Nobody arrives at a view from nowhere

You did not choose your first language, your childhood neighbourhood, the economic conditions of your twenties, the people who happened to be kind to you, or the first political argument you ever heard. All of it went into how the world looks to you now. The same is true of everyone you disagree with.

What forms a perspective

• Experience — what has actually happened to you and to people you love.
• Information environment — which sources, which framings, repeated how often.
• Belonging — the groups whose respect you need, and what those groups already believe.
• Interests — what a given outcome would cost or gain you, materially and socially.
• Values — what you weight most when values conflict, such as fairness against loyalty, or liberty against safety.
• Fears — what you believe you would lose if the other side got everything it wanted.

Understanding is not agreement, and it is not approval. You can understand exactly why someone holds a view and still consider it seriously wrong. But you cannot address a view you have not understood, and you certainly cannot cooperate with someone whose reasoning is a mystery to you.