> If his critics were less emotional, if they were more stoic, if they understood Meditations, they they would agree.

This is the key point, not of just Aurelius, but of the majority of conversations/debates that take place in political discourse. Implicit within these debates is the notion that the opposing party lacks knowledge about a certain thing and they would change their mind (and political party/ideology) if only they were exposed to such knowledge. This is faulty thinking. As it has been mentioned recently on this subreddit, facts do actually care about your feelings, because feelings is what animates us into action and it is through these actions that political change occurs (for better or worse).

Likewise, learning/spreading knowledge is important, but it is the value-judgements that one has of the knowledge that they have which is more important. Value-judgements are buttressed by knowledge, but they do not create them/follow at 1-1 path. I could explain something quite well to someone, have more knowledge than them, impart it upon them, but that still not change their value-judgement. We all heard the quote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” but I would not go as far to say that someone "refuses to change" when presented with new information. Does he have an obligation to change? Is that information actually correct, pertinent to the conversation?

Someone could present to me several novel facts about a topic that are interesting and important, but it no way change my value-judgment on the topic. In fact, that person may be trying to dislodge me from pursuing my material interests surrounding a topic by leaning hard into moral/ethical (but not material) reasons why I should vacate pursuing my material interests. In this case my value-judgement isn't really at all predicated upon knowledge, but an understanding of the zero-sum game I find myself within the political framework and the struggles that I have with others who are likewise operating within the very same zero-sum game.

In short, I am not obligated to "change" my value-judgement when someone presents what he thinks is novel information to me. It is not a sin of my own that I didn't change. Perhaps the speaker was not sufficiently persuasive, and should dwell within his own lack of virtue in this regard.