Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement

by Buster Benson

Similarly, when I bribe my son to clean his room with the promise of more screen time, will the virtues of cleanliness and personal responsibility grow in his heart, leading him to clean his room without prompting in the future? Nope. Will employees do better work if you force them to show up at a certain time and to work a certain number of hours?

The easiest thing you can do to have more productive disagreements immediately is to remember to ask the other person: “Is this about what’s true, what’s meaningful, or what’s useful?” Is this about the head, the heart, or the hands? If you can agree on the answer, then you’re on your way.

If you both settle on a question about what is true, you can ask: Is there a source of information we both trust that could give us the answer to this question? What qualifies as a trustworthy source? If you both settle on a question about what is meaningful, you can ask: Why is this important to us? What past experiences led to us having these preferences or values? If you both settle on a question about what is useful, you can ask: What would happen if we didn’t do anything? How confident are we in the outcome of these different proposed actions?

Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quotation “Speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far.”

For example, when we’re looking at something, we’re potentially dealing with direct evidence and are most likely to be thinking about “what is true”: the head realm. When we’re orienting that evidence within our own mental models, beliefs, and preferences, we’re thinking about “what is meaningful”: the heart realm. And when we’ve figured out what it all means and are ready to leap—to take action—we’re thinking about “what is useful”: the hands realm.

The antidote to guilt is action.

Instead of saying, “I know I’m right!” say, “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. Can you help me get there?” You don’t have enough information yet to know if what you think they are saying is what they’re actually saying. Instead of getting angry, get curious. Doing so will radically change your relationships to people, ideas, and the world by allowing new perspectives to reach you that would have otherwise been immediately dismissed.

Speaking for yourself means avoiding two common bad habits: speaking for other people, and speculating about the perspectives of groups of people. It’s harder to avoid these two habits than you might think. (See? I just spoke for you.) For example, if I say, “If you don’t vaccinate your kids, it means you prioritize your children over mine,” I’m speculating about what your behavior reveals about your internal thoughts. It’s possible that I’m speculating correctly, but you are a better authority on what your internal thoughts actually are. If I was trying to speak only for myself, I’d instead say, “I vaccinated my kids because I thought it was the best option for my children. What are your motivations for not vaccinating your children?” This leaves an invitation for you to reveal something about yourself that I’m not able to imagine on my own.

What does an answer to the question “Do you think ghosts are real?” reveal about the person answering it that can be used to ask a better follow-up question? What about the question “What experiences have led you to your current beliefs about ghosts?”

Here are a few questions that you can bring to almost any disagreement: What formative events in your life brought you to this belief? What’s really at stake here? What’s complicated about your position here that people don’t usually notice at first? If what you believe was proven conclusively true to its staunchest opponents, what would happen? What would have to be true for you to change your mind about this? What other possibilities might we be missing that would change how we each thought about this? Imagine a world where this is no longer a problem. How did we get there?

Sometimes a single question can pivot a conversation on its axis, shifting it from a head-to-head battle into an open-ended collaboration. I changed the game from “online debate” to “potluck at my house.” I changed the goal from “let’s debate ideas” to “let’s enjoy each other’s company while having a stimulating conversation.” I changed the conversational medium from “type into a comment text box” to “discuss over food and drink.” And I changed the question from “What do you believe?” to the biggest unanswered question in my own head: “What’s the endgame for the gun-control debate?”