{"id":4829,"date":"2022-06-06T14:44:05","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T19:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/?p=4829"},"modified":"2022-09-01T09:25:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T14:25:42","slug":"agreeing-to-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/agreeing-to-disagree\/","title":{"rendered":"Agreeing to Disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Agreeing to\ndisagree. Reasonable people can disagree. They can disagree on substance or\ntone or the most efficient way to achieve a goal. But they can\u2019t reasonably disagree\nwithout fully understanding the other position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t\nunderstand a position, you can have an opinion about it but that opinion is\nuninformed. When you are uninformed or partially informed, you simply can\u2019t\nknow whether you disagree. We know this to the point that have clich\u00e9s about walking in\nsomeone else\u2019s shoes before we judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, we\nhave become daily finger-pointing, vilifying, cancel-culturing jerks. Provocative\nlanguage gains likes, friends, and followers. This encourages bad behavior and makes\nit tempting to give in to our baser instincts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels good\nto compare when we receive accolades. It feels terrible to compare when we\nreceive criticism. But chasing accolades for a particular position entrenches\nus at one level of understanding and prevents growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I distinctly\nremember sitting in a jury room with 11 strangers attempting to determine\nwhether a man assaulted a policeman before stealing his car. On our first vote,\nI was the lone dissent on a guilty verdict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During deliberations,\nI was asked whether or not I watched the show Cops and was told that if I did,\nI\u2019d understand why the guy was guilty. I was also personally attacked for\nreading a book during a break. Of course, this criticism was mischaracterized\nas me reading instead of listening during testimony. These were attempts not\njust to disagree with me, but to try to shame or push me into a different\nposition. They were both unpleasant and ineffective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\nwas the jury foreman. He and I were on opposite sides of the argument, but he\nwas thoughtful, respectful, and reasonable. We came at the same set of facts\nfrom different points of view and reached different conclusions. I\u2019m sure we\nwere both right on some points. Ultimately, the jury was hung. There simply\nwasn\u2019t enough proof to put 4 of us beyond a reasonable doubt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the situation\nhad been a conference room in which we were discussing policy, the jury foreman\nand I would have made complimentary team members who broadened understanding and\nimproved the final product. We would still have needed to reach a consensus,\nbut our disagreement would have enriched and improved the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s\nthe thing. Disagreement can lead to improvement. But that\u2019s only when we begin\nby listening to each other. Sometimes, we may discover that we don\u2019t disagree\nat all. We may just have a different style of communication or use different\nlingo. Other times, we\u2019ll discover the narrowness of our own point-of-view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disagreement\ncan be inspiring. It can introduce new possibilities. It can be respectful and\ncollaborative. But that can only happen when we stop pointing fingers,\nvilifying, and failing to try to understand another perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am all for accountability. I understand the desire to respond negatively to ideas that go against our closely held beliefs and values. And I\u2019m not saying that we should agree with everything. But please, for the love of all things good, can we start listening with both our ears and our hearts to each other? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may need\nto see the fear behind the bluster or the manipulation behind a benevolent-appearing\nact. To do this can take time, active listening, and a deeper personal\ninvestment than typical posturing allows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The past two years\nhave made it clear that many systems are broken or on the brink of failure. It\nwill take the input of many voices and many points-of-view to hold things\ntogether. And it will take a force of will to look reality in the face and\nchoose to be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe it\u2019s worth the courage and effort it takes. And I believe in order to improve, we must agree to understand \u2013 not just disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agreeing to disagree. Reasonable people can disagree. They can disagree on substance or tone or the most efficient way to achieve a goal. But they can\u2019t reasonably disagree without fully understanding the other position. If you don\u2019t understand a position, you can have an opinion about it but that opinion is uninformed. When you are … Continue reading “Agreeing to Disagree”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3208,3211,3209,1601,3210],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4829"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4937,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4829\/revisions\/4937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}