I spent most of my life thinking ppl who disagreed w/me were idiots or evildoers. That belief showed through in my writing & conversations.

Result? I preached to the choir. And I convinced ppl who disagreed w/me of only one thing: Their opponents weren't worth engaging.

And if your reaction to this is "What? You want to let evil idiots off the hook? No way! I'm going to call a spade a spade."

Let me ask you: Are you saying that because you think it's the best way to improve the world?

In my case? I would have tried to figure out why calling out evil idiots really was the best way to improve the world. But if I'm being honest, it wasn't. It was about winning the argument. Besting them.

I'm ashamed of this part of myself, which still emerges now and then.

For me it really hit home with the New Atheists. I happen to think most of their key arguments are absolutely airtight. To me, they were/are so obvious that it's hard for me to wrap my mind around how anyone could believe otherwise.

They must be idiots! Or evil people!

Not only is this obviously, empirically inaccurate—many wise, good, brilliant people are deeply religious conservative Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc.—but believing it is counterproductive if what you care about is getting people to agree with you.