How do you get support for your views or ideas from other people?

Answer 1

You start by organizing your thoughts well. Then you build your case on facts, not beliefs, facts.

To quote Avalon De Witt, “Most of our beliefs are formed without our conscious awareness and we rarely question them. We learn our beliefs from our families, the media, our culture, our friends, our experiences and the collective consciousness. What's most important is whether or not our beliefs are helping us or hindering us.” (Avalon De Witt, AskAvalon.com)

“To believe in something is not the same as knowing something. Intrinsic to the concept of belief is (the) implication that there is an opposite to belief, disbelief. Not everyone will believe something is true, but all sane and rational people will acknowledge an observable fact.

The only way belief can be experienced is in the mind. Facts can be experienced both in the mind and by the senses...and what is more, unlike a mental hallucination, the sensory experience can be shared with others.

It is a common error of human beings to allow belief, to allow a mental construct accepted on faith, to become so important, so obsessive, that it is taken as the same thing as fact. Indeed, there are many emotional reasons why a person might be driven to do this, but it still remains that any belief is purely mental whatever it's origin, and the mind can be mistaken.

This means that all beliefs have as part of them an implied doubt. Facts cannot be doubted, they are observably real.

When belief is assumed to be fact, when this mistake is made by a mind clouded by a motivation to assume belief as fact, that belief is considered beyond doubt, just as is a fact.

Beliefs beyond doubt are inherently dangerous. They are dangerous because they are often acted upon as though they were facts, and the inherent weakness of this is that a belief is not a fact.

Beliefs can be, and often are, wrong.” (Jennifer Diane Reitz, transsexual.org)

After this preparation, then you need to frame the idea as closely as possible to something that the person you're trying to gain support from can accept. Madison Avenue tells us that people accept most easily that which is congruent with what they already believe. (I know, I just told you to deal in facts.) So if I knew someone who believed strongly that all people should be treated equally under the law, but they were shaky about the idea of gay marriage, then I wouldn't approach them directly about gay marriage as a right, I would frame it as an issue of equal treatment under the law. This is not an attempt to be deceptive or manipulative. It is simply a way to find a clear communication channel, much like tuning your two way radio to the right frequency to chat with someone. You want to find parallels in your thinking, not places where you are at odds with each other.