Group Association

I go out of my way to talk to people I don't agree with. And this is not just over minor things, this is over big controversial things such as a lot of the subject matter on this blog - and in fact this blog often refers to some of those conversations. Why? When you find someone you disagree with, you have found the edge of your echo-chamber: if you want to help change someone's opinion, this is your only chance. But most of the time you can't change someone's opinion by arguing with them, right? 100% correct. So why discuss something with someone when you know their opinion won't budge yet?

Marketing In the Soul Age describes people identifying themselves, at least as consumers, as a unique combination of memberships in different groups. Taking me for example, I generally associate with LDS, Tai Chi, Full Contact Weapon Fighting, Yang Gang, Antioch University, AntiMLM, etc. Think about your life, what groups do you identify with?

Now, let's take two opposing groups. One group is a historical society who wants to preserve the look and feel of downtown, and the other group is a business association that wants to renovate the downtown area.  On one hand we have Nancy who is in the historical society, and on the other hand we have Jill who is in the business association. Let's say these two open a correspondence. They argue, make generalizations about each other, and otherwise have extraordinary disagreements.

But as this correspondence continues something interesting happens. When Nancy goes back to hang out with the other people in the historical society, Nancy is more knowledgeable about the business association's views. Nancy becomes the historical society's resident expert on business association thinking, basically becoming their resident business association group member. Likewise when Jill goes back to hang out with the business association, Jill rapidly becomes the business association's resident historical society member.

In order to adequately represent business association views to the historical society Nancy will find herself sometimes defending business association views. Likewise Jill will sometimes find herself defending historical society views at the business association. But this expands both Jill's and Nancy's options, because now that they understand each others perspectives, they can use each others perspectives as needed. Jill might be able to see that some of the old buildings might make good tourist attractions to attract more business, and Nancy might be able to see that if some parts of downtown are renovated it could increase the tax revenue needed to maintain more important landmarks.

Keep this "group association" concept in mind when chatting with someone involved in MLM. If you have correspondence with someone who is in MLM, they become that MLMer who has anti-MLM friends. This can help them leave MLM, because as they inevitably run into the problems in MLM, they will have YOUR anti-MLM perspective for handling those problems, and they will have YOU as a friend so they are not so isolated as they leave MLM.