If I were to ask you to start a conversation about politics or religion with three people you have just recently met how would you feel? Nervous, intimidated, fearful? I believe most of us would feel those emotions. Why is this the case? I find it quite sad. These are two extremely important subjects to us all. Is there a God and if there is, does he have a plan, and what is that plan? How should the government of the nation that I call home, and whose job it is to protect and preserve my way of life, behave in the face of the current challenges we face? There are fewer questions asked where the answers have greater impact on our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. However, we dare not bring them up.

The reason for this is because we allow ourselves to become too emotionally entrenched in our position. Feeling the need to defend it to the death. To question the idea is to question the value ourselves. We often feel like someone questioning our position is equivalent to them questioning our intelligence. We ascribe to ourselves only the purest of motives while giving no thought or little credit to the motives of the other person. We believe we have what is best in mind while the other person has some sinister motive or is shockingly naive. These attitudes are reinforced by name-calling and ad hominem attacks which does nothing but shut down dialog and end debate. All of this is expected, from children.

Most of us are not children, and we should stop acting like it. We have to be able to discuss these subjects if we expect to continue to evolve our thinking, expand our minds, gain intelligence, and extract wisdom. This child-like level of dialog has become an epidemic on the internet and on television. Today people are shouting at one another, attributing ill motives, mischaracterizing the others arguments, and showing a chronic unwillingness to admit error. A wise man once said, “when you open your mouth you can only learn what you already know.”

Recently when discussing a speech given by Dick Cheney many people via internet left comments like, ‘he’s an idiot’, ‘liar!’, ‘what an ass’, etc. Regardless if these statements are true or not, it does nothing to advance the dialog that matters which is related to the arguments and ideas he is presenting. Recently in response to materials created by Michael Moore people left comments like, ‘fat slob’, ‘liberal fascist’, etc. Again, this gets us nowhere. It only identifies the culprit as childlike and unserious.

As adults we should be able to keep our emotions in check because we want to understand better than we currently do and become wiser in our actions. When hearing an idea or position the first question that should come to mind is, “Is it true?” It doesn’t matter much if the source is a homeless vagrant or a Pulitzer prize winner. If it is true then we need to address it as such. It deserves our attention. By avoiding it or dismissing it we have only robbed ourselves of the opportunity to understand with greater clarity and increase in wisdom through meaningful dialog.

Remember these rules when approaching conversations:

1. Approach the conversation with a desire to uncover the truth and determine the wisest conclusions. If you are unwilling to do this, but rather seek to overpower your opponent then wisdom will never be your companion.
2. Listen and ensure that you hear and understand the arguments. If you are not going to listen to them you might as well just write them a letter. If you are going to argue with a position that they don’t actually hold you are just identifying yourself as someone that has a poor capacity for understanding.
3. Clarify what outcome the other has in mind before deciding to respond. If both desire similar outcomes but have different strategies to obtain it, then there is a discussion worth having. If however, the desired outcomes are completely different then the subject of your debate will be focused differently.
4. Before responding, seek to understand why they have come to the conclusion they have. Often it is in their reasoning that contains the flaw and debating the conclusion rather than the assumptions is like trying to keep water out of the boat without fixing the leak.
5. Once you have their position well in hand, ask the question: Is it true? This could be in response to the entire position or certain parts. You may disagree with their overall conclusion but find deeper understanding by identifying truth they may have. Accepting the truths of their position increases your ability to debate their conclusions if necessary.
6. When responding stay clearly focused on the issue. Do not allow yourself to resort to personal attacks. This only destroys common ground, kills trust, and abandons logic and reason in favor of petty emotions. This will remove any credibility you may have gained, and it also demonstrates that you are lacking in the power of self-control.

If we can do these things, we have the ability to find real solutions to the real problems of our day. Without this we are no better than the children in the playground yelling back and forth, “yes, you are!”, “no I’m not!”, “yes, you are!’ and the conclusions we make will only be worthy of our childishness.