To some degree this is a tautology. Anyone who is impossible to debate is by definition an ideologue and vice versa. The big question is: how do you tell the difference between an idealogue and someone who merely disagrees with you?
A lot of that depends on how much and in what way they disagree with you. That’s not a question that can be answered with a few snap judgments. The only way you can find out which category they belong in is to spend some time with them. But how much?
It’s very tempting to dismiss someone who radically disagrees with you as an idealogue. It makes the other person predicable and comprehensible, and thus easy to ignore. I think that’s what makes “the invasion of the body snatchers” movies so compelling. The idea is that once an adversary has their mind possessed by some kind of idealogy, they have lost the power to reason. When I was young tyke in the 50’s, Communist propaganda was supposed to have this power over people. There’s no point in taking them to the argument parlor. Ridicule and abuse become the only speech acts available, and communication becomes impossible.
Of course there are people you have to give up on, because life is short. But there’s always a Buddhist version of Pascal’s wager available for you, if you want to take it. Either their minds have been totally devoured by some sort of idealogical virus, or underneath all that delusion and hysteria there is a mind that can transform attachment, aversion and ignorance into discriminating wisdom. When I am working as a teacher, I try to assume that all of my students are geniuses, and that I just haven’t found the way to unlock their insight (yet?) Sometimes I never find it, but that doesn’t prove it isn’t there.
Lies that have no connection to reality at all have no danger of taking hold in anyone’s mind. What you call a “maladaptive idealogy” is dangerous only because it has some truth in it. If you do nothing but ridicule such an idea, and ignore the ways in which it captures people’s imaginations, you don’t change their minds. You just appear clueless to the people who have been seduced by it, and see mainly the good things in it. The only way to dissolve the worst excesses of wokeness is to acknowledge what it is getting right, and separate these insights from what it is doing wrong. You are not going to get people to throw out the bath water by pretending there is no baby.
One of the best pieces on how to use arguments to actually change people's minds is right here on Medium, by Andrea Coleman. A woman who is wise, funny and skilfull, with something to teach any of us who want to persuade with integrity. If I were still teaching Critical thinking, I would make this required reading.
