How to Disagree without Fighting

BY SOFO ARCHON

This is the transcript of a video published here.

Do you often find yourself fighting with others over something you disagree with?

I used to do that, but over the years I have come upon some realizations that helped me to express my disagreements without engaging in fighting. One of those realizations – perhaps the most important one – is that I started to see my opinions and beliefs as not being an essential part of who I am.

You see, most people tend to identify with certain beliefs or opinions. In fact, they become so attached to them that they see them as an extension of themselves. Hence, whenever someone disagrees with those beliefs and opinions, they experience that disagreement as a threat to themselves. Naturally, they become defensive in order to protect themselves from criticism, and to reassure themselves that they are in the right.

Here’s a simple example to illustrate what I mean. Let’s say you believe that God created the world just a few thousands of years ago – a belief held by many Christians, particularly Catholics. But then someone shows you evidence that the world has actually been here for billions of years. Now, because of your attachment to your religious ideology, you might not even want to look at the evidence presented, and instead get angry at the other person, and perhaps shout at them that they are going to burn in hell for suggesting that the Catholic dogma is incorrect. You might tell them that they are wrong because they can’t know better than God, and that you are right because you only believe in what God says.

This is where fighting — in verbal, and generally, all forms of communication – comes from: From the desire to prove ourselves right and the fear of being proven wrong.

When I started to detach myself from my beliefs and opinions, I stopped feeling the need to prove myself right or to prove others wrong. On the contrary, I started to welcome disagreement. I’m now happy when someone proves me “wrong”, because I know that being proven wrong is actually to my benefit: for it allows me to better understand myself and the world around me. I had a wrong belief about something, so what’s bad about that? Proving our beliefs wrong is part of our journey to becoming more intelligent and mature. It’s a healthy and necessary part of personal growth. Hence, it’s important to question our beliefs, and allow others to question them as well.

Like yourself and everyone else, I don’t know everything, and that’s totally fine. In fact, I know very little, and I am aware that my beliefs and opinions are possibly wrong. As a result, I don’t feel the urge to fight anymore. Do I still disagree with others? I sure do, and quite a lot actually, but not as a means of fighting – I disagree to communicate my thoughts, to better connect with others, and to improve my relationships as a result of that.

Relationships tend to become stronger and healthier through disagreement, if disagreement is used with positive intent. If not, disagreement does the exact opposite: It hurts relationships, it distances people from each other and creates a state of interpersonal war. So we need to be careful, when we disagree, to do it in a wise manner.