Facebook can be a petri dish of unhealthy communication. Some people don’t have the same boundaries online they have in person. We do want to hear about your 20th wedding anniversary. We don’t want details which make us think, “get a room.” We do want to hear about your child’s next milestone. We don’t want a sequel to The Truman Show.
Recently I posted an article on FB that generated some attention. I found myself wanting to share these four simple rules:
Go for the win-win.
It’s a sad state of affairs having to tip-toe around every tulip, worried your opinions will offend. These days, people so identify with their opinions that every disagreement is potentially offensive. Not helpful. If we’re going to have so many private issues foisted upon the public square, then it’s going to be even more important to disagree without being disagreeable. If you shame someone with your moral high ground, you didn’t win. If your point, however artfully made, is intended to show yourself the smartest person in the room, then you didn’t win. To win someone over, you must go for the win-win.
“It’s the ________, stupid.”
The uncivil discourse of our present age needs a spanking, not just a few people setting a better example. I’m no fan of James Carville, but in four words he brought clarity to a divided room during Bill Clinton’s first campaign. “It’s the economy stupid.” The current polarized climate needs similar clarity. It’s the narrative….
Ever wonder how two people can look at the same facts and reach different conclusions? Why can one person look at millions of rods and cones in the human eye seeing marks of natural selection while someone else sees evidence of design? We may think an adversary’s assertion dishonest or even a little crazy. Your basic story of life’s meaning influences how you see. None of us looks at the world without some narrative filter, whether scientist or poet (1 Cor. 13:13). This one fact might keep you from blowing a gasket in your next disagreement.
No Debaters’ Tactics.
On the other hand, sometimes people are casuistic. That means their rhetoric is clever but does not deal fairly with other perspectives, and they avoid any burden of proof. Think “debaters tactics.” They are in a foxhole over an issue and are not interested in what you have to say. Their approach is to win at any cost because their loyalty is to their cause, not to a broader framework of truth.
Create teachable moments.
As in any form of communication, if you demonstrate your own willingness to listen, you may win a fair hearing yourself. Francis of Assisi said said it plainly: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” It never ceases to amaze me how this one small gesture during a potentially explosive interchange can bring peace and even make someone willing to hear your point of view.
What do you think? Is civil discourse still possible?
I agree with this type of discourse. But personally with the vehement and hatefull ridiculing I see from posts against conservative Christian values, it remains to be seen by me…anyone who will intellectually debate.
The scientific questions raised by the last post were interesting. It is always good to have science on one’s side. Ultimately, however, the questions about gender that we are facing are, for the Christian, moral. The church has always struggled with the goodness of the human body. Since the first century, heresies have arisen around the question of the goodness of the flesh. Even if people are born with a male body and a female mind, or vice versa, we need to ask ourselves whether it is moral to reject the body God has given us.
Our acceptance of cosmetic surgery might be coming back to bite us here–granted that changing one’s sex is more extreme than trying to enhance one’s appearance. I want to say that the sex one is given at birth is part of one’s identity given by God. And if I’m a man, whatever I feel is what a man feels. Christians need to stop trying to define “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” and start accepting people for who they are. We also need to reject our culture’s definitions of what makes a man or woman and what makes a beautiful man or woman. I think that would go some way toward helping people reject the temptation to make what we are a matter of our choice.
I wrote an article about this in the campus newspaper and posted it on Facebook, and I was accused of giving a person’s physical identity priority over their mental identity in this regard, and my response was to say, “Yes. Precisely.” What I am physically is who I am just as authoritatively as what I am mentally. A person is not a soul stuck in a body. I don’t just have a body; I am a body.
Stephen Covey goes 2 for 4, with think win:win and seek first to understand, then to be understood both being included in his 7 habits of highly effective people. Still a great book.
I agree that understanding other people’s narrative is critical. A feminist who believes that there is a global patriarchy that actively discriminates against women, a fundamentalist who believes that the world is only 60000 years old, or a conspiracy theorist who believes that the world is being run from behind the scenes by the Illuminati are all making assumptions that will color their arguments and their reactions to what you say.
While using debater’s tricks to confuse your opponents is bad, understanding them and how to combat them is useful. Ben Shapiro has a good video on Youtube describing the tactics he used when debating gun control advocates, for example.
Excellent perspective and sage advice. When you win an argument, what have you really won? You’ve most likely boosted your ego at the expense of embarrassing someone or creating an enemy, but when we listen first and then engage in healthy discussion, we earn respect, probably foster a friendship and possibly change an opinion (maybe even our own!). Thanks for your encouragement, Tim. we really miss you guys.
Great points, Cliff. When it comes to understanding ourselves as spiritual beings, unfortunately Plato continues to influence the modern age, separating body and soul.
It’s a striking contradiction how, in an age of authenticity, nothing is “vain.”
You speak real truth here. I do see a lot of stuff that is unworthy to me. so I don’t waste my time. I don’t feel it necessary to comment on what I don’t like. I do feel that because people believe social media sites are an open forum to speak their minds, they can say what they want any way they want. Proper decorum for speaking your mind is not a new thing. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Just because it is social media doesn’t mean you have to be rude and inconsiderate. I also agree that everyone has different lenses from which they see things. I agree that we should seek to understand to be understood. I also believe there are boundaries and they should be applied to social media.