I recently came across this collection of drawings by Julia Evans. This one resonated with me:
trick: talk about statements being wrong, not people being wrong. (“that’s not correct”, etc). We’re all working towards truth together
I think a lot of what goes wrong in public discourse today comes from our willingness to deploy ad hominem attacks which, by their nature, cause people to retreat from rational dialog. Challenging ideas and facts is a better way to engage than always skewering people. Maybe we should stick to asking questions.