Conversation Peace: How?
I said I’ve learned a lot over the past year, and that’s true. If I had to reduce the greatest lessons I’ve learned into one idea, it would be this: community is difficult. Being part of a diverse community and truly loving those who are different from us in any number of ways does not come naturally. It’s something that we need to be very intentional about, and it requires us to work at it. Hard.
This is true in online discussions of the type we have on this site, it’s true in the communities in which we each live, it’s true in our countries, and it’s tragically true in our churches.
If you’ve been reading this site for a while, I hope you’ve seen this theme percolating through almost everything I’ve written.
As I look back at what I’ve written over the past year, I think the posts that speak most significantly to this lesson are the posts I wrote almost six months ago exploring conversation in an online medium and the possibility that these conversations might point towards renewal and reconciliation. If you’ve been participating in recent discussions on this site and you haven’t read these posts, I would encourage you to take the time to do so.
Within the last few weeks, I had two visitors stumble upon these posts and leave ripples that were both flattering and challenging. These visitors, Timothy and Kathryn, pretty much asked the same question....
How?
More than anything, I’ve wanted to answer this question for them, but I’ve been flummoxed. In one sense, I’ve already tried: we do this by directing our conversations toward seeking truth, by opening ourselves to better understanding those who differ from us, and by having the humility to admit that we may be wrong.
But in another sense, I know this answer is incomplete. I mean, it’s as though someone asked me what they needed to do to lose weight and I simply responded “eat more healthily and exercise more.” That is the right answer, but it’s not particularly helpful. That’s why there’s a gazillion dollars to be made in diet books and programs — they answer the “how?” question more specifically and more practically. Well, at least they promise to do so.
So, specifically and practically, how do we move our conversations towards these ideals?
Again, I’m still searching for the answers, but here are a few thoughts I’ve had as I’ve watched one recent conversation unfold on this site....
First, I think we need to reemphasize the fact that this kind of community and this kind of conversation is difficult. The truth is, I don’t know how to do this and neither do you.
We’re different. We’re different sometimes in ways that are rooted in fundamental ideals that we hold very dearly and that define us in very important ways. And as we come together to learn about and from each other, to toss ideas back and forth, these fundamental ideals often get put into play.
We’re each on a journey. And to borrow a metaphor from one of my favorite movies from last year, sometimes our journeys intersect and we crash into each other. The results can be painful, they can be ugly, but sometimes they can still point towards reconciliation.
How?
There’s that question again. One answer is that at every point in every interaction we have with each other, we have choices to make.
When someone says something that we disagree with, we have a choice regarding how we respond. The choice we make will change the direction the conversation takes. We face a similar choice when someone mischaracterizes our words, makes assumptions about us that are untrue, or even attacks us. We have a choice to make regarding not only what we say in response, but how we say it.
There are a lot of answers floating around out there for how we should make these choices. The Answer that I struggle to believe in says that the choices I make should be marked by kindness, gentleness and self-control. Sound familiar? Or this one: when I’m attacked, I should turn the other cheek. That’s not just unnatural, it’s downright revolutionary. And that’s scary.
But it’s the choice I’ve been asked to make. It’s the one we’ve been asked to make. Violence begets violence. And make no mistake, we can do tremendous violence to each other with our words.
Turning the other cheek risks letting the other person win. Sometimes we hate that idea more than anything. Then again, if we’re in these conversations to win, in many ways we’ve already lost. But turning the other cheek also means sacrificing a bit of what you think you deserve in order to give the other person the opportunity to make another choice. And maybe, just maybe, that choice will be away from violence.
It’s in these choices that we’ll find the seeds of reconciliation. It’s in these choices that we’ll discover grace.
Look, we’re not very good at this. I’m not very good at this. I do violence to people’s dignity every damn day by simplifying complex individuals into categories that allows me to dismiss them. If you’re under the false impression that I am good at this, it’s only because you haven’t been reading me very comprehensively. Or it’s because you don’t know me in real life. Or it’s because you don’t know the things I think but don’t say.
We’re together in our failure. And that means that as we meet in discussion or in community, whether online or in the rest of our lives, we have to ask ourselves the same difficult questions: Why are we doing this? What is our goal? Is it to win? If not, then what? To learn from each other? To seek truth together? To (gasp!) love each other? If it’s any or all of these, what are we willing to do, what choices are we willing to make to direct our conversations towards reconciliation?
