Agreeing to disagree
(Pandemic Diary - day 237
From my journal: 21 October 2020 (Wednesday)
This topic grabbed my attention and interest earlier today.
A friend shared an article that profiled two families in Pittsburgh who are good friends and live side by side. One is a Biden family and the other is a Trump family, and yet they’ve found a way to get along.
It’s heartwarming on the surface — that’s what we all want, right?
Most of the comments went that way, but there were a few that disagreed, and someone shared a link to a good post that says there are some things we can’t agree to disagree about.
For example, we can agree to disagree if we’re arguing about which team has the better offensive line, or what the best approach to solving climate change is.
But if our argument is about basic human rights, the situation is different.
There’s more to it than that, but those are the basics.
The real answer is somewhere in between, I think. I’m not sure quite what I mean by that, or what that answer might be — figuring that out would be a goal for my own post on the topic.
But before I close here for the day, I just want to capture some of my initial thoughts (in no particular order)…
Silence is one approach (probably the most common one) but silence can equate to complicity, and that’s probably not morally acceptable on some issues.
What exactly does “agree to disagree” mean? Does it mean we agree not to argue about this anymore? Does it mean I accept you as a person, even though I disagree with your point of view?
“Agree to disagree” is not the same as “love the sinner, hate the sin” — that one might be a more appropriate aphorism for this situation.
I think you have to understand that the Trumpster might be ignorant of what they’re truly saying by supporting him. Or regardless of how it looks, they don’t mean it that way. Or it’s also possible (at least in theory) to support him for the one key thing you want so badly that you’re willing to accept the other things, even though you disagree with them. A conscious and well-considered opinion that you can defend is a far different thing than just going along with peers or an image you think you like (although the impact is exactly the same, I guess).
There’s my trailrunner friend who lives this question and speaks so eloquently and emotionally about it on Facebook. She talks about how much it hurts her to know that some of her supposed “friends” support a man and an ideology that’s actively against her right to be married to her wife, that would tell her who she can and can’t love, and deny her equal treatment under the law. Could they look her in the eyes and tell her that, and then expect to just “agree to disagree” and move on to the next topic in a friendly way?
There’s much more to this, I think. Or maybe it’s very, very simple.