Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement

by Buster Benson

THE VOICE OF REASON “Why?” “Show me the evidence.” “Prove it.” “That doesn’t add up.” “What’s fair is fair.” “I didn’t make the rules.” “That’s not how it’s done.” The voice of reason is all about using, well, reasons to shut down a debate. A reason could be as simple as the threat of force but is usually attributed to some higher authority than just raw strength: the greater good, common sense, tradition or convention, etc. The voice of reason is an upgrade over the voice of power because it can win without a fight—though it’s not guaranteed to work on someone who’s deploying the voice of power.

The voice of reason is built on top of the voice of power, as an enhancement more than anything else. Once it is established in a position of power, the voice of reason can then establish a higher authority (for example, a religious or legal system) to maintain that power without having to pay the more expensive costs of constant battling that the voice of power must do. The higher authority of reason does two things at once: it keeps the group together, because the group is what protects it from outside threats, and it resolves disputes internally in a way that doesn’t harm the group.

THE VOICE OF AVOIDANCE “The only winning move is not to play.” “I would prefer not to.” “Leave me out of it.” When I share my fascination with arguments and disagreement with people, one of the most common responses I get is that they prefer to avoid arguments whenever possible. If you relate, you are not alone. In fact, you are likely a member of a quiet majority—often also known as the way of the conflict avoider. That term may have positive or negative connotations for you, but for now, let’s talk about it as a neutral description of a quiet but effective strategy that we all employ to a certain extent. Conflict avoiders have identified flaws in the voices of power and reason and so have chosen to address conflicts by simply refusing to participate in them in the first place. “Let others fight if they want to, but as for me, no thanks!” You see someone being unprofessional at work but don’t say anything. You dislike the way your partner folds the towels but don’t say anything. Your racist relative speaks up at the holiday dinner, but rather than shut him up or attempt to reason with him, you pretend you didn’t hear it. You don’t like either politician running, so you don’t vote. When all the choices seem flawed, the voice of avoidance can speak loudly—telling you that you can stay quiet. And in cases where all the options seem equally bad, this may seem like the only sane choice to make.

The voice of avoidance is a learned voice.

What separates this voice from the voices of power and reason is its ability to hide—there are no outwardly expressed rules around avoidance or consequences for breaking those rules. There aren’t any Fortune 500 companies that paint conflict avoidance on their walls as a core value or hold yearly conflict-avoidance conferences and workshops. And yet, according to Margaret Heffernan, author of Willful Blindness, when you ask employees, “Are there issues at work that people are afraid to raise?” over 85 percent of them will say yes. The choice to avoid conflict doesn’t come without consequences, even for the people doing the avoiding.

THE FOURTH VOICE Our three default voices (of power, reason, and avoidance) were all inherited from our culture. They can all partially succeed at resolving conflicts in the moment. But as is true of yanking weeds out by the stem, their solutions are only temporary. Each voice creates shadowy side effects that stick around and eventually come back to reverse some or all of the progress initially made. The voice of power creates resentment and polarization because it restricts options from being considered. The exiled options don’t disappear permanently; they lurk out of site and will return perhaps even stronger when the opportunity presents itself.

The voice of reason takes shortcuts in the name of practicality and efficiency, and it tends to accept that high-cost, low-impact problems can be deprioritized. In the world of business, this flaw is easiest to represent as a cut line: everything above the line gets funded, with people and a budget, to be worked on, and everything below the line gets deferred to next quarter’s planning process. On the individual level, it’s encapsulated in the simple advice I hear all the time to focus on maximizing your strengths rather than working on your weaknesses. In a constrained and highly competitive environment, these are entirely reasonable plans! And yet that doesn’t stop the low-priority problems and unaddressed weaknesses from piling up, merging, growing new limbs, and returning all the stronger.

These three strategies have driven human decision making for several millennia now, and the side effects and low-priority problems have had a long time to pile up and become even more difficult to address. In addition, our world seems to be getting into more and more trouble every day. The climate is changing, technology is fragmenting and selling our attention bit by bit, jobs are paying less even as mortgages, tuition, and health care costs climb and climb. Our physical and online spaces seem to be getting less polite, more anxious, and angrier by the day. On top of it all, we’ve lost the ability to enjoy a raucous debate about important issues with people who have different opinions, experiences, and value systems than our own.

THE VOICE OF POSSIBILITY “What are we missing?” “What else is possible?” “What else can we do with what we have?” “Who else can we bring into the conversation to give us a new perspective?” The fourth voice, the voice of possibility, represents a way to approach conflict that diverges from the first three. The way we argue is no longer working for us, and we need new conversational and mental habits to prepare us for today’s conversational climate. The first three voices attempt to resolve conflict, because conflict is seen as a problem. The voice of possibility seeks to make conflict productive, in the same way that a skilled gardener realizes that weeds are merely unloved flowers, and sometimes those unloved flowers produce sweet, sweet berries that can make delicious pies.

