The Spectrum of Belief and the Circle of Influence

Today I want to talk about the spectrum of belief, the circle of influence, and how those two interact to move our society forward. If you feel tempted to Google those phrases, don’t bother. I made them up only to later realize they already exist. No matter.

This is a political post, so if you’d rather me not touch the sacred grounds of politics, maybe read one of these articles instead. 

Anyway, without offending anyone…

Let’s talk about why the left kind of sucks

As someone who self-identifies as a member of Team Liberal Left- although admittedly on the overall political spectrum I’m pretty close to the middle- I’m bothered by the left’s own treatment of itself.

I could be completely missing the mark here, but it feels like people on the right side of the political aisle treat members of their own team a lot better than the left treats members of their own team. Conservatives might make fun of each other for not being conservative enough, but there seems to be a lining of friendliness to the banter. Members of the left will figuratively burn each other’s houses down if they feel their views don’t go far enough.

The reason this bothers me is it discourages people who aren’t deemed to be progressive enough from even trying. The reason THIS bothers me is social progress is like a ladder and we need people at each rung in order to move the overall conversation forward.

The Spectrum of Belief and The Circle of Influence

No matter what topic we’re talking about, we all fit somewhere on the spectrum of belief about that topic. We also all have a circle of influence- people fairly close to us on that spectrum that we’re able to have meaningful dialogue with.

As a society, our collective circle of influence forms a ladder that gets us, as a whole, to a better (or worse) place. The point of the whole thing is we need each rung in order to have an effective ladder. If you already totally understand what I’m trying to say, you can stop reading here. There are a lot of pictures though, so maybe at least look at them.

I recently wrote an article about gender-neutral restrooms. I did my best to be as nuanced as I could about the subject and position each side’s argument in the most favorable light.

Side Note: This is something we should always do. Position your opposition's argument in the best possible light and attack it from there. Give the best reason's why someone should agree with their side and then explain why your side is more logical. 

People tend to make strawman arguments about the other side, which is a really self-defeating exercise. All your opponent has to do is explain how silly your explanation of their side is and you've lost all the ground you've attempted to gain. 

An example of this would be the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. If you're pro-life don't say, "Oh so you just want to kill babies." That's a strawman argument. It's not the WHY behind someone being pro-choice. Make the best possible argument for why someone would want to be pro-choice and then explain why you feel pro-life is a better viewpoint or vice versa.

Moving on.

To be clear, I’m not saying my arguments for and against gender-neutral restrooms were any good, I’m just saying I did my best to give the most convincing argument on both sides.

My article was well-received on the whole. Some people agreed with my conclusions and some disagreed, but most people felt I gave a fair and nuanced look at the subject.

It was mostly well-received. One guy on Instagram said,

“Quit perpetuating a non-issue. Even despite your efforts, you come across closed-minded as fuck in this article.”

His comment is what I want to talk about today. The thing is, in one sense he might be right. My view on gender-neutral restrooms might not be nearly as high up on the progressive rung as it needs to be. But comments like his actually hold back progress.

My view is needed because there are people even further down the progressive rung than me. Someone like him might not be able to reach those less progressive than me because he’s outside of their circle of influence. But, because I’m closer to them on the overall rung, my voice gets through.

Based on his comment, I’m assuming he’s on Team Left. I don’t know that for sure. He might be a hardcore conservative who just happens to be very progressive about the whole bathroom situation. But, I’m assuming he’s further on the left spectrum than I am. It doesn’t really matter what his actual political leanings are, it’s a great illustration of the type of way the left sabotages itself.

[Also, he’s probably a great guy. I don’t harbor any ill-will towards him for making the comment. He just happens to slide in nicely as an example of something I’ve been thinking about for a while.]

Let’s recap.

This guy- I’m assuming someone who identifies as liberal- was unhappy with me- someone who also identifies as liberal- about my portrayal of the gender-neutral restroom issue. 

To explain why this is a big deal, we need to back up a little.

The Spectrum of Belief

No matter what belief we’re talking about, we all fit somewhere on the belief spectrum. In politics, we’ve sectioned ourselves off into two main categories- liberal and conservative, i.e. the left and the right.

