Just like you're making mine, and the article author's. Listening is a lot harder than contempt, but you might think about trying it some time all the same.
Jesus, read your comments in this thread again. Do you really think you're a champion of Listening? A guy made a rather cogent point about whether this protocol will actually help resolve issues or not (which the linked article doesn't make claims about one way or the other), and you responded with the soul of Contempt, reducing his argument to an implicit "eh, why bother".
edit: thanks for your response to 'zzalpha, helped me understand your position, and my response above seems a bit harsh in light of that. That said, I'll leave it up because the expository rant came afterward :P
No, your response was totally justified, and it in turn informed mine. I think I said that contempt is easier than compassion, and I guess I demonstrated that, too. It's not always easy to keep a level head and remember that cruelty is almost never a constructive response to cruelty, and sometimes I'm really bad at it. Next time I intend to do better, and I'm glad I managed not to fail entirely at getting my point across in spite of doing a poor job this time.
Who wasn't listening? Did anything in either of my comments imply I wasn't?
I read the author's post. I digested it. I provided my counterpoint.
Your initial response was essentially dismissal.
I prompted you to provide a more substantial response (admittedly rather sarcastic, though I hope it wasn't viewed as hostility... probably a bad decision, that), and you once again come back with a pithy response.
It's almost as though you feel I've offended you by providing my viewpoint, which I find odd since I haven't personally attacked anyone, certainly not you, whom I don't know from Adam.
"Offended" is the wrong word. "Pissed off" is closer. That probably seems not very fair to you, but you're far from the first person in a short space of time whom I've seen fail to recognize the fact that, while understanding the other person's perspective certainly isn't guaranteed to lead to compromise, it just as certainly is the only thing that can.
The really infuriating thing is how close to it you come, and again, I see this all the time. "The viewpoints are so polarized that no compromise is possible," you say. But that's not true. Having read and digested the article, you (have no excuse not to) understand where this individual woman's objection to abortion originates: in deep, lifelong personal pain. You talk about compassion, but only so you can dismiss it offhand on your way to a multi-paragraph denunciation of the way she and people like her are just so unreasonable. And it's amazing how the other guy is the only one who ever has that problem.
That's why I talk about contempt. I mean, in the example we're looking at here, there's every reason to imagine that a show of compassion, from someone who's able to put basic human integrity ahead of mere ideological disagreement, might help give this woman some perspective that'd make it possible for her to understand the issue of abortion from a point of view outside the one that she's used to, because it comes along with the pain that her condition has inflicted upon her. Even if it doesn't, easing another person's suffering is a bedrock tenet of almost any scheme of ethics or morals. But that doesn't even occur to you, because you're so caught up in the question of whether you can make someone else think like you that nothing else has a chance to get a look in.
Perhaps it's unjust of me to react to this kind of heartlessness with contempt. Perhaps it's even cruel. I know for damn sure it doesn't help anything or convince anyone. At the moment, I find the urge insuperable. I mean, how high-minded can you really imagine yourself to be if the only people for whom you are capable of empathy are those who already believe substantially what you do? Does that not at some level of your psyche stimulate a certain degree of unease? I'd really like to hope so.
You talk about compassion, but only so you can dismiss it offhand on your way to a multi-paragraph denunciation of the way she and people like her are just so unreasonable.
I denounced nothing.
I said her beliefs are her beliefs and that they are unlikely to be shaken purely because someone listened to her.
You read malice into a comment where none was present.
You read judgement into a comment where none was given.
You're failing, right now, at the very kind of compassionate listening you feel is so very important.
Even if it doesn't, easing another person's suffering is a bedrock tenet of almost any scheme of ethics or morals. But that doesn't even occur to you, because you're so caught up in the question of whether you can make someone else think like you that nothing else has a chance to get a look in.
How do you know that it didn't?
Once again, you're reading into my post values and motivations I never espoused, I presume based on past experiences with others who disagree with you.
In fact, in my other comments, I agree that, on an individual, one-on-one basis, this post contains immensely valuable moral and personal lessons.
My comment, rather, is about whether a small act like this might change how we debate and decide upon issues in the large (my claim is that it is idealistic but unlikely to have value in the large).
I apologize if my comment wasn't clear, that I was not disagreeing with the compassionate act of listening, but rather questioning it's value in improving the way we hold forth on discourse in broader society.
Hopefully I've made that clearer here.
Perhaps it's unjust of me to react to this kind of heartlessness with contempt.
And now you're making it personal.
I'd thank you for the discussion, but I'm not sure much of value has come out of this. It's a shame, but so be it.
