I've learned a great lesson over the past few days about dialogue. It's always been my goal to change the world with words. I've always wanted to make the world a better place by changing people's hearts and minds, influencing the things we value and lifestyles we live, and challenging the things we believe. To do this, I've often employed a very hard-hitting, polemic style. When I recently published the text of and link to an article employing a similar style to condemn a recent letter by Presiding Bishop Hanson of the ELCA to the presidential candidates, a good friend of mine (who happens to also be a Lutheran) objected.
My first inclination was to disagree. That's almost always someone's first reaction when they are corrected or something they have publicly shown their approval for is criticized. It's a blow to the pride. Here I had published this article and even shown my approval by using Photoshop to make some hilarious matching pictures to go along with the article (I still think they are pretty funny)! So at first, I conceded just a little. My friend, Gary, pushed back harder and essentially said, "No, dude! This article is not cool. I agree with the author's position, but he's not making the world any better by putting it out there in his antagonistic manner." Gary was right. I don't know that he's really changing anybody's mind that way.
So I gave in and wrote a letter of my own to ELCA that took a more positive, collaborative tone. Part of what makes the "hard-hitting polemic" style work is dividing your audience from the object of your criticism. I wouldn't be rude to someone's face, but I might say something rude about them behind their back to someone else who doesn't like them. Likewise, so many writers (including me) try to bash another person's views by pointing out all the flaws in their reasoning to a third party. This frees them to be harsher than they would if they were addressing the object of their criticism in the first person.
The result is that someone who already agrees with you just gets fired up about their agreement, and the party you ought to be talking to (because it's them you think need to change) gets left out of the conversation. They're either unaware of this, so they are never challenged to reconsider their beliefs, or they are aware and they're just offended because you were a jerk to them, left them out of the conversation, and assumed the worst about them. The second alternative might be worse because while the former one changes nothing, the second one makes a negative change- it puts up barriers to real, open dialogue.
So I have a new resolution for this blog and a challenge to all of you who blog yourselves or who even just talk about important things that matter. I'm going to try my best to drop the polemic style as much as possible and when preferable, to use the conversational method. If I have a criticism of someone, I'm going to address it to them directly and charitably when I include it on this blog, and I'm going to be sure to send it to the party in question. That's real conversation, and that's real world-changing. I'm going to start writing a lot more e-mails and letters to people to solicit their participation in a conversation about their ideas.
Interestingly, when I took this approach and wrote that letter to ELCA, it turned out to be one of the best and most lucid things I have ever written on the subject of Church and State. I'm not saying that to brag on my writing, but to emphasize that trying to find agreement with someone challenges you. It makes you stretch and grow. I could have just blown Gary off and insisted that the article I posted was overall just fine. I could have given him a lukewarm agreement to end the conversation and then move on to the next post. Instead, I forced myself to accept that there might be a lot of truth to what he's saying and to act accordingly. Instead of closing matters, I took a challenge and grew and learned so much because of it.
I encourage you to above all things, seek out the truth, and second to this, to seek out agreement about the truth. I'm not saying seek consensus for its own sake, against the dictates of your own conscience and reasoning mind, but I am saying do not actively seek disagreement. You might feel like I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I really think this has been a defining moment for me and this blog. As Slaying Dragons gears up for a lot of good writing and conversation after a few months-long slump, it couldn't have come a moment too soon.
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