Having just two main choices sets up a situation where people think of themselves as either on the left or on the right, instead of at a certain point on the left/right spectrum. The reality is people’s beliefs are all over the place. There aren’t just people’s conclusions to take into account, but the way they reached those conclusions and the degree of certainty to which they hold them.

Depending on where you fit in on the left/right spectrum, your beliefs might line up more with someone from the opposite political side than they do with some of the people in your own party.

In this case, I have way more in common with Right-Leaning Guy than I do with Far-Left Guy, even though both he and I refer to ourselves as people on the left. I can talk with Right-Leaning Guy about a number of subjects without either one of us getting too frustrated with the other. We can each see how the other arrived at their conclusions. Given different arguments when we were first forming our belief we each might have ultimately arrived at each other’s conclusions.

Instagram Guy seemed to be further to the left than I am. I don’t know if he’s just slightly more left than me or if he’s all the way over next to Far-Left Guy. When looking at my thought process on gender-neutral bathrooms, he determined that I was closed-minded as f*ck.

This would lead me to believe everyone to the right of me on the spectrum is most likely also closed-minded as f*ck when it comes to the gender-neutral bathroom discussion.

This example of disagreement is where I start to have a problem with people on the left that I don’t see as much on the right. I’m not sure if the collective consciousness of the left notices this trend or not. I know individuals on the left are aware of this, but it might be one of those things where the further left you land on the belief spectrum the less you think this is an issue.

If someone on the right knows that you’re Team Right, they more or less leave it alone. They aren’t so concerned that you aren’t AS right on the spectrum as they are. They’re just happy you’re somewhere on Team Right.

Stereotypically, Far-Right Guy isn’t a fan of people who prefer red wine over Bud Light. But, he’s more concerned that Red Wine Drinking Guy is on his team.

The left isn’t like this. The way it appears to work on the left is everyone to the left of you is on Team Left, everyone to the right of you is on Team Right. This seems to be regardless of where you actually fit on the left/right spectrum.

[I want to be clear that I’m not making any assumptions as to Instagram Guy’s actual political leanings. He’s just a handy stand-in to prove my point. I also don’t know if he would consider me on Team Left or not. Again, just a handy stand-in.] 

The further left on the spectrum you go, the more progressive you have to be in your views to be considered part of Team Left. The thing is, nobody on the far-left considers themselves to be part of the far-left. To them, they’re just common sense left. Everything else is either enabling the right, the right, the far-right, probably a Nazi, or Literally Hitler.

The reason any of this matters is because, as Team Left, we want to pull the world into being more progressive than it currently is. People on Team Left will vary as to where they feel the optimum place on the progressive spectrum is, but for the most part, we agree we need to be more progressive than we are.

I think the way to go about this is to encourage open dialogue. The idea that I shouldn’t have approached the gender-neutral issue is nonsense. I might not be the perfect voice to portray the benefits of a gender-neutral restroom overall, but I might be the perfect voice for someone directly to the right of me.

As a white male, I’m certainly not the best voice to cover the topic of race relations or the obstacles women face in the workforce. But, my sympathetic view on those topics might resonate with the country boy down the way who ordinarily finds these to be non-issues.

If we shoot down everyone who isn’t as woke as us, we’ll be left standing on a single rung ladder with nothing but empty space below us.

The Circle of Influence

Why is the country boy down the way more likely to listen to me talk about complex social topics over the actual experts? Because he’s in my circle of influence.

We all have a circle of people who will, more or less, listen to our views and possibly even adapt their own. Our circle of influence is generally people within a few degrees of where we are on whatever spectrum we’re debating.

Ideally, we want our circle of influence to be as large as possible. We want to be able to interact with people no matter what their belief is. We want to be able to see things from their perspective and we want them to see things from our perspective.

Each individual’s circle of influence varies in size but on the whole, your circle of influence is typically a few rungs in each direction.

For instance, Right-Leaning Guy’s circle of influence includes me and even Skater Guy to the left of me. It also includes several people more conservative than him, up to Red Wine Drinking Guy.

