How do you convince someone of something that is true? If we had the answer to this question, world peace and many other good things should be inevitable. Unfortunately, you cannot.
Let's start by talking about what I don't mean by this. I do not mean that you cannot know what is true. I do not mean that you're just bad at rthethoric. I do not mean that people are never convinced of anything by anyone. I do not mean that you cannot accurately communicate anything (this is true, information is not transferable, but it's not the crux of the issue here).
What I mean is that a person exclusively becomes convinced of their own accord.
Argumenting #
You may have had this experience. Someone is wrong, you identify what they're thinking, list out everything that's wrong with it, and present concrete evidence they can observe and experience to prove you're right. They might then counter this. Their counter makes no sense and is simply untenable. What just happened?
The problem here is that you were arguing with them. A person only becomes convinced of their own accord. When you argue with someone, you are placing yourself as an opponent, an enemy. Not on a conscious level, but in terms of social dynamics. You do not want to agree with an opponent or let them win, and so you will not become convinced of your own accord, meaning you will not be convinced, full stop. The same applies to them as well.
There are exceptions here, but they're precisely this: exceptions.
If you've seen enough arguments, you might have noticed this in general. They very rarely end productively. Much more often than not they end in people talking past each other, and this is why.
Appealing #
You might say "oh, alright, then I simply need to appeal to them and be on their side to convince them". The problem remains: you can only convince them of their own accord. Put differently, you can only convince them if they want to be convinced of what you are trying to convince them of. You might be on their side, but if you're saying things they don't want to believe, they won't believe them. If anything, you might stop being considered on their side if you keep trying to show them something they don't want to see. (Again, remember, for the purposes of this conversation we're presuming that you ARE the holder of absolute truth.)
Whatever you tell them has to fit into their worldview and conceptualization of things. You can shake those up, but it's typically in their perceived interests to avoid changing those, so good luck there too.
Groups #
Let's say that you either changed someone's worldview or managed to shake it up into one that's compatible. This is a very big ask, but let's imagine you managed to do this. You still can't simply appeal to them for social reasons.
You will generally surround yourself with people that share your general worldview. Not consciously or anything, things just tend to work out this way. You prefer to hang around people that have opinions like yours, that understand you. These are both proxies for your worldview. Group membership and decent relations are therefore also proxies for worldview.
If someone's worldview is shaken up or changed, all of their social contacts are now a worse fit. This creates an enormous social pressure to put it back. There are plenty of people around with the prior worldview that are willing and going to try and put it back. Importantly, the prior worldview is one the person has spent a long time on, their brain is tuned for it, it's not hard to return with help. Even if your changes are drastic, what's likely to happen is an eventual shift to a compatible one.
On top of the supreme violence you are inflicting on the person, you are also effectively destroying their social life. Forcing them to find completely new contacts.
This effect though is also of curious implications on the nature of social groups and their cognitive effects, but that's for another time.
So... Now what? #
So in order to convince something they don't want to be convinced of you must:
- Inflict extraordinary violence upon them to change their worldview to one that is compatible with what you are trying to evoke.
- Cause irrepairable damage to their social connections by proxy.
- Constantly watch over their headspace to ensure the worldview is not drifting wrong.
- Manage to communicate non-transferable knowledge to accurately portray what you're actually trying to communicate.
You simply cannot do this. If you could, and you did, you are a mythical being and a monster. It is far easier to convince yourself that you've convinced someone else (after all, you'd like to think that you're good at convincing). In this sense, I will not convince you through this text that you cannot convince anyone.
This means that communication needs to be aimed for and addressed to people that are already willing to be convinced of an idea in the abstract. That things you write should be aimed towards your friends, or at least people that are likely to have a similar worldview to yours. Coincidentally, this also makes writing enormously easier and more effective.
It also means that if there are large sections of the population that hold incompatible worldviews to yours, that situation cannot end well for anyone. The longer they've held it, the more social ties they've made on that basis, the more unwell the ending is likely to be. The only hope is that they're in it for a material reason, that changes to material conditions can improve this. There is evidence to suggest this, for some cases. We live in a world where the outlook is bleak.