rational and loving conversations: an approach to disagreement

{Painting from Glimpse Art}

"There have been other things you have posted over the last few years that I took violent exception to but I didn't say anything about. And I probably won't again." 

When I read this Instagram DM from a dear longtime friend, my first emotion was sadness. Not exactly sadness that we disagree - sadness for missed opportunities to gain a new perspective and challenge my own thinking. 

These came in the middle of a long and somewhat heated exchange about something I'd reposted. The specifics aren't important for the purposes of this post. Suffice it to say that my friend challenged the logic and presuppositions of what I'd posted and pointed out implications that I hadn't thought about. I'm so grateful for her willingness to engage with me. 

While the broad brushstrokes of my opinion haven't changed, as a result of our conversation, I have more questions that I want to pursue answers to, a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of the issue, and a healthy, concrete example of my own fallibility in inadvertently communicating things that I didn't mean to. 

If you know me well, you probably know that I tend to live in a world of big ideas, literature, and philosophical ideas. Current events? Not my thing. At all. Too emotional. Too divisive. And, frankly, way too time-consuming and overwhelming for me to keep up with. Plus, in my mind, current events are things of the moment, while my beloved books help me tap into conversations that have been ongoing for centuries.

But I'd have to be a special kind of ostrich to have kept my head in the sand during the Year of Our Lord 2020.  

As I've begun to educate myself on a lot of issues and begun to develop my understanding of them, I initially limited conversations to close friends and immediate family members who I could expect to have a moderately similar perspective to my own. It was a safe space to process, and the kinds of issues that I've been processing can be highly emotional and divisive, so I wanted to play it safe. 

But then I was convicted. As I've watched the polarization of media and politics spiral out of control, I and many of my friends and colleagues have bemoaned the lack of healthy civil discourse in our country. Why can't we have rational and loving conversations about divisive issues and seek at a minimum to understand the other side, even if we can't reach an agreement?

Then I realized that if I want things to change, I have to start seeking out those kinds of conversations. 

I realized that my effort to avoid these sorts of conversations is, in many cases, much more telling of my failures than the failures of those who disagree with me. When I imagined opening conversations with specific people, my gut reactions were "I know what they have to say is going to make me so angry" and "I don't know nearly enough about this to defend my opinions to someone who disagrees with me." Guess what? Both of those things are my problem: I need to work through not feeling personally affronted when my ideas are challenged, and I need to have the wherewithal to put in the legwork to actually know what I'm talking about. I also need to be ok to admit when I don't have an answer and need to revisit the conversation later, after I've done more research.

So, slowly, I've started engaging in conversations with people who I value highly and also disagree with on some pretty key issues. Sometimes I initiate the conversation. Other times, a conversation lands in my lap (or, rather, an email lands in my inbox), and I have to formulate a response to an issue that I didn't really intend to address. 

My primary goal in these conversations is not to win the other person over to my opinion (though of course it would make me happy if that eventually happens). Rather, it is to learn to understand their perspective and, hopefully, give them a gracious and well-articulated defense of my ideas so that they can also understand my perspective. Sometimes one (or both) of us end up with a slightly different perspective than we started with. Always, I want them to walk away knowing how much I love them, and that however big a disagreement might seem, it's small potatoes compared to how much I value the relationship.

I'm new at this. I've made mistakes. And that's scary, because I really like to be right. But more than that, I really like my relationships to be in a comfortable place, and these conversations are not comfortable. But they are ultimately much more productive than just skating around uncomfortable issues. 

This summer, Bri McKoy was talking about her own learning process in starting to speak up about some things she thinks are important but that can be divisive. She admitted that she felt like a beginner and that that's intimidating, because beginners make mistakes. She's a recipe blogger and cookbook author, and she compared the experience to her early forays into cooking. She forgot to salt her chicken SO MANY TIMES that when she finally remembered to salt her chicken, she felt like a huge success and posted the recipe on her blog. Now, she says, she would never recommend that recipe. But then, for baby cook Bri, it was a really big deal. And she could not have become the excellent cook she is today without being a beginner in the kitchen and making all sorts of beginner mistakes like not salting your meat. 

