Visualize a scenery where there's a doctor and there's a farmer arguing over the best procedure to operate on a patient with cancer. Most people would support the doctor and say that he/she has the better idea because they know what they're doing and they're experts in the corresponding field. The same goes for the construction worker; if there's a construction problem like where a steel beam should go we would most likely listen to the construction worker's argument.
Now imagine there's two people arguing each other over an apple and who does it belong to. One person is a high official in the government while the other person is a fast food worker and both of them are arguing that the apple belongs to them. Who would you support? What's the criteria we use to judge the validity of the person's argument? Most of us would say that the high official would be likely telling the truth just because he's in a higher position than the fast food worker and thus they would probably be the one telling the truth or that the value of their argument is better than the fast food worker's.
These examples could apply across many different groups in many scenarios: races on the topics of racial issues, age groups on the topic of responsibilities, etc. We live in a society where our words are no longer the primary way to judge the validity of our arguments but rather the identity we associate with. There's a lot of argument over saying that the identity of a person directly determines if that person could connect with the problem and understand the perspective of the group that's being affected by the issue. In many ways that is true, but it also contributes to the development of ignorance and the devaluation of the words coming out of a person.
Involving our identity in an argument isn't necessarily bad, but we should not be prioritizing our identity over the things we say in the argument. When people are neglecting the words of an argument and only focus on the identity of the person this brings forth ignorance and misunderstandings which would contribute to a lock-down of the issue and the two sides getting more aggressive with each other. Each side would be blindfolded by the identity of the arguers and their logical reasoning in return would be paralyzed, rendering both sides illogical and irrational and in the end not even realize that they are being illogical because they've become so protective and aggressive.
When we put this into a political situation this would shine even more. Whenever Trump says something, liberals would immediately jump to the conclusion that what he said is either dumb or offensive because Trump's Republican identity and his notorious "straightforward" attitude. The same goes for Republicans, when the liberals attack what Trump say they immediately jump to the President's defense and argue against the liberals without evaluating their argument in the first place. They've associated themselves with the same party as the President and therefore believe that his argument is more valid than the argument of the liberals. This neglect from both parties lead to more aggressive behavior and eventually both sides throws hurtful words towards each other and increase hostility and separation.
Our identities are important towards understanding a side of an argument, but it shouldn't be used as a reason for why one's argument is more valuable or better than the other person's. We should not be using pathos to evaluate the value of an argument but rather let the logos of the argument tell its own value. Whenever we predetermine the value of a person and what they say, we already conformed to confirmation bias and allowed our illogical side decide the value of their argument and thus refuse to actually listen to the logical aspect of that person's argument.