What is true? Racism is a multilayered system embedded in our culture. All of us are socialized into the system of racism. Racism cannot be avoided. Given my socialization, it is much more likely that I am the one who doesn’t understand the issue. What is meaningful? Racism is complex, and I don’t have to understand every nuance of the feedback to validate that feedback. Authentic antiracism is rarely comfortable. Discomfort is key to my growth, and desirable. I bring my group’s history with me; history matters. What is useful? Bias is implicit and unconscious; I don’t expect to be aware of mine without a lot of ongoing effort. Feedback on racism is difficult to give; how I am given the feedback is not as relevant as the feedback itself. The antidote to guilt is action. Nothing exempts me from the forces of racism. Racism hurts (even kills) people of color 24-7. Interrupting it is more important than my feelings, ego, or self-image.

How can we approach knowledge of our own permanently biased, racist, sexist, xenophobic, other-phobic natures that sprout from our location and orientation to the universe’s three conundrums and not go crazy? Hint: it’s not by thinking we can rid ourselves of bias.

Develop honest bias If you take nothing else away from this chapter, take these four steps on the path toward developing honest bias. STEP 1: Opt-in. Developing honest bias requires us first and foremost to wake up to our own blindness and to stop trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. Only you can decide if you’re up for the challenge of taking it on. Step 2: Observe (beginner level). Take steps to reduce the amount of time and energy you spend trying to hide or ignore your biases and blind spots. For example, read up on information in this chapter to get familiar with the variety of biases. Notice when your defenses are triggered and check whether (a) you’re really in danger right now, or (b) there’s an opportunity to learn from a new perspective (even in a small way). Step 3: Repair (intermediate level). Take steps to reduce the time and energy it takes for you to identify and begin to repair inadvertent damage caused by your biases and blind spots. For example, when you notice a blind spot, look into it and identify people and ideas that may have been undervalued or harmed by you and others. Look for ways to reverse that trend and repair damage. STEP 4: Normalize (advanced level). Take steps to reduce the time and energy others have to spend challenging your blind spots and recruiting you to address the damage that you’ve contributed to. For example, actively seek out information and perspectives that challenge your own. Invite the best representatives of positions you do...

Steps 2 through 4 are essentially working toward the same goal of reducing harm caused by our biases, but the beginner level is reactive to incoming information and the intermediate and advanced levels become increasingly proactive about seeking it out. For step 1, which is all about accepting that bias exists and opting into addressing this fact, here’s a contract with yourself for accepting your bias that you can adopt or modify to fit your own preferred aesthetic. It’s a modified version of a contract in white fragility that has been expanded to encompass all forms of bias. Mull over these statements and feel free to rephrase them in your own words.

I will try to accept my bias, which means I’m willing to: Acknowledge my limitations and unique perspective. Invite diverse perspectives to the table. Listen generously when others point out my blind spots. Be willing to accept the discomfort that this inevitably brings as a welcome gift. In some ways that I can see, and other ways that I can’t, I will always be forced to take some strategic shortcuts that systemically neglect certain kinds of information because of constraints of attention, meaning, time, resources, and memory. Nobody can escape bias, including me. Without these strategies, I would become paralyzed by uncertainty. The strategies that I have to use also systemically neglect certain kinds of information that will disadvantage and harm certain people in a way that I will not be aware of without a lot of work. Efforts to avoid bias are primarily about seeking comfort, which results in maintaining the status quo. I must not confuse comfort for growth. Honest bias is rarely comfortable; discomfort is key to my growth, and desirable. My biases are reinforced by my surroundings. This includes the communities around me, the products and services that I use in order to s...

Paul Saffo, a forecasting expert and professor at Stanford University, wrote a popular essay titled “Strong Opinions Weakly Held.” The title has become a bit of a mantra for many people in the tech sector because it offers a slightly unintuitive but practical way to keep one foot in action and one foot in acceptance of imperfect thinking. Allow your intuition to guide you to a conclusion, no matter how imperfect—this is the “strong opinion” part. Then—and this is the “weakly held” part—prove yourself wrong. Engage in creative doubt. Look for information that doesn’t fit, or indicators that are pointing in an entirely different direction. Eventually your intuition will kick in and a new hypothesis will emerge out of the rubble, ready to be ruthlessly torn apart once again. You will be surprised by how quickly the sequence of faulty forecasts will deliver you to a useful result.

It’s not that different from Muhammad Ali’s famous advice to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Floating like a butterfly means we should be willing to change our minds easily and often, always looking for the positions that are a better fit for the situation. Stinging like a bee means that we still need to lean on those positions heavily and make decisions and take decisive action based on them. We have to do this and invite feedback about our blind spots and be willing to see them without getting defensive and correct them in whatever way we can.

Developing honest bias will eliminate an entire category of unproductive disagreement from our lives that comes about when we think what we’re seeing is an unfiltered view of reality. When your beliefs are challenged by family members, spouses, coworkers, or friends, instead of leaping immediately to the conclusion that they’re wrong, you can instead ask yourself if you might be missing something that they can see but you can’t. 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. It will change which kinds of dissonance spark anxiety across the board and will create space for the voice of possibility to be heard more frequently and clearly.

FOURTH THING TO TRY Speak for yourself 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.)