The moral of her story was that if we want to learn something challenging, the ONLY way to get there is by going through the beginner phase. There is no way to skip this phase. It's part of the learning process. Essentially, she was reminding me to give myself permission to flop. As long as I picked myself up, dusted myself off, made the necessary apologies and kept trying afterward. 

I took a couple of days to respond to my friend's Instagram DMs. I know that people tend to bemoan the effects of communicating digitally rather than via face-to-face, but I found myself grateful that we were having this conversation online rather than in person. It gave both of us space to reflect and consider before responding. I know I needed that; my friend wasn't attacking me, but I felt attacked. I don't know how the conversation would have gone if we had been face-to-face, but I don't think I would have been happy with my response. I would have been defensive, and probably focused on the details of disagreements rather than operating from what I know is our common ground: a love of Jesus and a desire to love his people well in a crazy complicated world. 

If I know my friends disagree with me on important issues and just ignore it and avoid those subjects, that does not necessarily contribute to Christian unity. In fact, if I don't give the people I love the opportunity to share their opinions with me, then it's easy to forget that the people "out there" who have those opinions are often thoughtful, nuanced, complex people with perspectives that I can learn from. Now, there are times to agree to disagree and move on. Sometimes that's the healthy course of action. But not always; avoiding a subject is not the same thing as living in unity with one another. 

And can we talk about unity for a moment? It's a catchword right now, and a word that shows up often with regard to Christian community. Psalm 133 starts "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity." It's a beautiful and biblical idea, but often I think our understanding of unity is impoverished. I was listening to Dr. Lucretia Berry recently, and she pointed out that often we interpret "unity" to mean "uniformity" - complete agreement and an identical approach to issues. This is the understanding of unity that leads to silencing conversation on complex issues, because we fear that lack of uniformity in an approach to something means disunity. 

But what if that's not what unity means? Dr. Berry pointed out that the New Living Translation, among others, translates that verse, "How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in harmony!"

Harmony only happens when there are different voices singing different melodies. Same goal - pursuing Christ's kingdom - different approaches. Differing voices - differing opinions - don't have to be the clamor of discord. They can come together into the richness and beauty of harmony. 

I've recently started following Sharon McMahon on Instagram. She's a government teacher on a campaign to start a gracious, fact-based conversation about all things current events (and whales). She's an invaluable resource, and I've really appreciated her perspective on how to approach disagreement. One thing that she says over and over and over again is that "we cannot work for the opposition's destruction." In our current political climate, it's easy for Republicans to think that life would be so much easier if the Democrats disappeared, and for Democrats to think the same about Republicans. But here's the thing: communities that eliminate the opposition turn dictatorial very fast. Healthy democracies - and healthy communities - learn how to listen to one another, understand the other side, and work together in the face of strong disagreement. 

What if, instead of being afraid of tension and disagreement, we entered into it with the hope of harmony? Especially among believers, we know that our goal is Christ and his kingdom. Christians have been disagreeing since Jesus called the first disciples - but what if instead of avoiding that disagreement, we entered into it with the desire to learn from one another and grow together?

how to be a good conversationalist

I gave a  talk at the English Department Chapel at Wheaton my senior year. I closed with this:

We have a responsibility to act on the vision that literature gives us. This dovetails with our calling as Christians to see the world for what it truly is. We know that the world is good, because it was created by a good God as an expression of love. We can see goodness and beauty in places where other people see only the mundane. We are called to cultivate that beauty so other people can see and respond to it. On the flip side, we know that the world is deeply broken as a result of the fall. And we are called to see the world's brokenness, wade into it, get our feet muddy, and begin the work of restoration that will culminate in the Kingdom of Christ. This is our calling - to cherish the world's beauty and rebuild the world's brokenness. But in order to do that we have to have the kind of vision that can see beauty and brokenness. Through my time at Wheaton I have learned that literature is one of the most powerful tools there is to mold our vision. And vision leads to action. 

In many ways, this was the culmination of my academic experience - an experience that shaped my desire to examine the intersection between the world of ideas and the world of action.

During my first few years in college, professors encouraged me to ask questions to spark ideas for papers. "Don't start with what you think. Start with a question. And look for an answer to that question. Be willing to be surprised with where you end up."

