Richmond Proper: On agreeing to disagree
“By keeping your cool, you’re teaching by example, much as a parent does for a child. Good behavior is catching; the more you display it, the more it spreads. This doesn’t mean becoming a doormat; it does mean you can defuse a situation without wrangling over who’s right or wrong.”
“By keeping your cool, you’re teaching by example, much as a parent does for a child. Good behavior is catching; the more you display it, the more it spreads. This doesn’t mean becoming a doormat; it does mean you can defuse a situation without wrangling over who’s right or wrong.”
— Peggy Post
“Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude.”
— Maurice Baring
Nothing thwarts the flow of human tolerance like disagreements. Often, disagreeing with someone on just one issue can be seen as justification for attacking that person.
We’ve all seen this kind of behavior in a variety of different venues. During a political debate, one politician rolls his eyes and shakes his head the whole time the other politician is talking. Instead of actually listening to his opponent and coming up with an intelligent response, he has turned his ears off completely and has a boilerplate response ready to regurgitate. In the meantime, his actions disrespect and belittle his opponent. When our leaders act ungentlemanly toward each other in front of the television cameras, it’s no wonder we think it’s okay to do the same.
But this isn’t just a problem on the national stage; it’s close to home as well. At a party, two women begin a heated argument about the “right” way to birth babies. In a college course on religions of the world, one student scoffs and calls another student names for defending his beliefs. On Facebook, a friend shares an opinion in a Wall post. Other friends comment on the post, saying things like “Ugh, we are not friends anymore. I had no idea you were like THAT,” or “You are so ignorant. Here’s why you’re wrong…” Upon learning that a friend has different tastes and opinions from themselves, these small-time dictators immediately move that friend from the “friend” category to the “enemy” category. You know, since you can’t respect someone who likes different things than you like, or believes differently from how you believe.
No matter how different we sometimes feel from each other, we have more in common than not. When we focus on our common interests and characteristics, the disagreements don’t seem as important. Let’s replace our aggressive, my-way-or-the-highway reactions to those disagreements with a new way of thinking. It’s very simple, but since it seems to be such a hard concept to put into practice, I’ve even made a hilarious but helpful flow chart to make it easier!
So whether we’re attacked in public, in a letter, on Facebook, or via whispering and gossip, the correct way to act is in kindness. Respond to an angry letter with “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I do hope you’re doing well otherwise.” Remove bombastic, argumentative hotheads from the list of people you share with via social networking. Ignore judgmental gossips and refuse to gossip yourself. As far as confrontations go, two of our favorite sources agree:
“If it happens in public, the answer is merely to walk on, and if it happens under social conditions, it is to refuse to discuss it.”
— Miss Manners
“If discussion can occur in a friendly and caring way, great. If it can’t, then the answer is, ‘Let’s just agree to disagree on this one and not talk about it any more.'”
— Emilypost.com
You can’t always “win” a fight, but you control how you acted in that situation, and refuse to be a part of further rudeness. Think about the times that someone has changed your mind. Were most of those times yelling matches, or quiet conversations between good friends? “Far from squelching substantive discussion and debate, etiquette is what makes them possible,” Miss Manners writes. “Without such rules, there are no exchanges of ideas, only exchanges of set positions and insults.”
Readers, people do and should disagree. How you deal with each new disagreement is your choice. Are you a caveman who goes about cracking skulls, ruled by his gut reactions and unable to think beyond the mantra of “eat or be eaten?” Or are you an intelligent, modern human being who’s able to forgo the short-term pain of holding his tongue in exchange for the long-term benefits of peace and free will? Your choice will speak for itself through the drama or the calmness that you bring into each room you enter.
Suggested reading: “How to Disagree Agreeably” from realsimple.com.
Have an etiquette question and need some advice? Email tess@rvanews.com.
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Tess Shebaylo
Tess Shebaylo is a freelance writer, crafter, history geek, and compulsive organizer. She works at Tumblr and lives in Church Hill with her daughter, Morella.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
For the small stuff, I agree, but for what you know (as lived experience) I’d say burning bridges reveals the shortest route to the sanity concealed by all the insincere posturing you were forced to deploy for the empty reward of societal approbation.
I can’t have a spotless mind but I can certainly banish the demons by unfriending them on facebook. It’s a powerful tool if used wisely.
I probably should have been more clear about this, but I was trying to address what to do in the moment. You know, the direct response to the aggressive person. How to preserve dignity by not getting riled up too. But long-term, yes, I think it’s worth examining who you want to be around. Maybe you don’t want to spend time with people you know to be outwardly bombastic and rude.
I am in support of un-friending. It’s hard for me to suppress a roll of the eyes when people complain about how “annoying” such-and-such is on Facebook. If anyone is annoying you on there, just delete them. Sheesh. But if it’s someone you can’t delete because of the larger ramifications (for example, if it’s your mom, or a co-worker, etc.), I’d recommend clicking the “hide” button so you don’t see their posts, and placing them on a list with limited viewing abilities for your own profile.
Good points, Nandalal — thanks for reading!
“Holding his tongue” is also called covert coping, which will kill you:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/MyocardialInfarction/17161?utm_content=GroupCL&utm_medium=email&impressionId=1280469447624&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=mSpoke&userid=97137
“… the short-term pain of holding his tongue in exchange for the long-term benefits of peace and free will?” And a heart attack.
Actually this piece is geared (and maybe I wasn’t perfectly clear about this) toward actual confrontations — what to do in the moment, as it’s happening. You can’t help it if you get accosted by someone randomly, but you can choose whether to add more screaming and yelling to the universe, or not. I’m suggesting that in this moment, you let the need to “win” slip away, and healthfully move on. I’m not suggesting that you let your anger fester. Long-term, I absolutely agree that you shouldn’t surround yourself with people who drive you crazy. Yes, I think you should learn to cope peacefully with people like your parents and your coworkers, but you should absolutely . Assuming you have a habit of hanging around with people who are also courteous, you will rarely have to use these skills…and I doubt that having to use them only rarely will give you a heart attack. I do think bottling things up is a dangerous thing, but I’ll let a psychologist, and not an etiquette columnist, address that issue. Thanks for reading, guys!
tess,
you’re very welcome. i have a soft spot for advice columns. regarding the focus of your column, confrontations-in-the-moment, i have some sciency support:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_stress_cure/all/1
That article is fascinating. I like this:
“While observing baboons, Stanford biologist Robert Sapolsky found there was a set of personality traits linked reliably with lower levels of stress hormones. One of these was the ability to walk away from provocations that might send a normal baboon into a snarling hissy fit.”
I recently listened to something on a podcast talking about how low-ranking gorillas deal with their problems (a lot of them leave and join another group). This stuff interests me to no end. Thanks again for the link!