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Politics, Art, Religion - part 3
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Articles In This Section:
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 1
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 2
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 3
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 4
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 5
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 6
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 7
· Politics, Art, Religion - part 8
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You must at all times avoid sarcasm and scorn. You will be unmistakably respectful toward everybody's viewpoint, no matter how wrongheaded it may seem. Being respectful does not mean compromising with the truth; it means wording your disagreement graciously. As someone said, "To disagree without being disagreeable is the highest art of conversation." If someone said, "If you want peace, prepare for war," and you reply, "That's old pagan nonsense," your wording will provoke resentment and heat. But if you say, "That statement has many great men to back it, but it is a pagan survival nonetheless," you are differing from the other respectfully. In some such way every disagreement ought to be introduced. One must not contradict people head on. A good conversationalist will look for some phase of his opponent's position with which he can agree before he will state his objection. He will point out any little plank of agreement in order to minimize the area of disagreement. In that way, the other will want to co-operate in decreasing the area still more.
It is well to make it a rule never to argue on a point until you can see some reason or validity in the other's case. There must be some. A person civilized enough to be in the same room with me, I reason, could not hold a position in which there is not some sense somewhere. I must try to find it — and hasten to acknowledge it.
Very many people make the mistake of thinking that they weaken their position if they make any concession to the opponent. It is the tragedy of war politicians that they think they have to keep talking as if the enemy were all wrong and they themselves all right. There ought to be an international law that in every wartime speech a politician must spend a quarter of his time stating the merits of the other side. To do so would be both justice and expediency. In conversation, a person will not evade concessions, he will yearn to make them. You will eagerly say when you can, "Yes, the way you present it, your idea seems to be workable." If you smile, you can even more effectively say, "With the greatest reluctance I grant you are right on that point."
The purpose of discussion is, not to win, but to get at the truth. When someone else seems to have hit even a little fraction of it, you should be happy to recognize it. To have the habit of doing so will make you welcome to any discussion and will tend to keep it on an agreeable plane. Others, seeing your willingness to recognize a point, will almost feel guilty if they do not recognize yours, too. If a person really has the better case, that is, the truth, he will gain acceptance for it more quickly if he concedes and so disposes of all the minor points in which the other is right. He thus achieves the good will for his case, without which anyone convinced against his will "is of the same opinion still."
No matter how much of a specialist or authority one may be on a question, one may not in conversation use a positive or dogmatic tone. No matter how positively right a specialist knows himself to be, his tone must suggest being open to argument, and being willing to revise, in the light of the opposing comments, if not his ideas, at least his method or evidence. If in his heart, he feels, not anger or disgust at man's stupidity and wrongheadedness, but sorrow for mankind's tragic condition of being able to see things only as "through a glass darkly," and therefore of being wrong much of the time, he will more easily retain a considerate manner. If you keep reminding yourself that being human, you no doubt are often wrong, too, you can be sympathetic without condescension. Such a considerate attitude will beget the like in others. It will make them wish they could agree with you.
Related terms include speak books and speaking french.
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