Monday, November 26, 2012

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.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

On Lying to Children

We teach children not to lie. We teach them that lying is an act of cowardice and an affront to the dignity and respect that others deserve, so of course we feel comfortable lying to children. We actually seem to enjoy holding the truth over them, just out of reach. We invest energy and years into feeding their delusions only because they are willing to accept what is being told to them. This is their nature, as is human nature when sources beyond our direct involvement or understanding (the media, government, laws...etc.) dictate how we are to think. But how much more human potential could be unlocked if we valued the truth as much as we value maintaining a child's delusions?

The child molester lies to his victim to gain access to their trust, but just imagine what that child would do in that situation if the child molester had told the kid the truth upfront. Image if what society told our trusting children was the truth also, and what kind of change that next generation could bring about in the world as a result of knowing the truth. If the truth could save a child from trusting a child molester, then truth could save a child from trusting our kindly police, teachers, parents, and society in general as immediately. Imagine for a second how many children would be saved. Imagine how many could be saved from committing the hypocrisies of adulthood if they were told as children to loathe corporate and political hypocrites as much as they are told to fear "strangers." 

The next time someone respects a child's dignity, it will be because they will be telling them the truth. And while it's true that "the truth hurts," how much pleasure do lies, sarcasm, and delusions bring? How much disillusionment and disengagement could be spared in our young adults if as children they were reared from the start to know how the world is and what it will take to change it? Imagine how many children could be saved from learning the lies of our fast-money, sex-obsessed, violent, materialist, culture of selfishness and sin from all those back-window sources, if we as adults could be there at the front door to greet them with the truth when they asked for it? How many could be spared the draconian sentences of the law for naively exposing themselves to each other if they could be told upfront how the law does more to punish them than it does to protect them? 

Empowerment is the enemy of ignorance, and it is given with the truth. It does no child any good to have the truths of life withheld from them, even the most unfriendly truths. For instance, everyone says "death is a part of life," but no one wants to accept that a child of theirs is ever going to die. People either deny to themselves the fact that children are living entities capable of death, or they deny to themselves and to their children the fact that living things have to die, in order to keep their emotions on the issue intact. They have to lie to themselves to justify stripping the humanity away from a child in the process of protecting that child's delusions. Delusions that keep the child a corporate slave, for instance, do little to nothing to empower them, no matter how much "girl power" or "guns and ammo" you get them drunk on, but the truth will always set them free. 

Every lie to a child is also a lie to the one perpetuating the lie. The one confusing the maintenance of ignorance for the "safeguarding of innocence" is lying to herself. The liar is only safeguarding themselves from their own anxiety. The liar is only safeguarding their authority and control over a child's will born out of their fear of the world. Conversely, the one telling the truth to the child is the only one doing everything the liar has convinced herself she is doing. The one telling the truth is actually the one doing the protecting, respecting, and sparing of the child from grief. If a child is capable of asking a question, they are capable of hearing the truth as assuredly as they are capable of hearing a lie. The air does not discriminate one from another.