There are four things barred from discussion at the dinner table in the United States: sex, money, religion and politics. The four have probably ended more friendships than the game of Monopoly, and they come with a host of controversial issues. Nonetheless, these are the topics that often outline the major public discussions we see on a day-to-day basis. With an increasingly polarized society, the debates raging over these issues are hot ones and therefore are increasingly destructive. However, they need not be.
It is often assumed that a debate over some important issue or the other must turn into an argument, and we often treat the other person in that argument as if their views are a personal attack on ourselves.
While this is common practice, there is no need for it to be. There are many different reasons that people may disagree with one another that don't involve hating or even mildly disliking the other person involved. Here are six of the main ones:
1. Worldview
Each person alive has a worldview—that is, a lens through which he or she sees the world. This lens comes with different values, assumptions, and understandings depending on what the worldview is based upon. When two people with different worldviews engage, the results can be extremely heated because each person is speaking from their own knowledge and assumptions about the world—essentially, two different languages.
2. Values
When someone makes a decision, it is often based on a value that is important to them. People buy insurance because of their value of safety, make friends because of their value of love and make art because of their value of creativity. When someone holds to an opinion, it is likewise because of what concepts they value. Differing values do not mean that one value is valid and the other is not—though there can be values of more importance than others—merely that two people hold to different ideals. We would not fault someone for holding to the value of privacy and another person for holding to the value of truth
3. Priorities
Even if people hold the same values, the way they prioritize their values is often different. Two people may value safety. One holds it as extremely important, but believes autonomy is a more important value than liberty, whereas the other believes safety comes before autonomy of any kind. The two may approach dealing with violence in schools differently.
4. Life experience
While life experience is not the sole basis we should use to engage with the world (as what we have experienced is not the standard for everyone else), it is an important means of knowledge. Some of the strongest reasons we have for doing things come from our personal experience, be it good or bad. Most often the reason behind even activism comes from an impactful experience and not a logical or practical discovery the person made.
Each person also has different experiences, which can help inform the various discussions we are having. Who would be better to give input on something that relates to a particular group than someone from that group? A disagreement may then be over different areas of knowledge based on life experience—which is actually a good thing and not a bad one. It helps to inform us.
5. Logical arguments
One time my pastor was telling a story about how he kept explaining himself to his wife during an argument. She finally told him, “I understand your point. I just don’t agree with it.” It seems so illogical for many of us that a person can do this. We think that if we explain our arguments thoughtfully, logically and well, the other person will naturally agree with us. This is actually not the case, and the other person might think the same thing of their own position.
Each of us will be convinced by the logic of different arguments. We will see patterns in different places that others may not. This does not mean that other arguments are necessarily invalid—they may or may not be, but that is something to be determined by quality of each and not merely by the fact that they are different.
6. Level of knowledge
This one can be hard for us to swallow: someone may disagree with us because they hold more knowledge on a given subject. It runs against our pride, but we must acknowledge that we don’t know everything and other people are smarter than us when it comes to different things. This does not mean that the only ones allowed to have opinions on a subject are the people with the most knowledge about it, but it is a good reminder and incentive for us to do our research, be informed and be humble enough to admit where we may be lacking. A lot of fruitless arguments could be avoided by not allowing our pride to be the one talking.
Reading this, someone may notice that none of these reasons have anything to do with who he or she is. They involve someone’s perspective, values, priorities, experiences, the arguments they find convincing and their level of knowledge, but they have nothing to do with hating the person who disagrees with them.
Hate is not a necessary component of disagreement. We often engage with people as if it is and every argument they present is a personal attack, but that is not the case. Most of the time, a disagreement is just that.
We may find that if we choose to engage with someone on the basis that they are person who has valid reasons for why he or she believes a certain way, we might actually learn something, be it about the other person or ourselves. It requires listening, but a basic biology textbook will tell us that humans have ears we can do it.
