“I write this because now more than ever, talking past one another and point-scoring seems to be becoming a favourite pastime, with snarky Twitter comments somehow passing for actual conversation and non-sequiturs replacing real arguments. But it doesn’t work like that. Minds aren’t changed because someone batters them.”

— Marcus Westberg, on Facebook

For what is truth? Is my truth the same as yours?

Marcus Westberg, an award-winning visual storyteller from Sweden with National Geographic and The New York Times to his list of credits, posted a timely essay the other day on Instagram, and posted an expanded version on Facebook, about how even at their most cruel, few people do things they truly believe are wrong. He cautioned about being too quick to judge — I do it all the time — and pointed out the futility of trying to convince someone to your way of your thinking if you’re abrasive and confrontational.

Again, I do it all the time, in part — and this is just an excuse, mind, because deep down I know the wisdom of what Westberg is saying — because in my 30+ years in daily journalism I saw many examples of people, often in positions of authority, who themselves were often abusive and rude to those around them, who then walked away without so much as a scratch, let alone being called to account for their actions.

In my semi-retirement, whether it’s a monied, privileged dentist from Minnesota who shoots an aging, habituated lion in Zimbabwe for the trophy wall, or heavily armed police officers using raw, unbridled savagery and force against unarmed, peaceful demonstrators at a protest rally for the sanctity of human lives, my position has, if anything, hardened.

These days, when I see a Trump rally on social media, I no longer want to talk to those Trump supporters, to reason with them, to “listen to what they have to say.” I think some people — and Trump supporters at Trump rallies are among them — are beyond reasoning with.

Marcus’ words struck a chord in me, though, because he posted them the same day Newark, New Jersey former mayor, one-time Democrat US presidential candidate and present-day United States senator Cory Booker gave a powerful, emotionally charged testimonial to late-night TV talk-show host Stephen Colbert this past week. logic and careful persuasion, through stating a clear,

coherent case that even a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic will accept.

Sen. Booker invoked the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King in noting how one must try to check one’s emotions when confronting those who disagree with you, even those who perpetuate and celebrate injustice.

“King said something, and this is the problem, ‘We want an enemy, people need an enemy,’” Booker told Colbert. “Well, I’m telling you right now it’s not that. King said it so eloquently, even as his life was being threatened, as he was getting death threats. . . . We want to blame people with hate in their hearts, but that’s not the majority of us. King warned us that what we have to repent for is not the vitriolic words and violent actions of bad people but the appalling silence and inaction of good people. I’m hoping this is a period when . . . our circles of empathy expand.”

You may wonder what this has to do with nature, the environment, climate change and the battle to preserve what’s left of the world’s dwindling wild spaces, but as Marcus pointed out in his post, as a wildlife and conservation photographer he has witnessed and experienced some pretty disturbing things over the years, including inexplicable cruelty to both animals and people among them. Most people become defensive when criticized, or when their opinions are challenged. “You can’t go in assuming you have all the answers and they none, because chances are you both feel that way. When you speak, don’t make assumptions about what the other person knows, feels, or can understand. Shaming and patronizing might feel empowering, but it gets you nowhere, and fast.”

Marcus pointed out that talking over each another and scoring cheap verbal points have become all the rage of late, driven by the real-time gratification of social media, with its never-before-seen global reach and instant access, coupled with the culture of cable-news panel discussion programs, where the argument is usually won by whoever can shout the loudest.

This all sounds obvious, of course, but when the stakes are high — and they don’t get much higher than the health and future sustainability of our planet — the aim is not who can win the argument but what will be done at the end of it.

From the earliest days of humankind societies evolved, survived and in many cases thrived based on people’s ability to identify a problem, accept the problem as serious and come up with a meaningful solution to deal with it.

Jane Goodall, in a recent interview in The Guardian, warned that if we choose to do nothing in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of conserving and preserving what’s left of our natural world, humanity is finished.

Collectively, we won’t accomplish that by arguing — no great revelation there — but arguing is often what we do best.

I would argue, for example, that one can only have a rational conversation if both sides are willing to listen — and in my experience that rules out a great many zealots on the right-leaning end of the political, sociological and philosophical spectrum. The combined catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic, our growing climate crisis — and it is growing, make no mistake, despite the brief respite caused by lockdowns in the world’s industrialized economies — and civil strife driven by racial injustice and widening financial inequality show us that we have to find a way to see eye-to-eye, regardless of our political beliefs and opinions.

I know, for example, that I don’t want to have a conversation with a climate denier. If there’s even the slightest chance I can win that that climate denier over to my side of the argument, though, by convincing that person to accept that fossil fuels need to go the way of the fossils they were named after — if we’re to continue to breathe the air we breathe and drink the water we drink — then I need to somehow convince that person through logic

and careful persuasion, by stating a clear, coherent case that even a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic will accept.

It’s possible — likely, even — that that climate denier feels the same way about green energy: that it’s a scam, a deliberate drain on the economy that will cost jobs and livelihoods, just as there are those trophy hunters who genuinely believe that by paying vast sums of money to shoot a lion, they are somehow helping protect the species by raising funds for conservation.

There are issues, though, where there can be no two sides to the debate. In the case of the climate crisis, or the need to protect the world’s remaining apex predators in the wild, there is one deciding factor that is undeniable and true, that will be clear to anyone willing to listen, think and accept fact for what it is. And that one deciding factor is science.

As the respected astrophysicist and media polymath Neil deGrasse Tyson has often said, science doesn’t much care whether you choose to believe in it or not: It simply is.

Tyson will be one of the first to tell you that scientists often get it wrong. It’s not the science that’s wrong, though, but rather how the scientists of the day choose to interpret it.

In his post, Marcus asks anyone willing to listen to be prepared to adjust their own stance.

“And maybe, just maybe, you will get through to someone about something that truly matters to you, in a way that actually counts.”

Later, he added:

“Obviously, what I’m saying is as much a reflection (of) the current political turmoil as it is to do with things like animal cruelty.”

Thirst was made for water, C.S. Lewis once said; inquiry for truth.