Making the Most of Disagreement

            Conflict often cracks the door that leads to healthy dialogue and we must put our foot in the opening. David Bohm (1994) said that conflict was incoherence. People never have legitimate grounds on which to differ, only confusion. War is sustained incoherence, sustained confusion, so too are feuds between families and disagreements of all sorts.

            There is a simple, elegant solution to every dilemma that presents itself to symbol processing systems or social systems and it is understanding, unraveling the knot of incoherence. Bohm said that confusion is analogous to a thought cancer. It begins to destroy the good cells of clarity around it.

            We drag our thoughts (thinking we did before) into our current life situation, along with our felts (feeling we did before) and together they pre-empt our understanding of the reality that is being presented to us now. It is in this way that confusion is handed down from generation to generation, that is, from episode to episode of our lives. Conflict has the capacity to cause people to think rather than drag in what they have already thought, to feel, rather than to load their brains with the chemicals of feelings they had before. When conflict arises, we should seize the moment and not let it pass without investing it with thinking and feeling.

            Not only do we tend to use thoughts and felts rather than thinking and feeling, we often raise monuments to systems of thoughts and felts and worship at their alters. Science, rationality, divine authority and even intuition, have their own hallowed traditions. Most people worship at one or the other of these “churches”. 

            Imagine if you will, four people who believe themselves to be authoritative on the same subject. One relies on “scientific evidence” another on rational thought, a third on a scriptural text and yet another on her intuitive capacity. Their conversation is likely to be conflicted because they cannot agree on something as basic as what they will treat as knowledge or wisdom.

            A person who believes in knowledge derived from science and another who believes in God-breathed understanding, will have countless non-starting discussions, when they seek to reason together. They might as well be thousands of physical miles apart for all the good being together in one room will do them, because the distance between the thought systems in which they believe is so great.

            Still the situation sits there to be readily resolved. Two fresh human beings, two human beings who were not so far gone down the narrow paths of their disparate knowledge traditions, could comprehend the reality and fix on a solution without much effort. However, our two combatants are likely to rage at one another for days, weeks, years, for lifetimes. Incoherence is their inheritance.

            Dialogue (conversational attack on confusion) can be achieved between the separate traditions our combatants worship in. Conflict opens doors on each side. All they need do is open the door and enter.

            Genuine dialogue entails listening without referring the messages to thoughts and feelings from your sacred traditions. It means speaking coherently about what you are thinking, what you are feeling, especially as these are determined by what you are hearing from the other person. The telltale product of dialogue is that both people (all people, if there are more than two) reach new understanding.

            One person at the table says, “I hear what you are saying, and it sounds plausible, but it violates the memory of my ancestors, and I am their representative at this table.” Another person at the table says, “I could not care less about your ancestors, I have my own ancestors of thought and felt to defend.” Everyone at the table is an ambassador for different traditions of thoughts and felts and determined to defend the flags and honor of their kingdom of origin.

            They might just as well be speaking in different languages without interpreters, for all the good their time talking does them. Wisdom sits there in the middle of the table, winking at them, nodding knowingly, but alas, frowning in sadness when the conversation winds down, everyone pushes back from the table and all walk out of the room.

            Rather than hailing from different knowledge traditions, they may be from different power positions. Locally, one person may be talking from the position of authority given to him by the organization.  “Do the rest of you not understand?”, he says. “Can you not hear that mine is the voice being raised on behalf of the organization for which we all work?”

            Another person at the table says, “Do the rest of you not understand? I am speaking as the smartest person in my college graduating class. Another speaks from the power of her experience recalling what she believes to be this same conversation before when subsequent events proved her correct (not realizing that those events are gone forever and that these are new events), another from the mountaintop of his emotion believing that what he says must be correct or otherwise why would he believe it so emotionally.

            Real conflict, times when those sitting at the table begin to change because they are forced to react to the input of others, provide learning opportunities, fleeting seconds when the person with organizational authority sees that there may be understanding beyond the bounds of that protected by his title, when the self-proclaimed “smartest person in the room” realizes that these commoners may have struck on pearls of insight, the person with vast experiences notices the “newness” of the current case, when the emotional mountain climber looks around and sees that the others are climbing the same mountain.

