Nurturing the Peacemakers

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The Believing Game and How to Make Conflicting Opinions More Fruitful

Peter Elbow

[A chapter in Nurturing the Peacemakers in Our Students: A Guide to Teaching Peace, Empathy, and

Understanding. Chris Weber, editor. Heinemann, 2006. The present version contains a

few short

passages that had to be cut for space reasons in the published version.]

Don Quixote says he admires Sancho Panza because he

doubts everything and he believes everything.

In the chapter before this, Chris Weber suggests ways to help

students speak their minds, listen well, and engage in nonadversarial

dialogue rather than debate. His suggestions focus on outward behavior.

In this essay, I will move inward to the mysterious dimension of thinking

and feeling. I’ll start by asking you to imagine that you are looking at an

inkblot (for examples, ask Google Images for “inkblots”).

Imagine that you see something in it that interests and pleases you–

-but your colleagues or classmates don’t see what you see. In fact they

think you are crazy or disturbed for seeing it. What would you do if you

wanted to convince them that your interpretation makes sense?

If it were a matter of geometry, you could prove you are right (or

wrong!). But with inkblots, you don’t have logic’s leverage. Your only

hope is to get them to enter into your way of seeing—to have the

experience you are having. You need to get them to say the magic

words: “Oh now I see what you see.”

This means getting them to exercise the ability to see something

differently (i.e., seeing the same thing in multiple ways), and also the

willingness to risk doing so (not knowing where it will lead). In short, you

need them to be flexible both cognitively and emotionally. You can’t

make people enter into a new way of seeing, even if they are capable

of it. Perhaps your colleagues or classmates are bothered by what you

see in the inkblot. Perhaps they think it’s aberrant or psychotic. If you

want them to take the risk, your only option is to set a good example and

show that you are willing to see it the way they see it.

From Inkblots to Arguments

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Interpreting inkblots is highly subjective, but the process serves to

highlight how arguments also have a subjective dimension. Few

arguments are settled by logic. Should we invade countries that might

attack us? Should we torture prisoners who might know what we need to

know? Should we drop a nuclear bomb on a country that did attack us?

And by the way, what grade is fair for this paper or this student? Should

we use grades at all?

I’m not denying the force of logic. Logic can uncover a genuine

error in someone’s argument. But logic cannot uncover an error in

someone’s position. If we could have proven that Iraq had no weapons

of mass destruction, that wouldn’t have proven that it was wrong to

invade Iraq. “We should invade Iraq” is a claim that is impossible to prove

or disprove. We can use logic to strengthen arguments for or against the

claim, but we cannot prove or disprove it. Over and over we see illogical

arguments for good ideas and logical arguments for bad ideas. We can

never prove that an opinion or position is wrong—or right. No wonder

people so seldom change their minds when someone finds bad

reasoning in their argument. (By the same token—or at least a very

similar token—it is impossible to prove or disprove the interpretation of a

text. For more on this, see my longer essays on the believing game.)

This explains a lot about how most people deal with differences of

opinion:

• Some people love to argue and disagree, and they do it for fun in a friendly way. They enjoy the disagreement and the give-and-take and

they let criticisms and even attacks roll right off their backs. It’s good

intellectual sport for them.

• Some people look like they enjoy the sport of argument. They stay friendly and rational—they’re “cool”—because they’ve been trained

well. “Don’t let your feelings cloud your thinking.” But inside they feel

hurt when others attack ideas they care about. They hunker down into

their ideas behind hidden walls.

• Some people actually get mad, raise their voices, dig in, stop listening, and even call each other names. Perhaps they realize that language

and logic have no power to make their listeners change their minds—

so they give in to shouting or anger.

• And some people—seeing that nothing can be proven with words— just give up on argument. They retreat. “Let’s just not argue. You see it

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