When two or more people fully agree, change the subject. When you do not agree, find out why. Through years and years of firsthand experience, I have learned to embrace conflict. It only presents difficulties if I reject truth.
That is a novel idea to many of us. The most common response to conflict is fear, avoidance, resentment, anger, or even rage. The second common response is surrender, or acquiescence. Both indicate covering up the truth. That is true.
We all that know a character who intentionally argues or accuses you of lies to get a rise. For instance, you might say that one and one equals two, and the clown will deny it.
“Not in base 2,” he might say. “It’s 10.” He (or she) may even accuse you of lying. This might be useful, very rarely, yet we all use the technique — in politics, sports and religion, especially. It consists of dismissing all truth in order to validate or obviate a fact that may or may not exist in the argument.
Consider Lady Macbeth accusing Macbeth of having too much “milk of human kindness,” and the Bible’s promise of “a land flowing with milk and honey.” The scoffer sneers, “I’m lactose intolerant, and you want to kill me!”
Usually, however, the direction of such “arguments” has no bearing on recognizable truth, whatsoever. That may not imply that either side of the argument is lying, but compiling different facts. The critical information can differ. Two people may look at a picture of an Inuit standing on a slab of ice by an igloo in winter garb, layers of heavy skins and mukluks. The first person says, “Oh, doesn’t he look warm?” and the other says, “No, he looks cold!”
One person looks at the increased police presence in Washington, DC, and says, “It is great to see crime and homelessness being addressed in our Nation’s Capital!” The other says, “No, he’s Trump.”
Recent Comments