Agree to Disagree?
Imagine this: you’re a freshman at university, far from home and living in residence. Desperate to make new friends, you agree to attend the varsity football game, even though you know nothing about football (and, quite frankly, aren't really interested).
At the game, the other girls from your floor swoon over the jocks on your team (the Lancers) even though they haven’t won a game in over a decade. Every now and then the opposing team scores and small pockets of their fans in the crowd go wild with applause.
When your team flubs a goal or misses an easy catch, the crowd turns silent.
Until. . .
One guy a few rows down jumps up at what seems a random moment. His jean jacket is painted blue and gold (the team colors). His short, brown hair is spiked with hair gel and his beard and mustache streaked with red.
“Good effort, boys!” he yells toward the field. “Great try! Go, Lancers, GO!” He raises a fist in the air and pumps it a few times.
People nearby start to stare. He appears oblivious.
When the next near-miss occurs, the guy does it again. This time, he screams and starts doing jumping jacks on the spot.
“Great effort, fellas! You can do it, guys! Keep trying!”
Soon, other people are standing and cheering, too. By the end of the game, which the Lancers lose 43-7, the crowd has been cheering their every move as if they are the crew of Apollo 13 just come back to earth.
By the end of the game, I knew I’d have to meet that guy.
“Burger” (his nickname from his childhood love of cheeseburgers) became my first boyfriend. An outlier not only at the game but at university in general, he’d basically financed his education entirely on his own while also working full time.
I learned later that he’d also pretty much raised himself and single-handedly pulled himself out of poverty. His mother had been an addict and a sex worker who’d lost interest in her son when he was about six. He’d never known his father. With the help of a kindly neighbor and some mentors at school, he’d found various odd jobs growing up and, eventually, moved out on his own at sixteen.
Our backgrounds couldn’t have been much more different. Abject poverty vs. (relatively) comfortable middle-class. Loner vs. circle of friends since childhood. Street smart vs. book smart. Complete self-confidence vs eternal self-doubt. I was, obviously, in total awe of the guy.
In fact, for me, it was that very difference that both attracted and fascinated me.
Within our daily lives–especially these days–how often do we actually encounter someone entirely different from us? How often are we open to learning from them?
If anything nowadays, it seems more like we automatically reject anything and anyone not already in alignment with where we are at this very moment. We experience undue distress from anyone even slightly different from us.
What happened to people beginning in March of 2020? I don’t know about you, but I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard a variation of the statement, “Everything changed in 2020.” Or, “If only we could go back in time to the good old days–like, 2019.”
Yes, living through a pandemic was no fun. But now, it seems, most of us are uncomfortable with the aftermath even more than the experience of the pandemic itself.
Have our brains somehow devolved during this time? Correct me if I’m wrong (please be polite about it), but back in the annals of history–ie, 2019–I remember people being able to accept that another human was different from them without it becoming a national calamity. Differences between us used to be a point of interest–in other words, a reason to become curious. A starting point to learn and understand, rather than a red flag signaling the need to reject and detach.
When I was in grade school, a “debate” meant examining two distinct sides of an issue in an objective and exacting manner, with the aim of allowing the audience to dispassionately choose the option that made the most logical sense. In fact, back then, the teacher would deliberately assign a position to a student knowing that student actually disagreed with that stance, precisely as a means to open the student’s eyes to alternative ways of examining the topic.
Today, on the other hand, what’s called a “debate” in parliament, say, more often than not consists of a lengthy character assassination followed by the opposition’s use of novel and convoluted ways to avoid answering every question. As a society, we seem to have lost the ability for true debate, where we examine opposing ideas with neutral curiosity and interest, open to, god forbid, changing our minds.
I remember vividly a friend’s 60th birthday celebration where everyone at the table engaged in an animated discussion about the government at the time. One of the guests embarked on a tirade about how the current regime had invested taxpayer funds inappropriately, made life harder for most people, et cetera.
My friend (the birthday boy), however, challenged the man, repeatedly asking him–in a calm, composed and logical manner–to explain why he felt the way he did. There was no judgment; just curiosity. The man offered a few diluted explanations but couldn’t really defend his position with facts. The conversation continued for a little while before the man conceded that he had no real evidence but simply didn’t like the guy in charge. We all raised our glasses, sipped the Moet & Chandon, and the conversation meandered on to another topic. No hard feelings and no friendships torn asunder.
