Opus 2015-133: Rightism

I have never found a shortage of things to be right about.

Or maybe I should just say things to argue about.  We can disagree about the best brand of gasoline, the best football team, the meaning of love or what we said yesterday.  The list is endless.  There are at least three possible solutions when two people disagree.  You have either/or, both/and, or neither.

We tend to think in terms of either/or, that one person is right and the other wrong.  Of course we are the first and the other guy is the latter.  It works when we are talking about something that can be observed or measured.  We can walk out the door and see if the car is blue or red.  We can check the list of credits to see who was the leading character in a movie.  The disagreement is on what the facts are with little room for opinion.

At other times it is almost impossible to come to agreement.  Local prejudices trump data.  Personal involvement colors our thinking.  We actually do have different tastebuds.  There are many levels of color blindness.  Our children are the brightest.  Our team is the best.  Mexican food is better than Italian food.  You will never come to agreement.  Even on important issues it is often better to accept that you agree to disagree.  You might even come to the place where you understand that it might be a case of both/and.  This requires an honesty and willingness to think that is often not present. 

The solution we don’t ever like to consider is that both of us might be wrong.  It usually requires a third party to get involved to see this.  Even then it is a hard road to follow.  I would venture to guess that many times when disagreements turn violent it is a matter of both being wrong. 

America is based on the belief that we can have differences in many areas as long as we agree on the basics which are expressed in the Bill of Rights.  Thus you may differ on how you see God.  You may express different opinions of the tax code.  You join different clubs and organizations.  We are still Americans. 

We agree to disagree because we believe in freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of association.  If you can’t live with that then maybe you need to live somewhere else.  The big problem is there are no one-person countries that have room for you.

homo unius libri