When did disagreement become so personal?

These last few weeks, I keep encountering situations where it feels like disagreements quickly turn into personal attacks, whether they were meant to be or not. And that’s troubling to me. To help set the stage, let me offer a few situations just to illustrate what I’ve been seeing:

1. I saw two friends – we’ll call them Bob and Greg – rapidly escalate what had been a polite conversation but it escalated quickly and negatively. It’s a more complicated tale but the part I witnessed went south for, in my opinion, not a very good reason. Everything was fine when Greg apparently made a comment that Bob took offense to and ultimately got angry about. When Bob went after Greg later in the day, Greg seemed surprised and maybe even a little hurt, but then he got angry right back at Bob. They resolved nothing and eventually stormed off in opposite directions. Now, as far as I can tell, the animosity is still hovering between these two (former?) friends.
   
2. While this is a general observation, we’ve had several Pro-/Anti- debates arise in society in recent months and they tend to follow a reverse bell-curve… meaning that folks seem to gravitate to one extreme or the other. Ironically, I personally don’t think that’s reality but, for a variety of reasons, it’s how these debates get presented and it creates a sense of a chasm between “us” and “them” that keeps getting reinforced.
   
3. Finally, I shared in a recent post a rare bump in the road with my own spouse where we went to that “very cold place” that relationships sometimes visit. Thankfully, we’ve been together long enough that, after a little bit, we were able to talk it out and were ultimately fine but I realized that I had been the one to take a comment poorly and saw it as a personal attack which started the fight.

So what the heck’s happening?

I’ll admit, this is probably a better topic for a psychology thesis and not a humble blog post but it’s been weighing on my mind of late and I decided to write about it. More specifically, I’ll offer my thoughts and theories to serve as a starting point for your own ruminations as to what is going on and what we can do about it.

1. Conflict is just more interesting
   Let’s be blunt. Drama is just more interesting than being normal. It’s the reason we go to movies or read books or tell stories. I think we all crave drama to some degree and it can add spice to our daily lives. Conflict is out of the ordinary for most of us and it can captivate as a result. That’s not to say that normal is bad or should be avoided; it’s just that conflict is usually more vivid. So for those who seek attention (or viewers or likes), having a degree of conflict present can attract those eyeballs.
   
2. The need for content
   Going hand-in-glove with the above is the ever-growing need for content. We have so many channels readily available to us today and it is someone’s job to find compelling content to fill that available space. Despite that fact, there’s only so much newsworthy stuff that exists at any given moment, so one option is to manufacture our own content in the form of opinion or perspective pieces. And to have an opinion, you need to take a stance which often requires being a bit off-center, and perhaps even far off center (looking at you MSNBC and FoxNews). Mind you, I’m not condemning people for having strong opinions but if it’s being done simply for the sake of generating content and doesn’t reflect a true belief, there’s a level of disingenuousness that I find myself actively trying to avoid (more on that later).
   
3. The need to be correct
   I’ll own up to this one. I like being right or, perhaps more accurately, not being wrong. I find that I don’t need affirmation from others telling me I’ve done good, but I was raised with the belief that I should avoid making mistakes as often as possible, even though I realize that failure can be our best teachers. And if that feeling is shared by a majority of us, then it’s not hard to see why sometimes we hold on to our beliefs so strongly out of fear of being proven wrong. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a trend in the last few years – though it’s been around a lot longer – where people simply ignore or override any evidence that proves them wrong. This is something I continue to work on in myself and I see it in practice whenever I turn on a talking head or listen to some vocal pundit, and it’s a worrisome trend.
   
4. Steady reinforcement
   Because of all the above – the need to be entertained, to be correct, and to fill time – I believe we end up creating spaces where the brand is well-established and constantly reinforced. Go to a local sports bar and chances are you’ll see a lot of fans of the home team who share similar opinions. Granted, there may be arguments about the latest game or a player’s or coach’s performance, but it’s usually a brief argument and then things settle back down to a familiar perspective. But by having this steady diet of familiar themes and thoughts, we are likely strengthening and reinforcing our beliefs and not challenging them. And this, I fear, makes it harder for us to really consider other perspectives.

There is a final part of the equation that I think we need to touch on – what we can do about this. This assumes, of course, that you agree that the above is not an ideal situation for us and that it should change. And, if you do, then there’s steps we can take to start the process in our own lives and perhaps light the path for others.

• Intentionally choose different sources of information. Don’t always turn to the same channels or feeds. Look for different takes for your news and information. Perhaps consider visiting aggregation sites, though be sure to turn off suggestions so they don’t eventually tailor themselves to reflect your innate information bias. The goal here is to actively seek out perspectives that are different than what you hold coming in so you can think critically from a different point of view
  
• Practice polite debating. Find a friend or colleague who has that different view than yours and engage in a thoughtful, respectful discussion about something you each have a strong opinion on. And really strive to understand – though not necessarily agree – with their perspective. For added fun, try switching roles and arguing in favor of the position you do not hold just to better understand the thought processes of the other person or side
  
• Disengage. Frankly, this is one of my favorite techniques because it forces me to “break the habit” and focus on other areas of my life. Taking a walk, exercising, playing a game, or just doing something that doesn’t draw me into that information spiral provides a healthy break and needed distraction and perspective. I’m not talking becoming a hermit, but intentionally look for the internal warning signs – feeling angry or agitated, doom scrolling, or anything that’s borderline compulsive – and make yourself stop and do something totally different until you can regain your perspective

Unfortunately, I think doing this requires a level of maturity that I don’t know if we’ve yet attained as a society. Still, I hope that we continue to strive for it as I think we can get there. It’s also important to point out that nothing I’ve written about here implies we should not have disagreements and or healthy dialogues. We never want to force people to think alike.

Bottom line, we absolutely need dissenting voices to continue so we can be challenged and continue growing. But my hope is that we reach a stage where such discourse can happen in a respectful and thoughtful way and not force us to look at each other as idiots or enemies.

Know that I’m pulling for you.