I’m cursed.
I’m cursed with an apparently above-average ability to see both sides of most arguments. Or opposing viewpoints. Or alternative perspectives and explanations.
And yes, it’s a curse.
The problem is, I am actively discouraged from sharing my alternate understanding. Why? Because too many people cannot distinguish between:
- Being able to articulate an alternative belief or perspective.
- Actually supporting that alternate belief or perspective.
To be super clear, those are two different things. And yet people conflate them all the time.
Understanding a position is not the same as agreeing with that position.
Even here, I have to make something up silly so as to avoid distracting blow-back should I select a “real” and important issue that people have opinions about.
So, let’s say there are two diametrically opposed camps on a specific issue: perhaps whether or not elephants can make good house-pets.
Let’s also say that I can articulate the rationale used by both sides:
- I can describe at length why some believe that elephants should never ever be house pets.
- I can also describe, again at length, why some believe elephants are the perfect house pet.
Note that I have not revealed what I personally believe. I only have the ability to articulate both sides of the issue.
Now, if I’m speaking with someone who is pro-house pet, and I describe to them the position, beliefs, and rationale of the anti-house pet crowd, there’s a significant chance that I’ll be branded anti-house pet myself.
I’ve not claimed agreement with one side or the other. My only transgression is my ability (and willingness) to articulate “the other side” to someone who believes elephants are awesome pets.
Of course, the same is true in the other direction: if I’m speaking with someone who is anti-house pet, and I describe to them the position, beliefs, and rationale of the pro-house pet crowd, I’ll likely be branded pro-house pet.
Whether or not I am.
One of the biggest disincentives to reasoned discourse is that if you can articulate a position you don’t believe in people will accuse you of believing it anyway.
Not only are we unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints, but we’re also unwilling to accept anyone capable of articulating those viewpoints. Your ability to accurately describe “the other side” brands you as being part of that side.
Whether or not you are.
It’s as if merely understanding the other side is a mortal threat to your beliefs. And if that’s the case … well, to me that says something about your own confidence in your own beliefs. They seem easily threatened.
It’s long been said that you can’t really defend your own position until you can adequately argue the opposite view. You strengthen your own position by the depth of your understanding of the opposing viewpoint.
Apparently, that’s not a thing anymore. At least not in public discourse.
Merely articulating the opposition is betrayal.
We’re not allowed to consider what it is the other side believes … not for ourselves, not for them, and not for anyone trying to truly understand all positions. Merely entertaining wrong thinking, even as a thought exercise in the pursuit of strengthening your own position, is wrong.
Instead, we all just retreat into our little tribal bubbles of safe thought and ostracize anyone who might even consider further examination and understanding.
Because heaven forbid we might be wrong, and we cannot allow for that threat.
Leo, you’re discussing a very explosive topic here, but I think you’re handling it very well. I suspect that, should we sit down and share our views, we would be very much on opposing sides of the pet-elephant issue (or any other elephants in the room); but I still enjoy reading your carefully-curated opinions and other output. I’ve been a follower/reader of yours for many a blue moon, and we’re still communicating. We can communicate about technology in all of its forms and the fits it gives us. We can empathize with each other’s aging aches and pains and mishaps, oh my! I do have you beat a bit on the aging, though, as I’m seventy-eight and a couple of months. At about your age, I had a cervical-spine surgery very similar to yours and in the same location, though mine only involved two vertebrae fusions, where I think yours was three. Anyway, as previously stated, we have so much in common, even though (I suspect) we have differing opinions on many things, especially those of a political nature. If we can keep our discussions to the mental, the physical, the day-to-day challenges, the technical know-how, and avoid the murky swamps and their traps, we’re doing better than, what would you say, 35% of the general public? Wishing you a great rest of your week.
I have in the past played “Devil’s advocate”, much like you are describing, but this term has fallen out of use. I don’t really understand why. When people start complaining about my statement(s), I have always said that I am just playing the Devil’s advocate, expressing a different viewpoint from theirs, not that I actually believe or am for it. It usually calmed them down, but not always.
Leo, did you take debate in HS or college? This is exactly what debaters are taught to do. I often see both or sometimes more than two sides of things. I’m careful where I discuss this, though. As you say, that’s where the problems come in. I restrict my discussions of all sides of things to people who also see them. But I will advocate for the side I believe in.
To address the Devil’s Advocate thing – there have been some people who gave it a bad name. They take the opposite side just to play with people. So I avoid doing it altogether.
I did not take debate, but in retrospect I do wish I had.
In most situations when there is a large discrepancy of opinion, what you say makes perfect sense. But all sides of an issue should not be taken to be equal. The abortion debate, for example, has people of good will and strong opinions on both sides. I come down on one side of that issue but can understand, respect, and even give a decent explanation of the opinions on the other side even though I disagree.
But for a great many things in our current environment, false equivalencies are made for different sides of issues. Here’s a made up example. Harry and I have a son and daughter, say pre-teens. Harry likes sports and takes his kids to ball games and participates with them in ball games after school. I have no interest in sports and am a rather artsy guy. I like to take my kids to theater and art show and encourage to do school plays and painting. Nobody is right or wrong. You like what you like, I like what I like and we encourage our kids in those direction.
But suppose it wasn’t sports that Harry likes. Suppose on Saturday afternoons he likes to beat up his son and molest his daughter. There is nothing to hear from someone like that who explains what he likes to do. It is evil. And that is how I see much of the discourse in today’s world. We’re supposed to listen and learn from the opponent’s position. I see too many Harrys in the world today and I’ll be damned if I try to consider their opinions.
I’m not sure. It feels like there’s value in understanding evil. Again: attempting to understand is not acceptance. Listening is not agreement. Understanding can perhaps lead to things like more effective prevention, detection, and even more appropriate punishment or containment.