Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts

Ben Shapiro likes to say, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

This could be the mantra of most conservatives in their contempt for your typical bleeding-heart liberal.

It is technically true. Even discounting the fact that facts aren’t sentient beings that care about anything at all, objective facts remain facts, unaffected by any feelings you might have about them. Capitalism brings more prosperity and freedom to a country’s citizens than socialism ever will. Gun control will cause only bad guys to have guns. Our governments are drowning in debt. There are only two sexes. Babies in the womb are human beings. The list goes on.

Armed with these facts, conservatives engage liberals with great confidence — even smugness. That confidence, however, soon turns to frustration as, in the conservative’s mind, those stupid, obstinate liberals, in the face of undeniable facts, just don’t or won’t get it.

I recall one such conversation between two co-workers. The conservative knew his facts and was slicing and dicing his liberal opponent who was clearly not that into politics and just had that nice feeling that we should all get along with the government providing for those who are struggling. In response to the conservative’s arguments, he would reply “I just feel that.. “ or “I just think that..” to which the conservative would launch into his rebuttal.

On the one hand, the conservative’s performance was impressive. He was on top of his game, clearly dominating the conversation with, from my point of view, inescapable logic.

On the other hand, from my point of view, he failed miserably. It was clear that the liberal’s mind was not being changed. I don’t know if the conservative even noticed. I don’t know if he even cared. He was probably thinking “If he doesn’t get it, screw him!” He was just too proud of himself.

If he had that conversation today, I could well imagine him saying “Facts don’t care about your feelings”.

Now, I am not going to critique Ben Shapiro on his argumentation skills. His manner in a public forum works well for him.

However, I am going to suggest that you not take the same approach in your personal conversations.

It is true that facts don’t care about your feelings, but when you say it (or even just think it) you are saying more than that. You are saying, “I don’t care about your feelings.”

Not a great start if you are trying to build rapport.

We need to remember, “Feelings don’t care about your facts.” Or, as you may know it, “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.”

We tend to forget this — particularly when we are talking politics.

When we take the “Facts don’t care about your feelings” approach, we fail on a number of levels:

1. People don’t see their own perception of the facts as being clouded by their feelings. So, our denunciation of their feelings appears misguided to them at the outset.

2. In politics, in particular, we are arguing about how to be a good society of good people. If we come off as obnoxious, arrogant jerks, well then, what we believe becomes what arrogant jerk believes, or what we believe leads people to become arrogant jerks.

3. Regardless, of the implications your facts have for society, a person doesn’t want to listen to an arrogant jerk.

4. It’s inarticulate, as I mentioned earlier, we understand that facts don’t care, and neither do feelings. Better to say what we really mean.

What’s more, we forget that our own feelings are woven into our perception of the facts, our choice of those facts, and our prioritizing of those facts.

Consider abortion. If you are pro-life, you have very logical arguments for your stand, including the sanctity of life, personal responsibility, and the slippery slope. Unspoken in there is that you relate to babies in the womb very viscerally. You think of a babe-in-arms. You imagine its pain as though it were your pain the same way you wince as if in pain when you see someone hit their thumb with a hammer. You feel the feelings for that pre-born baby. That built-in feeling mechanism is part of our humanity. It gives us our principle of the sanctity of life.

The pro-choicer could easily say, “That month-old fetus is not a developed, pain-feeling human being even though you feel for it that way. Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

So.. you want to focus on their feelings.

You should demonstrate that you understand the other’s feelings and — maybe even sympathize with them. Unwed mothers are in a bind, illegal aliens have a rotten life, and the poor are suffering. Nobody likes to see people suffer (well, unless perhaps they are really, really angry with them!). Until you acknowledge those feelings, the other person will not really be open to any other point of view.

Then, you can consider whether the other person’s stance leads to more suffering or less suffering, to what extent we are held hostage to someone else’s bad choices or laziness, etc.

You know the drill. Just don’t skip over the feelings. Bring in your wonderful facts but always in support of the feelings.

Now, when you try this approach, somehow, the conversation may spend too much time on the sympathizing with too little time for your inescapable facts. You come away thinking, that you wimped out, that you failed. Perhaps you could have done it better. On the other hand, what choice did you have? You could have skipped the sympathizing or moved quickly onto your inescapable facts. That would have felt better. But, you probably would not have fared any better.

His feelings wouldn’t have cared about your facts, anyway.