Let's connect these methods with a real problem. Suppose I'm faced with the issue of deciding how to handle people who advocate for absurd material. I need to stop them by democratic action, through conveyance. The problem is that these people are very vicious, and attempting to calmly explain things to them is troubling.

I have a strategy for this purpose. I call it the fire and water. It's crucial to be gentle in handling wrongdoing, but there are some things where that comes second. In eviscerating truly obscene content like this, first I set it ablaze by harshly criticizing, mocking, and humiliating it. For a moment, I drop down to the absurdity and obscenity of the content, and use extremely harsh and deadly tactics to achieve victory. Since I'm very good at this, and certainly wiser than the opposition, I'll be better in my brutality than them, and I'll set them ablaze. Once they are on fire from this, and only then, I offer the water: the gentleness and the solution that comes with a willful decision to engage in helpful content and activity. The intent of this strategy is to make swift and decisive change by pointing out the profound damage their ideas cause, by acting the core of it out, but better and with a nobler intent. This destabilizes them, rather than waiting for them to destabilize themselves, before moving in.

I include more details on the nuances of this strategy. This is a very important move. Those who wish to abandon the ideals of America, and of justice, have gone too far. They cannot be persuaded only with reason. First, they need to be destroyed, and we drop down to their terrible level and use profane language when necessary, use ideas or attacks that are very intelligent and clever, but normally we would refrain from using for charity's sake, and otherwise flank them with civil harm in mind. The goal of this is not plain revenge or harm for its own sake. The goal of the fire move is to, in a way, illustrate the harm or absurdity of their ideas by engaging in equally obscene or harmful ideas. Eventually, any harmful idea will destroy the one who holds it. By gently reasoning with them, we can accelerate this process, but it still takes time. However, by cleverly representing the nature of that bad idea, manifested in a form precisely to forward its destruction of the host, we can get them to a point where they have been obliterated. Then, we immediately switch over to the water, now that they have been greatly assisted in realizing the error, of their own will, of their idea, and we offer them the truth, the charitable goodness, and how to aid themselves and others. We offer, still using their own faculties without recommendation from us, a consideration of why that idea is bad, and what a more enlightened one might look like.

A Balanced Approach

How could I balance both approaches? It's clear that if I'm purely gentle, change will come too slowly compared to the harm being caused by bad ideas. Yet if I try the fire and water, I risk becoming the thing I sought to destroy. The only solution I can see is to diminish the fire and water. Maybe not the fire and water, but the something a bit less. I essentially first aim to dismantle their idea, and use harshness if absolutely necessary–but only the most minimal and softest harshness that is possible. Immediately once I've used it to assist them in realizing the error of their ideas, I offer overwhelming water, overwhelming charity.

It resonates with the idea of self-defense, where when you are faced with a deadly attacker, you must do everything in your power to escape, disengage, and defuse; and even if that fails, you must only use the absolutely most minimal force to escape, not to harm, and then immediately offer aid, or contact authorities. Doing anything more turns you into an equal or similar aggressor, and you will rightfully be punished. I can apply the same idea here. And there's a distinction between self-defense from criminals and calmly refuting and improving bad ideas. I'm applying the principle from it, nothing more.

This runs very close to home in understanding what it means to combat evil, to do a good deed. Most of the evil in the world does not come from people setting out to do harm. It comes from people having a good intent, and often having good reasons for doing. Oftentimes people will wish to combat evil themselves, and oftentimes that thing they are fighting is evil. But what happens is they don't understand the complete picture, they get overzealous, and somewhere along the way they end up engaging in evil. They end up becoming the evil they wanted to stop.

They think they are just. Ignorance is the leading, and perhaps only–if you are inclusive in that definition–contributor to evil. If I try to be too harsh in defeating my enemies, I may end up just becoming an enemy myself. It's the paradox of what one must do when they are faced with an evil they cannot defeat using only benevolent methods. If you defeat it, you've become evil; but let it stand, and you're also evil. The only solution is to exercise extreme caution when engaging in anything resembling even the slightest of civil harm, and then immediately offer unmitigated love, goodness, and justice, and yearn sorrowfully that it ever had to be done. When I say exercise extreme caution, I am not overstating it. If you go even slightly too far, you must understand that really is how the majority of wrongdoing on the Earth begins. Not from maniacal planning, but from someone going the slightest bit too far with exercising extreme caution.

This is where maneuver discussion comes in, where you ensure you points and compact, effective, and directed for the precise and nuanced task at hand.

If I use this, I may not even have to use any harshness, none really overt like I had thought, because the sophistication of the movement will aid me for itself. Indeed, sometimes a well-placed question can do far better than any polemic-style critique. Reserve those only when absolutely necessary, and resolve with goodwill.

Now, the trouble is that a good plan fails when it meets reality, as the saying goes. It's meant to illustrate the difficulty of executing via plan; plans are good. The key is rigid flexibility. In a real discussion, things are not going to go as planned. Some will, maybe many will. But the opponent will pose unexpected questions, some of your points might not work like you thought they would, and you might get bogged down. They key is to be flexible, and remember the bigger points; to be opportunistic, and seize any points that pop up, quickly and efficiently moving to them. Do not forget, no matter what the importance of speaking and moving. That is, to speak only on points of decisive and large importance, then to quickly, smartly and like a juggernaut, move to the next decisive point. When speaking, continue: speak about the biggest issues only, quickly go from idea to idea, and target things that are vital.

There is truth to the fact that the opponent may try things that will bog me down, confuse me, or make unmitigated discipline difficult. The idea is to be flexible and opportunistic.

But the opponent might not bite. People do indeed hold opinions sometimes for emotional reasons. In Democracy for Realists by Achen and Bartels they argue that people vote in democracies and operate in such settings often not because of logical thinking but because of cultural identity. The way to fix this is by understanding that if they won't see logic, I need to pivot to appealing to who they are a person. This is neither harshness nor manipulation. In the story of the one who views relativism as acceptable, I make my logical argument. Then I say, "If you truly value relativism and art because it proclaims justice, then that justice is to be found in universality. I know you abhor dictators, because your art showcases them being crushed. But if they are to be crushed, relativism is to be found in the adaptiveness of the law, the growth of the law, to suit the people, for an ultimate sense of justice. Because nowhere in the world is a dictator and is stomping on the human sense of person acceptable, right?" I appeal to their identity, their emotions, and get them to agree like that.

Now, they may still true to get me to bite. They may try pinning me down to a position. That's where flexibility comes in. I need to spend time to as efficiently as possible free myself from that position. Or I can figure out a way to point out how my next point is more valuable. If they're using bad faith tactics, often the best thing to do is to call that out and say the audience can see them using a ill-faith tactic. Things like that can get me moving and maneuvering with high effect.

This strategy can also be called convey and move and convey and maneuver, to encompass all forms of articulation, the written word as well as speaking, or others. It certainly applies as equally well in writing as it does in speaking, and I don't doubt for any other form, like podcasting, if that were to be conceived a different form.