He’s able to talk to any of us about most issues and, even though we may not agree, we can see where the other person is coming from. His circle of influence runs out when he tries to talk to the Big Beard Biker Guy on the right and Glasses Wearing Girl to the left of Skater Guy.

He’s too right-wing for the liberal Glasses Girl to take seriously, and he’s too close to a confused liberal for the very conservative Biker Guy to take seriously.

Each person’s circle of influence overlaps with those around them.

In this case, my circle of influence includes a lot of the same people Right-Leaning Guy’s circle of influence includes. It doesn’t include Red Wine Guy or Softball Player Girl, but it DOES include Glasses Girl.

Once you get to a certain spot on the spectrum you probably aren’t going to listen to my liberal ramblings about gender-neutral restrooms. But, people on the moderate-right likely will. Some of those people can take arguments they learned from me and share it with someone even further right than them.

If you have someone who is an excellent communicator, they might be able to skip a few additional rungs on the belief spectrum. If I had rock-solid logic I might be able to skip over Right-Leaning Guy and go straight to influencing Red Wine Guy. Since I’m a pretty amateur communicator I need to use Right-Leaning Guy to get my point across.

Even the best communicators can’t reach everyone. If someone isn’t looking at their arguments in good faith, then it won’t make any difference. I might say the exact same points that the Right-Leaning Guy says, but if the Red Wine Guy refuses to hear them on account of me being a liberal hippie, then there isn’t much I can do.

That’s why when I try to talk to the Far-Right Guy about gender-neutral restrooms, or any other political topic, I’m almost certainly not going to get a favorable response.

But I CAN talk to Right-Leaning Guy about it.

…and he can talk to Red Wine Guy.

He can talk to Biker Guy…

…and he can talk to Far-Right Guy…

Those same people would likely NOT listen to someone who is so far left of me that they think I’m a closed-minded neanderthal.

This is NOT going to change Far-Right Guy’s opinion to be suddenly in favor of gender-neutral restrooms, but it MIGHT make him slightly less against it. On this one issue, he might move one rung up on the progressive ladder without realizing it.

Instead of saying stuff like, “There’s no reason for gender-neutral bathrooms!” he might say stuff like, “The only benefit to gender-neutral bathrooms is parents being able to both help with the kid potty situation.” He’s still a long way away from being totally progressive about the idea, but he’s more progressive than he was, and that’s a win.

This is how society as a whole slowly moves forward.

The Progress Ladder of Influence

Our various circles of influence interlock with each other and form a Progress Ladder. In order to move thought forward, we need each rung. Here’s what it looks like.

Here, this will be easier to see.

The people directly below me aren’t ready to hear the most progressive rungs of thought, but they’re ready to hear mine. I can help pull them slightly up the progress ladder because they know I’m only slightly more of a liberal hippie than they are. Our thoughts align almost everywhere, with only slight differences.

Instead of bashing people who get it wrong, we need to encourage people’s attempt at moving the conversation forward, even if it’s not AS FAR forward as we’d like to move it.

If you are someone much further left than I am, you may not have found my article very thought-provoking and in some cases even closed-minded. But, someone just right of me might have thought about the issue in a new way.

We need each rung of the ladder- going both ways- in order to gain a better understanding of each issue.

Conclusion

We need to decide if our goal is to throw verbal jabs at each other or if we’d rather concentrate on changing people’s minds, however slightly. If the goal is to gain points among other like-minded individuals, then throwing mental jabs at each other might be the most efficient way.

If the goal is to get people to actually change their viewpoints, then we need to use logic, reason, and our circle of influence. Hurling insults is fun, but it’s ineffective.

Quick Disclaimer

I’ve set up a situation where you could easily think I’m saying the further left you are the more correct you are. This isn’t what I’m trying to depict. I think the far-left is often just as loony tunes as the far-right, just in the opposite way.

The left seems to be the engine that drives the car of progress forward and the right seems to be the breaks making sure society’s car doesn’t go cascading off the mountainside. I think both are important.

Whether you’re Team Left or Team Right, we need each step of the ladder. We need to meet people where they are, not scream at them for not being where we are.

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