            In this precious present, it would be so healing for one of those at the table or perhaps someone new to the table, to throw down a heavy object breaking the quiet with sound and announce that for the next little while, no one will be permitted to speak or listen in the spirit of anything more than the sense flowing from the mouths of those in the room. No more grandmotherly nostrums, no more of grandfatherly clichés, no more homespun platitude from the mind of a great aunt or uncle.  For the sake of understanding, we will speak and listen in a way that defies tradition.

           

Reference       

Bohm, David. (1994). Thought as a system. London: Routledge.

Let Me Tell You About My Nephew Noah McCullough

Lots of people have nice nephews so please don’t take this the wrong way, but my nephew Noah could beat your nephew in basketball, blindfolded. One night he, his father – my brother - and I were playing basketball on an outdoor court in Nicholasville, Kentucky, one of those with the double ring rims that do not give at all, and just after dark; we did not want to quit so we were still there and Noah decided to shoot free throws and he hit nine out of 10 in the dark. I’d like to see your nephew do that.

Also, my nephew Noah – that sounds better than just calling him Noah- is now several inches taller than his father – my brother – Earl, making him a little taller than me. In fact, the last time I saw him he was growing rapidly and we have not talked for a few weeks, so he may be well over six feet tall by now, making him – I suspect – virtually impossible to guard.

I have not seen him play many games, but I saw him win the MVP of an all-star game in Somerset, Kentucky this past year. After only a couple of minutes into the game, he had three, three pointers – at which point the opposing coach decided they needed to guard him a little more closely. In the two games that day, he hit something like 11 three pointers out of 17 tries and, as I said, walked away with the MVP trophy, his team winning by large margins in both games and he serving as the steady, calming influence as point guard against players who were, at that point, mostly taller and considerably heavier than him.

We knew Noah was going to be a good basketball player several years ago when he started telling us he was going to someday play in the NBA – I mean, how cool is confidence, right? I helped send him to a summer camp in Chapel Hill, NC about six years ago, where he met Kenny the-jet Smith and got to learn from several sharp instructors. We sent him to that camp because since he was a wee lad he has liked North Carolina, for some reason.

Kentucky won the championship the spring of the year he was born and then won it again two years later, but of course, he was too young to be aware of those teams, so by the time he became a fan of college basketball, North Carolina was the best team, so I suppose that is why he adopted them as his favorite.

When he was about 10 years old, I saw him play organized basketball for the first time and although he was one of the smallest players on the floor, he was a deft ball handler and he hit a back over the head layup that any NBA guard would be proud of – without even stopping to admire it or show off, returning to defensive stance immediately - always a good sign.

As you can tell, I know how it feels to take pride in a nephew, so I don’t blame you for thinking your nephew is terrific and I am sure in his own way, he might well be. But my nephew Noah is handsome – look his picture up on facebook if you don’t believe me, has a charming personality – ask anyone in my family or that he goes to school with, if you don’t believe me; and not only that, he is a soul winner.

By the time I was eleven years old I had won six people to the lord. Noah may not have done it that early, but he has kept it up and I am sure he has passed me by now, since I quit winning souls and started living like someone who needs his soul won, in my late teens and early twenties. I kid him that he will end up like Chris “Birdman” Anderson of the NBA, with all that body art on his neck and face, but so far he is walking the straight and narrow and seems destined to be like his father and grandfather, a man close to his Biblical upbringing.

So, if your nephew is under six feet tall, cannot hit ninety percent of his free throws in the dark, has never won MVP of an all-star game, is not the best player in his high school basketball league, and is not a Bible believing soul winner, do me a favor, when your nephew’s birthday comes around, call him up and tell him you love him and that you are proud of him, because if he knows my nephew Noah, his self-esteem may be suffering from the comparison.

But if your nephew compares well to my nephew Noah – with the looks, charming personality and humility – which I don’t think I mentioned before, but yes, on top of everything else he is unassuming and humble in his attitude; then you should be proud of your nephew and have him contact my nephew Noah. Maybe they could hang out and learn from another how to be even more awesome.

I am sorry if I have turned this into a competitive birthday wish for my nephew Noah, but then, nephews only turn seventeen once, are only seniors in high school once and are only the pride of the family for a little while until some other young person comes along and takes center stage in holiday conversations.

The last thing I want to say about my nephew Noah is that he loves his grandmother – my mother with great passion, cried like a baby when his grandfather - my dad, died on mother’s day in 2006, is almost as devoted to his father – my brother Earl as he is to his heavenly father, and perhaps most importantly, in almost every way, he reminds me of myself when I was his age.

Happy Birthday, Noah.