Immoral Equivalence

Now that I'm in my second half century of life, I freely admit that there aren't a lot of interpersonal disagreements, misunderstandings and hurt feelings that can actually be solved by the correct application of logic.  Heaven knows, I've tried.  I could make myself dizzy and old(er) counting the number of arguments, disagreements and debates that I've won hands down on point of logic, only to be dismissed on grounds that they're uncaring, irrelevant or don't take into account the feelings of...everyone, everywhere that ever lived.  There might have even been a little upset here and there as a result of my being right on point of logic.

It's useful to have guidelines for disagreeing and for stating and rebutting a point.  In real life though, rules for this kind of encounter vanish around the time that shoulders, eyebrows and voices raise.  That's unfortunate because I think if we could follow the rules just a bit, we could have more hope of finding the ground that's common rather than the ground that's higher.  However, reality is pretty real and we have to negotiate the distance between respective positions and perspectives, yielding enough to let someone else pick their way around our tender places as well.

The normal flow of the disagreement is to either withdraw or to establish some form of moral equivalence.  Moral equivalence is the form of argument that says something that sounds like, "Oh sure, my t-shirt might be out but YOUR socks don't match!" Of course, there's even the more basic form learned originally on the playground, "You're a bigger one!"

Of course, none of that has anything to do with the point at hand and only serves to reinforce the presumably broken status quo.  It's not so much agreeing to disagree as it is being disagreeable about disagreeing on the matter of your disagreement. 

This leads to a very knotty question:  How do you fight a war with virtually no agreed upon rules of engagement, act equitably and bring the matter to not just truce but finally peace?  There's really only one way out of this feedback loop of infinite angst and sadly it's the most difficult behavior found in modern discourse in 21st century culture.  You have to listen.

Listening is not achieved by sitting still with your mouth mostly closed while you hear someone talk.  Neither is it achieved by simply taking turns in a conversation.  You actually have to entertain the possibility that the person on the other side of the argument might be at least partially right...or even completely right.

To achieve listening you have to let yourself be a bit vulnerable.  You have to start out by surrendering, even if just a little bit.  You don't necessarily surrender completely, unless maybe you've been obviously and egregiously wrong. 

The idea has been found on the battlefield for at least 2000 years, in the form of the white flag.  I think it's fascinating that the white flag is used as both a sign of surrender as well as a sign of temporary truce.  Even though the nature of the exchange may range anywhere from negotiating mutual interest to dictating terms to abject surrender, it's accomplished under a flag of peace. The greater issues of the war might still remain but for the moment at least we can stand on our common ground.

Sadly, passing with the idea of structured and perhaps civilized disagreement are other good things. These include mutual respect, shared value and even grace.  Wars, battles and arguments are now unconditional.  Treaties are ignored when it is convenient to do so and outrage at "the other side's" treaty transgression is genuine and deep seated.  Abandoning civility in the name of "winning" has become both a social and personal norm.  "Feelings" at both the societal and personal levels have been elevated to the level of deity.  How we feel now trumps how we think, objective reality and even the rule of law. 

I don't have a great solution to this societal avalanche of self-righteous feeling.  I have only one suggestion.  Make your next step to be in the direction of reconciliation.  It might leave you vulnerable or even hurt straight off but sometimes surrender is a step in the right direction.  And maybe while you're making that next step, just listen a little.