What made the exchange even more remarkable–especially by today’s standards–was that I happened to know my friend was defending the politician for whom he did not vote. He was simply debating as an intellectual exercise, to demand some kind of evidence behind a conclusion and to understand another’s position more fully.
Can you imagine such a discussion happening in 2024? Before even one question was posed, the questioner would be branded as either “far-right” or “incredibly woke,” depending on their allegiance. But my guess is there’d be no attempt to actually understand the other’s viewpoint. When did we learn to reject virtually anything that doesn’t fit into our own preconceived notion of what is “correct” or valid?
Believe it or not, this kind of circumscribed thinking isn’t anything new. Way back in 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the mark of a “first-rate intelligence” is “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” It’s just that back then, people were more likely to encourage the practice of “first-rate intelligence.”
Even the mere concept of being comfortable with paradoxical ideas seems to have faded from the human repertoire like mist over the marshlands on a sunny day. What’s happened to our ability to entertain ideas different from our own? And when did we require all ideas to comply with what we already believe?
I remember an exercise we were given in university during one of my psychology classes. It involved examining ethics in different situations.
Here’s one:
A father walks into a grocery store. He lost his job two months ago and hasn’t been able to find another. He grabs a couple loaves of bread and a quart of milk and runs out of the store. A cop happens to be walking just outside, sees the guy and apprehends him. The man is arrested for stealing.
The prof asked the class: Should he be arrested?
Answers varied. Of course he should, he stole something from a store! Or, Well, he was just trying to save his family, and he had no money! Or, It’s wrong, but I can understand why he did it.
Then the prof raised the stakes. He described this scenario:
A man is walking down the street when he sees another man and a young girl. The second man is dragging the girl toward a car, and she’s screaming and crying, doing her best to escape. The first man suddenly realizes the girl is his own daughter! She’s being abducted! He runs over to save her and the two men begin to wrestle. The father of the girl bashes the would-be abductor’s head into a car window as a final means to stop the guy. The girl is saved but the abductor dies. Should the father be charged with murder?**
Again, the discussion was lively and diverse. Basically, every possible interpretation of the situation was posited in that classroom.
In the end, the question, “What is the correct thing to do? Who is the villain? Who is right or wrong?” ended up having just one single answer: “It depends.”
I can’t imagine a conversation about war, politics, best practices for health or, really, even “how to train a dog” being discussed in a similar manner today.
We’ve become so entrenched in “either-or” thinking that we seem incapable of entertaining the notion that another opinion different from our own might still hold merit, even in the smallest degree.
What makes it more astonishing to see this black-and-white reasoning is the fact that both in media and social media, we’re showered incessantly and ubiquitously with the need for acceptance, tolerance, diversity and love. But let’s be real, here. How many of us are truly practicing this kumbaya approach toward others?
The problem these days is that we tend to discount anyone whose ideas or viewpoint is different from our own, even when they might have something valuable to contribute. Veering on just a single point–even when another’s values may encompass thousands of other more compatible points–is often enough to disqualify them as a valid source of information.
I don’t know what the solution is here. And I have no idea where we’ll end up if we continue to exist with such a bifurcated view of people.
I think we can begin by aiming to move back to that older approach, the one where we begin by delving into a topic without preconceived notions. Simply allow the facts (and reality) to speak for themselves (I know, actual facts are decidedly hard to come by these days, but we must do our best).
Then, based on the information we have from both sides, settle upon a stand that feels right. Without refusing to listen. Without bashing the “opposition.”
Can we still somehow agree to disagree? Can we still venture out with curiosity and wonder once again? Let’s open our minds and hearts to what’s different, new, interesting and–yes–worthwhile. Let’s nurture our ability to entertain two opposing ideas at the same time without losing the ability to function.
Because that would make life a little more agreeable for all of us.
** Okay, we might need to keep Canada out of this discussion. In this country, if someone kills an intruder in his own home while defending his elderly mother, he might very well be perceived as the murderer.