Calling out if I detect something like it has also helped. „So you are saying a group of people deserves to be abused and ultimately killed?“ to stay with satre‘s example.
Have a good one.

If someone's being bad faith just clown on them. They're not going to take it seriously so why should you?

I like to out-crazy them. Of course you wouldn't want to do this in an anti-Semitic way, but there are plenty of ways to troll them with crazy, bonus points if you can get them to agree with you. For instance, if they say that they think that vaccines cause [medical condition], counter with vaccines are a hoax perpetrated by the State of Oklahoma in order to get more Federal money and to further the Liberal Woke™ agenda.
- Exactly. These people don't do any research or expect sources so you can pretty much say whatever you like as if it was fact. Take the argument off the rails and make it a creative writing exercise.

Hard to maintain if someone is pushing all the right buttons, but I have found it most useful to treat every argument as if it is being made in good faith.
Sincerity is impossible to “prove,” so any attempt at calling someone out is doomed; best (imho) to engage the point and not the person making it.

9 comments