Agreeing to Disagree?

People tell me I fail to agree to disagree, and I tell them it's because I have principles--not to my own point of view, but to the truth, whatever it may be. I have too much respect for the truth to accept that I'm right when I could be wrong, or that others are right when they are wrong. Agreeing to disagree only creates an impasse in a social dialogue. It shuts down all communication, and ends all progress towards the truth. It is an excuse to leave the room when one's ego can not submit itself. But a line must be drawn between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong, on any social issue of disagreement, and if there is no one solution, progress towards one is all that is needed. Without progress, we are merely in perpetual disagreement.

Agreeing to disagree, as a solution, is motivated by the supposition that warfare and hatred are avoided only when parties agree that everyone is wrong, and right, as if coming away with a mutual misunderstanding of each other is the only preferable solution. It's an excuse to give up the quest for understanding when the terrain gets difficult, to give up at the precise moment that we really ought to be convinced if we are wrong or convincing the opposition if we are right. A stalemate is not a win for either side, it just means that both sides have delayed losing until another date. It is a prolonged lack of progress, because no one is right when everyone is right.

Only when someone is convinced of something can progress resume, otherwise, it's a perpetual stall. Disagreement is acceptable only because it is unavoidable, but we have to recognize that perpetual disagreement is a stalemate, and not a win. We can't accept perpetual disagreement as a solution in and of itself, or else we fall victim to apathy. If the fate of the world rested in the balance, an agreement to disagree about a problem or solution offers no solution and no progress towards one, and only gives us a good feeling about our lack of ability to admit where we are wrong. There are always things, even small things, we can agree on, and when we agree to disagree, we kill off our opportunity to agree on anything else but that.

Someone is always right, at least in part, and someone is always wrong, at least in part. There is no convincing me that we are "both right" when one of us is clearly wrong. Let history be our dialectic and rationality be our tool. If I am wrong, I will accept it, no matter how much it hurts, no matter what I have to give up, and you may go glory in yourself in your victory. You have my permission to do so, just as I would expect you to accept it where you are wrong, at least in part. This is preferable, because agreeing to disagree is more about maintaining ego than arriving at an approximation of the truth, whether one exists or not. Ego is an impediment to rationality, not an impetus of it. Ego is the impetus of ambition, and when tested by reason, the result is progress.