Do you place any stock in personality tests? Maybe you know somebody who swears by a particular one. For anyone interested, here’s a snippet from a personality test I took a while back [1]. “If you were one of 100 people in a room”, it announced, “you would be higher in agreeableness than 90 of them.” Among other things, agreeableness signals a “tendency to avoid conflict… [to] dissemble and hide what one thinks.”
If I were really boastful, I might point to this and say something like: “The world needs more people like me!” Modern political discourse’s most salient feature may be that it foments what Arthur Brooks called a “culture of contempt” [2]. We need people more willing to acknowledge fault, refrain from vitriolic dialogue, and put out fires. That means more passiveness, right?
But to this fictional version of me, you would wisely reply: “You’re certainly right that the world needs people who can make peace. But that doesn’t mean passivity.” We don’t just need less bad dialogue. We need more good dialogue! Between the opposites of staying silent and roasting people, there’s what I call “good disagreement”. This type of disagreement not only doesn’t generate hard feelings: it can dismantle ignorance, misunderstanding, and prejudice.
So what does “good disagreement" look like? Well, for starters, it is exemplified in this debate-themed issue of “The Political Review”. These writers are trying to critique, teach, learn, explore, and establish their arguments all at once. Courage, curiosity, humility, and intellectual rigor are at work. In order to explore what constitutes good disagreement, allow me to share a couple of stories.
First, the all-night argument story. I once had a roommate (not at BYU) who was a self-proclaimed philosopher. He was confident in his somewhat unorthodox beliefs, and unafraid to share them-- even when it could embarrass or hurt someone unnecessarily. Once, after just such an awkward public moment, we went home and debated late into the night. One minute we were discussing what he’d actually said; the next, an effort to prove/disprove something carried the discussion into seemingly unrelated subjects. It all ended with me stymied, feeling that I’d neither been understood nor expressed myself well.
What exactly went wrong here? First of all, this argument was doomed from the start because neither of us was willing to admit that we were wrong. In contrast, good disagreement has a powerful cooperative aspect to it. You teach me, and I teach you. Socrates modeled this 2,500 years ago. “I shall never fear or avoid things which I do not know,” he declared [3]. His only goal was to come closer to the truth. In his eyes, learning made everyone a winner, no matter who got proven wrong about what. Good disagreement seeks clarification, not domination.
Secondly, zero progress will happen unless debaters nail down exactly what they agree and disagree about. If a conversation becomes aimless or circular in nature, no one is going to walk away “the winner”. We should all (politely) raise our eyebrows in skepticism any and every time we observe an argument without 1) a solid logical progression or 2) verifiable facts standing as its key pillars. Good disagreement is logical.
Thirdly, this late night argument showed me that making sense of complex issues-- i.e., most political ones-- requires a lot of contextual knowledge. Depending on the issue at hand, one might need to study anything from history to psychology. Good disagreement is well-informed.
My second story comes out of the legendary reporter Walter Cronkite’s early career. One day, his manager suddenly ordered him to get on the radio immediately and announce the breakout of a horrible fire [4]. When asked how he knew about the fire, the manager replied that his wife had called and told him. Hearing that, Cronkite stubbornly refused to make the announcement without confirmation. The outraged manager went on the air himself and improvised a bulletin. But he later wished that he hadn’t: the story he’d heard turned out to be a massive exaggeration. Yikes…
Don’t be like this manager! Check important points and never assume their truthfulness (especially when emotions are high). Be skeptical at every instance of what the philosopher John Stuart Mill termed “an assumption of infallibility” [5]. If somebody’s opinion or theory is so great, why don’t they allow it to be analyzed or examined? If Cronkite’s manager was so sure there was a disaster, why couldn’t he prove it? From Mill: “There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.” Good disagreement is both fearless and vulnerable. It involves being ready to accept a challenge, and accept defeat. And when defeat happens, it means immediately building a better theory than the old one.
Finally, good disagreement is characterized by the peacemaker’s heart. As the late great Russell M. Nelson taught, “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions… Let us show that there is a peaceful, respectful way to resolve complex issues and an enlightened way to work out disagreements” [6].
Now get out there and question everything! Debate your mom! Debate coworkers, roommates, friends, and your significant other! And do it the right way. The world will be better for it.
