Dress British, Think Yiddish

The believer is happy, the skeptic is wise

-Hungarian Proverb

I fear we are losing the art of healthy disagreement. The type of discussion where both parties can walk away agreeing to disagree while understanding more on the other side of the position. We have a habit of aiming toward and glorifying  consensus in our culture, often from a sincere desire to make everyone happy.  We can never reach consensus on the tricky questions, life is too strange. There are things we can never answer for other people; experiences we will fail to understand until they are felt. Life is in motion and change is inevitable; we hold too firmly to our parents’ knowledge and advice at our own risk. If we seek truth, we must experience and ask our own questions.

Disagreeing is difficult. Disagreements are quick to turn into arguments, especially when we involve politics and belief structures. When the ego gets tweaked. We are quick to default into a competitive mindset where we want to be on the right side of the debate. If you want to win an argument, you find the holes in its presentation and you exploit them. But if you want to understand the argument (or the person you love), you do the opposite. You shut-up and listen, you clarify and ask thoughtful questions. Fear of being wrong can only be silenced with the understanding of love and acceptance. Understanding must be built from the ground-up with intention and experience. Frustration is inevitable if we are really learning and reevaluating what we ‘know’.

It is a great relief to realize a disagreement can have no winner. If we agree on everything in discussion, why did the discussion take place? Healthy disagreements are what leads to progress; we must be willing to ask questions even if they offend the sensibilities of those we ask. When good men fail to question their orders, the door is left open for tyranny. To think Yiddish is to practice the exercise of outside thinking in order to find the holes in logic. If you only play the game of chess against yourself, your thought will never reach its potential. We cannot see our own blind spots but we can help shine the light for others.

In matters of external appearances, it is helpful to practice humility, dress British and practice manners. There is always a smarter kipper and by boasting of our virtues, we only reveal how little we know to those listening. We should work for the good of the order because the world is a better place when people do kind things for each other. We avoid the tragedy of the commons by looking out for each other, and not blindly agreeing to things that don’t make sense to us. We must not be afraid to open the doors that others tell us are a waste of time. In the ocean of information, we need a personal compass to save us from confusion, a sense of truth and understanding that goes beyond the talk of the day.

Let us not fear disagreement, our personal power is that we can decide for ourselves.