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Quote of the Day: Arguing with the Other Side
“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.” — Edmund Burke
We can look at Burke’s statement through the lens of our own lives. I’ve met all kinds of people who either hide from those who disagree with them, or look for people to fight with. In many ways, both attitudes can be unhelpful because their underlying goals are not productive.
A person who hides from disagreement is never in a position to analyze his own beliefs and values. He’s created a cave in which to hide, afraid that someone in the world may make him feel uncomfortable or damage his belief system. Some people are just averse to conflict, period. They value peace and calmness above all else. The biggest problem for these folks is that they never check out their assumptions because they are either too insecure or too self-absorbed to engage with people who disagree with them.
Then there are those who always seem to be looking for a fight. They seem to value the battle more than the exchange of ideas; overpowering the other people, verbally beating them into submission is their primary goal. Although most of us like winning, being victorious for its own sake is an empty prize. In the process we have likely damaged our relationships, lost our credibility, and learned absolutely nothing.
The key, which is often true, is finding a balance of both: withdrawing from certain disagreements some of the time, and engaging with others with sincerity and respect. Easy, right?
No, in fact it’s very difficult. Our upbringing, life experiences and willingness or not to be engaged and transparent are challenges to leading productive lives. But if our goals are to master our reticence and our aggressiveness, we will live our lives in ways that provide learning, enjoyment and growth.
This is the way engagement is supposed to work on a personal level. But looking at politics for the last 50 years of this country’s history, how has this approach worked for us?
Published in Group Writing
I like arguing with libertarians… they are different enough to be a challenge and I have to confront my inconsistencies and gauge whether consistency is worth it.
They are close enough to my worldview that I don’t feel like I’m being argued out of my value system if I entertain their ideas.
Lately, it feels like a value conflict when it comes to progressives. When you get into the identity politics, I get the feeling that they are moving towards whites just shouldn’t exist. That’s likely true for a few of them, but for most it leads to cognitive dissonance and they just don’t get why I think their arguments lead there… but every attempt to argue me out of it leads to me being a racist for thinking that’s the logical conclusion of their arguments.
We have been camping with a socially conservative Democrat over the past years. I like him. I prefer economic arguments over value arguments with people ideologically different than me.
The opening post was really neat. Following @susanquinn said, I have tried to find a balance, and @aaronmiller hit on a lot of things I think about when striking that balance. I’m trying to post more to figure that out, but even here… I pick my battles (if I am to have one).
I want to try out a chance to give two mixed messages because I am legitimately torn about when we should argue.
1) To reiterate a sentiment in this thread– a lot of us more or less know how the conversation will turn out if it comes to Trump or policing or coronavirus. What’s the point? Talk about something fun or new. Conflict will essentially be mutually defeating because we all know how this turns out.
The mixed message:
2) Sometimes when people ask us a question they just may really actually want to know the answer or they may value our thoughts more than we think. Arguing isn’t a bad thing! Do we want to exchange ideas and refine ourselves or do we want to “win?”
So… we should argue more, but also less… because we respect our friends… I guess?
I’d say one part of the post I’d like to touch on: But looking at politics for the last 50 years of this country’s history, how has this approach worked for us?
Not well. Negative partisanship is a huge problem. I’m going to play faux sociologist and collapse a longer more complicated development into a few sentences. Basically, I’ll put a spin on the “we all live in our bubbles” but my dynamic is a little different.
We actually learned to get around our disagreement at the work place and other public places. We came together at church and sports. Videogames and most “blockbuster” movies weren’t supposed to be political. We don’t talk about politics after work– we talk about how annoying our bosses are. That’s a good thing. A lot of public social cohesion in places where purposeful cooperation is needed.
In exchange, to support this public facing cohesion, we retreated into our own groups, ones that essentially traded and supported themselves on hidden knowledge. It moved beyond like mindedness: “I support free markets” or “I support social safety nets” to: “If you, Mr/Ms Liberal really knew the black on black crime rate you’d agree with me. So you’re either ignorant or deceitful.” And at the same token it was “If you, Mr/Ms Conservative really knew just how bad red-lining affected blacks in big cities….” The idea of a “they” that doesn’t get “it” has hurt the country. We called our cooperation forbearance and found communities where we could (paradoxically) absolve those people of their sins by at first imagining that they just don’t know what I know. The 2nd time? Well they must be dishonest.
This goes to the heart of our divisions doesn’t it? We are so diverse, vast, with more interests and nationalities, mixed nationalities, cultures and attitudes that the notion of reaching agreement at a national level is absurd. It can’t be done. We have to pass laws so representative governance is essential but that is not the same as empowering a bureaucracy to exercise power. At the level of major cities like New York, Chicago, or L.A. it is the same. As we drift toward centralized controls and away from a nation of law we fight about everything because we have to. It worked when the greatest variety of humans ever gathered into a single nation acculturated because they had to. They faced the same simple laws, could gather in neighborhoods with similar folks and gradually become Americans. Now one political power wants them not to acculturate because they are useful blocks of votes for centralized power.
It does take a certain amount of discernment and extra work, @goldgeller! But if we care about our relationships, we weigh those things, such as does this person like to “argue” or would it cause a wound; or I can ask if the person really wants to know my opinion when I think we will disagree. In my case, almost all people I know on the left are ill-informed, and I refuse to discuss controversial ideas when they have a history of not knowing what they are talking about. I know that is crude, but it keeps me sane and preserves the relationship; we can talk about other things.
I don’t usually assume they’re dishonest if we are acquaintances. I assume what I described above. Thanks for weighing in!
We can think of it like a mental and spiritual diet. Some corruption is inevitable in a corrupt world. But are we making an effort to minimize the corruption in our lives and seek holiness? Do we set aside time for purity so that we remember it in our dealings?
It is never good to eat an essentially foul thing. Sometimes even a little poison can negate all nutrition in an otherwise good meal. Likewise, with ideas, images, music, and customs we ingest, we must be wary. With our exposure to persons, this balance is hardest to measure.
We must measure both physical and spiritual interactions so that we can match our preparations to our challenges. We must depend on God. Thereby, we are capable of anything if He wills it. But the mind like the body should be trained and made healthy before entering battle.
A Christian not practiced in apologetics is more likely to be persuaded than to persuade. Prayer is rightly the beginning of all action, though it is commonly left until the end in direst need.
A person living in a cacophany of arts, advertisements, traffic, and social gatherings can easily lose focus and grounding.
The Apostles preached in both cities and towns because they were prepared for anything. I don’t think many of us are so well prepared or disciplined. We must be careful how we interact and with whom, lest we forget ourselves.