Y'all, until my junior year of college, I had no earthly idea how to do that well. I would choose questions so big I couldn't possibly fit them into the scope of a six page paper. Or I would choose questions so narrow that it was ridiculously challenging to stretch my conclusions over six long pages. But the deeper problem is I would start with what I wanted to say and then write a question to which my opinion was the answer. That stunted my learning.

But then I spent a semester in Oxford. I had to write three research essays every two weeks. At the beginning of a week, my tutors would hand me a primary source and a list of about 20 questions to choose from. They always encouraged me to use the list as a starting point to develop my own questions. The essays I brought back to them were NOT meant to be my polished final word on the subject. Rather, they were meant to be evidence I was doing the difficult intellectual work - they were supposed provide a good entry point for a conversation with my tutors.

The process was about learning and dialogue, not about my establishing my authoritative opinion - which was good because I was 21 and had no business having an authoritative opinion on anything.

To prepare for my conversations with my tutors, I read extensively from vastly different perspectives on the subjects at hand before I began to formulate my response. In reading those sources, I felt like I was listening in to a conversation that had begun long before I walked into the group.

Basic lesson in human interactions: do not walk up to a conversation that other people are having, assume after two seconds that you know exactly what they are talking about and what you think about it and then jump in to make your two cents known. It doesn't usually end well. At best, you cause some awkwardness and confusion, and at worst you might spark a very unpleasant disagreement in which all the parties are talking past each other rather than listening to each other. (I know this from personal experience.)

Continued basic lesson in human interactions: when you walk up to a conversation that other people have been having, it is not only polite but profitable to actually listen to the conversation for awhile. Seek to know what's going on. Ask good questions to help understand what ground has already been covered, what conclusions have been drawn, and the trajectory of the conversation. You may find that you hold even more firmly to your initial opinion, and that it will add value to the conversation. Or you may find that your initial opinion actually is erroneous in the context of the conversation. Or your might find that you now have big questions that had never before occurred to you. Now it's time to join the conversation as an informed, invested participant rather than as a conversation crasher.

This is what I learned to do through hours in the English Faculty Library and the Bodleian Library, on walks through University Parks, and through conversations with my dinner group (now my online book club).

At this point you've probably realized that although my experience was extremely academic, it had real application to my actual life. I'm an opinionated person, and through my young adulthood I tended to approach difficult issues with a pre-formed opinion. (Who are we kidding? I still have a natural tendency to do that.) Whether I realized it or not, the questions I asked were often designed to validate my opinion as the right answer, rather than to facilitate listening and learning.

My approach to interacting with people and ideas was profoundly shaped by my academic experience at Oxford, the reading I do on my own time, and my relationships with other people. I have learned how important it is to listen for awhile before inserting myself into a conversation. This is NOT because I think my voice has no value or because I don't have strong opinions. It's because I want to be able to use my voice and my opinions to contribute to and shape the conversation, rather than shutting it down with my ignorance or intransigence.

Why am I saying all of this? You've probably guessed it by now.

This has been one heck of a week for our country. In the wake of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery,  Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, the nation is in uproar. Peaceful protesters are taking to the streets - as are rioters and vandals. My city has instituted an 8 pm - 6 am curfew until further notice. Not to mention the fact that there is still a global pandemic.

In a situation like this, it is so easy to shut down the challenging questions. It's hard to listen with humility and grace to a conversation that is so messy. It's easy to feel attacked by people who call for the complete defunding of the police and claim that the violent response to police violence is morally justified. It's hard to take the time to distinguish between those voices and the voices of people who are galled both by nationwide destruction and by the deaths that sparked that destruction. It's easy to state an opinion based on my gut response and biases. It's hard to listen to the voices who are begging us to pause and listen to the conversation and ask questions about the underlying issues.

But here's the thing. I think everyone agrees something's gotta change. And change only comes when people are willing to wrestle with difficult questions about the way things are in order to begin to imagine the way things could be. People may disagree on what that looks like, but the only way to develop a vision of productive and lasting change is to choose to be still, ask questions, listen to the response, ask more questions, and begin to formulate a way to move forward.

Please - don't shut out the questions. Don't shut down the conversation. Ask the questions. Learn the stories. Ponder the ideas. And let those questions, those stories, those ideas, push you into action.