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Two Reasons to Be Very Tolerant of Each Other
We have differing experiences and draw differing conclusions from those differing experiences. That doesn't
make us bad people; it just means that we have differing perspectives. Because we have differing perspectives,
we have differing expectations and differing senses of what is appropriate, acceptable, reasonable, and right--and of
what is inappropriate, unacceptable, unreasonable, and wrong. One of our tasks in conversation is to
get across not just what we are saying but the perspective from which we are saying it. If we could get across
to another person why we were saying what we were saying--if we could communicate the wealth of
experiences and thought processes leading us to expect what we do--i.e., if we could succeed in conveying
our reasons, so that our conversant understood--then the other person would be likely to be able to "put himself
in our shoes," so to speak. Often, though, we're not even going to know ourselves which experiences are leading
us to have which expectations, and we are limited to making statements from the perspectives that we already see
things from--and clashing with those who have differing expectations resulting from differing experiences. We
should try to realize, even while clashing, that the other person probably isn't simply being arbitrary or capricious, but
is responding to his experiences.
We also often have a lot in mind, but only a little gets said--a person has two or three true responses he could give to
a question, and he chooses one, and as a result the ensuing conversation goes this way when it could easily
have gone that way. Maybe this way leads to a fight--maybe the choice of which true thing to say makes
one's conversant wonder, "How can anybody think this way?" Maybe it leads one's conversant to think, "I just don't
know this person." But maybe the choice of a different true thing to say would have led to a completely different
conversation; maybe it would have led one's conversant to think, "Ah, we agree completely; I understand this person."
I doubt that the truth is always complete agreement or complete disagreement--I doubt that the truth is always
complete similarity or complete difference. I suspect that we very often partly agree and partly
disagree, or agree in certain respects but disagree in others. And I further suspect that the extent to which we
disagree often gets covered up when we seem to agree, and that the extent to which we agree is often concealed
when we disagree. I suspect that we almost always partially agree and partially disagree--and that that's OK; it's part
of being different human beings, with different histories--and that if we're to get along well with others, we just have
to accept that and be tolerant of others, perhaps especially of those near and dear to us, perhaps especially while
disagreeing. The main thing, I think, is to be of goodwill, knowing that the other guy is doing his best to cope with
life and living, too.
(© 2007 by Keith Brian Johnson)
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