And yet again, How?
11 Ripples from “Conversation Peace: How?”
Brandon says:
January 30, 2006 at 12:01 pm
As I’m sure is no surprise to anyone, I don’t have any answers. But, I do have another question:
How (there’s that question again) are we to behave when our perceptions of conversation seem to be so diametrically opposed?
I can’t imgine that the answer is to simply give up. On the other hand, there’s little profit in engaging in “dialogue” in those situations, it seems. I’m not a big fan of the impasse, but it feels like this is one.
Further, I think that it may be a tad utopian to think (as I do, and I suspect you’re with me here, Zalm) that ANY of us isn’t--at least in part--in a dialogue to win. I mean, even if there WAS ever an individual whose aims were so pure, they’d probably be in a community full of people who were (at least in part) in a discussion to rack one up in the “W” column.
I think another important “how” question is this: How do we proceed with our dreams for community and dialogue amid diversity, acknowleging the impurity of each of our hearts, AND acknowleging that we’re going to be reticent to acknowlege our impurities. (Whew, that’s a lot of acknowleging.)
I’m sure I’ll have more on this, but for now, I’m interested in other thoughts.
Greg says:
January 30, 2006 at 6:01 pm
How do you ride a bike? I’m sure there’s some nice answer that relies on physics and such, but the real answer, the useful answer, is that you get on and go ‘til you crash. And then you get up and do it again. And then you do it over and over until hopefully you don’t crash so much any more.
Brandon, here’s a shot at answering your first question. Try to find out why the other person thinks the way that they do. Dig down. Assume that they are pretty much just like you - just as smart, just as moral, etc., but that they are operating from a very different set of assumptions than you are. Try to find out what those assumptions are. Try to understand what would motivate someone to make those assumptions. Are they reasonable? Etc.
You say
Not to sound like a saint or anything (because I’m really not - just ask my wife), but what exactly are you trying to win? Are you trying to get your “opponent” to change their mind and agree with your view? See my second paragraph above - they are exactly as likely to do this as you are, and that is not at all. It seems to me that a good dialogue is an opportunity for one to reexamine the basis of ones own beliefs, and perhaps to gain some new perspectives on an issue. New perspectives will, over time, perhaps cause subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in your beliefs, but the process is quite slow. In any event, that is (or should be imo) the goal of a dialogue - to either solidify, expand, or alter (for the better) ones own beliefs. It is those new perspectives that one should be trying to win. Presumably the person with whom you are engaged in dialogue is trying to do the same thing, and so you are not only working on your own beliefs, but assisting them in working on theirs. If everyone engaged in a dialogue approaches it with this attitude, then they all win. Even if your “opponent” does not have this attitude you can still win, since the person that you are trying to change is you.
Am I claiming that this is easy to do? Heck no! See my first paragraph above.
Brandon says:
January 30, 2006 at 7:01 pm
I don’t know. Most of the time, I’d say that I don’t perceive that I’m trying to win. I’m merely pointing out that the depth of our depravity dips further than the power of our perceptions.
In fact, Greg, I’d say that YOU’RE trying to win our discussion, and I’M trying to win our discussion. Now, this may not be our main motivation, but if we’re honest withourselves, I think we tend to have bits and pieces of that competitive edge in most conversations we enter into...online or off. All I’m saying is that it’s important to acknowlege these motivations as we engage in conversation.
LotharBot says:
February 5, 2006 at 3:02 am
Some philosophical keys picked up over years of online debate:
1) Even if the person on the other end isn’t as intelligent, moral, or interested in truth as you are (because, face it, sometimes they really aren’t!), understand that they still might be right, or at least have something worthwhile to contribute. Even a “slow” fourth grader will occasionally say something adults would do well to listen to (I speak from experience here.)
2) Don’t make disagreement personal. It’s OK if you disagree with my ideas, but don’t call me stupid because of them. Conversely, don’t treat someone else disagreeing with you as a personal attack—if I criticize your idea, don’t go assuming I don’t like you or think you’re dumb. I just see a flaw in your idea (or at least what I understand of your idea so far).
3) Make a conscious decision to be forgiving when you percieve an insult. Maybe the other person didn’t do so well on step #2, or maybe you consider certain words or phrases insulting even though they didn’t mean them that way. Either way, make it a habit to forgive. (If someone is being intentionally nasty, forgive them, but don’t try to engage in dialogue over the subject—and be direct about why you won’t try to have a discussion with someone who’s flaming you.)
4) Remember that the goal isn’t to “win”. If your idea isn’t very good, the best thing is for you to “lose”—that is, for your idea to get shot down—so that you’ll adopt a better one. Instead of trying to win or lose, view everything as a learning experience—you’ve got some info, the other guy has some info, and it’s your goal to extract the best idea from all of it (whether or not the other person is trying to do the same.)
Some practical advice that I don’t always follow, but probably should:
1) If you find yourself writing in anger, delete everything you’ve written, get up, and go do something else. Don’t try to salvage what you wrote, just delete it and start over when you’re calm.
2) Whenever you read something, try to pick out at least one valuable thing, no matter how much of the material you disagree with. It’s pretty rare that someone will take the time to write anything that’s completely without value. (One thing of value you might pick up is an understanding of what they find important—even if you disagree with it, understanding is helpful.)
3) Brush flames off. If someone decides to rant about how evil / stupid you are because of your political / religious / sports team affiliation, laugh, tell them you won’t answer flames, and then move on. Don’t get into a nasty fight about who’s mom is uglier; let cooler heads prevail.
4) Remember, as Greg pointed out, that the only person you can change is you. Do your best to make *you* grow through whatever discussion you have, and if the other person happens to grow and change, that’s just icing on the cake.
5) When you think you understand someone’s argument or position, try to say it back to them in a summary form before you answer it. That way, if you misunderstood, they have a chance to correct your understanding, and they feel respected. If they give a correction, please take it seriously—don’t keep arguing about why their position is wrong when they’ve already said that’s not their position.
6) Be completely honest about why you believe things (with yourself as well as the other person—spend some time in introspection.) If you believe idea X because of argument Y, say so; don’t pretend you believe idea X because of Z and W, even if Z and W seem like better arguments than Y. If you have a problem with someone’s idea for a specific reason, give them that reason, instead of trying to come up with something that sounds clever but isn’t your real reason. If you’ve made an assumption about the other person in your response, be straightforward about that—say “I’m assuming you’re of religion A and that plays a part in your belief in idea B” or whatever. This puts you in the best position to actually learn from the discussion, because your real ideas and thoughts are actually being looked at and argued, instead of the argument being about some philosophical thing you don’t really believe. (One of my pet peeves is when someone believes something is true because “my teacher said so” or “the Bible said so” or whatever, but wants to argue it on philosophical grounds. If you believe it because some source said so, come out and say that!)
dufflehead says:
February 5, 2006 at 4:02 am
i admit that i didn’t read the other posts about blog conversations, so what i’m saying may have already been said. sorry for the laziness.
know your audience. isn’t that the primary rule of public speaking? blogs are pulic speaking except that in blogs, the audience gets a turn to be the speaker.
i have to disagree with lothars first #3 (and perhaps with “turn the other cheek").
if you are offended by a speaker’s word choice, you should let them know in a way that doesn’t make the situation worse (if at all possible). if you offend with your word choice, appologize, get clarification on what was taken as offense, and rephrase.
but i do think that lothar’s second #2 is spot on while attempting to apply it simultaneously.
Leighton says:
February 7, 2006 at 2:02 am
Deep self-knowledge is key to engaging in authentic conversation; you have to be aware at all times of everything that motivates you to respond the way you do, whether it’s in anger or frustration or a desire to comfort or heal. In practice, while I can offer all kinds of justifications (some of them even legitimate) for the comments I make, the descriptive reasons for my taking the time to make them (as opposed to commenting on other things, or elsewhere, or doing other things entirely with my time) are so rarely based on principle that I don’t even bother to offer that as a why anymore.
As an example, I used to get snippy with some conservative Christian commenters because I never quite forgave myself for the stupid, hateful and ignorant things I did and said when I believed the way they did (I was looking at them and seeing an older version of myself that I hated); and once I started filtering this out, I realized that even though a lot of them express their beliefs using exactly the same words, phrases and arguments I used to, my old beliefs and their current beliefs are usually considerably different. Funny how language works like that.
It also helps, of course, to be “realistic” about what dialogue can accomplish--usually you have to have a lot of mutual success with good old fashioned diplomacy before you can move on to the more intimate aspects of conversation. There’s more involved in making connections with people than throwing prepared statements back and forth; no matter how caring or eloquent, that technique doesn’t work all the time, and I don’t think we should expect it to. Like every relationship, it takes two (or however many are involved) to make a conversation work, and sometimes you just have to call it quits when things aren’t working out.
LotharBot says:
February 19, 2006 at 2:02 am
I agree that you should let someone know if their word choice offends you. But you should *also* make it a habit to interpret others’ words in the least offensive way you reasonably can. If they say something that could be interpreted as offensive or could be interpreted as unoffensive, pick the second unless they give you really good reason to think they meant it to be offensive.
Kyle says:
February 19, 2006 at 2:02 am
Although, LotharBot, it should also be stated that interpreting someone “in the least offensive way you reasonably can” can backfire in two ways: first, it is always based on your own conception of what constitutes “offensive,” which is surely a moving target from person to person and part of the basis of the already present disagreement b/t parties, and second, it can be quite annoying to *not* be taken as offensive if in fact you are trying to be offensive and have good rhetorical and social motives for being offensive (such as being offensive in order to shock people out of complacency, for example (like Tony Campolo’s ~"Millions of children are dying and you don’t give a shit; in fact, most of you are more worried that I just said “shit” than you are that millions are dying)), although I should admit that I have in the past intentionally interpreted people as not being nearly as offensive as they really wanted to be and had fun at their ensuing annoyance.
LotharBot says:
February 19, 2006 at 4:03 am
I guess I should clarify: I’m not talking about the offensiveness of ideas. What I’m talking about is interpreting their attitude or tone.
If you can read someone’s post as being in either an arrogant, snotty, angry tone or in a calm, kind, compassionate tone, and you’re not sure which it should be, then give them the benefit of the doubt.
If their ideas are offensive, then by all means take offense. And if you’re sure they’re trying to be offensive (as in the Tony Campolo example) then by all means view their tone as offensive. But if you just aren’t sure, assume “nice guy” instead of “major jerk”; it’s better to annoy the jerk by thinking they’re too nice than to offend the nice person by thinking they’re a jerk.
Kyle says:
February 19, 2006 at 3:02 pm
OK, I think I see where you’re coming from, and I like that final formulation, “it�s better to annoy the jerk by thinking they�re too nice than to offend the nice person by thinking they�re a jerk.” I suppose I’ve been accused too many times of being a jerk when I wasn’t meaning to be, but then when I thought about it realized that my accusers were more than justified in considering me a jerk, and that indeed I was being an offensive jerk without really knowing it. In such situations, I realized that they in fact *were correct* to take offense despite my intention; but insofar as we are talking about our own personal attempts to interpret other people’s dispositions, your strategy seems vital for worthwhile community and conversation.
Jacke says:
February 19, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Greg writes:
I love this and it is spot on, Greg. I have a sneaking suspicion that Brandon and I are very much alike in our personalities even though we have very different views in a myriad of areas. I kind of like that and I also recognize that that is the very reason that Brandon and I often clash. At the end of the day, I like Brandon, as a matter of fact, I like Brandon VERY much. He makes me think, many of you make me think. I would never dream that anyone would be that interested but I have come a long way since I began visiting Progressive Christian blogs with a huge chip on my shoulder. If any of you endeavored to read the evolution of my blog with an open mind, you might realize the softening of my views. I like this community, do I get frustrated at times, OH YEAAAAAH! I have been wrestling with how I want to approach giving an explanation of why I believe GW will be viewed as one of the greatest Presidents of our time for about two weeks. There are about a dozen directions I could go on that topic, which one do I take? I really don’t want to write a book about it and don’t know exactly how to approach it without doing just that. In the end I have decided I’m taking it far too seriously. I’m trying to take a little pressure off myself in the area of believing that I have to satisfy everyone with an answer to every single question asked of me. It’s difficult to keep up. I still intend to answer that question and feel that my integrity has been brought into question by not answering it but it is such a complicated question!
Anyway, I like the idea that I can say what I want to say and still care about each and every one of you...isn’t that what sisters and brothers do? Fuss and fight, scream and yell and then forget all about it the next day? That’s how I view all of you, like brothers and sisters and I make every effort not to hold grudges, I only hope that you view me the same way, not as an enemy or an opponent but as a sister.
-----