Agreement is an immensely tempting way to connect. When someone agrees or shares our mindset, especially in the face of a different perspective, it is very a satisfying feeling. To hear someone express our own perspective confirms something in our identity. We claim, ‘yes, you are so right’, but the more gratifying sensation is that I am right, and you confirmed it. It gives a sense of belonging, that sense we have craved since childhood, that we are not alone, we have a community of people who share our belief systems.
In our current times, however, this agreement has become so tempting that it has led to increasing polarization. It appears to be one of the main ways that we find connection and build community. Rather than community being a group of people with whom you share a variety of life experiences, these communities have become grounded in their agreement. It becomes increasingly difficult to express disagreement in these circles. For example, I grew up in a Jewish community in the US, and I can now see all the different ways that this community has split up – those that support Israel, those that criticize Israel, those that distance themselves altogether from Israeli politics, etc. These used to be more entangled (and therefore probably more frustrating for many), but now people have found their homes in communities that better support their ideologies.
This is not necessarily a bad thing and is part of a growth process for people to find their space of belonging. But I would like to offer a limitation of this belonging and perhaps an avenue for a different type of growth, and that is connecting through disagreement. I explored this in my PhD as one of the results of lingering in dissonance, through a student that was able to reflect on how angry she got when a fellow student disagreed with her. She wrote in her reflection journal of trying to ‘win her over with clever arguments’, which was her way of trying to reduce the dissonance between the two perspectives. Dissonance means that there is a cognitive inconsistency that irritates the mind, that your own perspective is challenged by disagreement and you try to reduce that discomfort, in this case, by trying to convince the other person to come to your side. All of us who are addicted to social media know that this never works. The disagreement becomes stronger and stronger, and each person is actually confirming their belief with every agreement emoticon they get.
What this student, let’s call her Francesca, did is start to reflect on her dissonance reduction strategy – why am I so angry that she disagrees with me? What does that do in my system? Francesca observed that trying to convince her and ‘win’ was very frustrating. When she became aware of this and dropped the need to win, she could start to hear where the other student was coming from. This did not mean she then agreed with her, but she could hear her and therefore connect with her. It was actually possible to connect through the disagreement.
I describe this process here very briefly, but it takes a lot to do this type of reflection. A lot of what? time? safe space? courage? guidance? From all my years of practice and research, I do not know why some people can do this type of self-reflection and others cannot or choose not. But I have seen it to be possible in many people. Instead of continuing to argue, they turn inwards. The disagreement forces them to find a different way to connect, they use it as a creative force. They put the effort in because they know that there is something stronger that can connect people beyond their opinions and belief systems. This is the beauty of family, in fact, as we are often placed in a family with a diversity of beliefs and personalities. If agreement was the only way to connect, many families would be torn apart. Because of the great force of love, we can find ways to connect that go beyond these differences. And this love can apply more generally to humanity.
Imagine if connection was not only driven by agreement, how free would you feel to just express yourself? That you wouldn’t have to worry about losing your connection to people, that your perspective would be completely accepted? I am not just talking about ‘agreeing to disagree’, because I see that as another dissonance reduction strategy. I have often seen the ‘agree to disagree’ mantra used when people do not want to feel the frustration of the disagreement. They do not want to experience the dissonance, because it creates an unresolvable conflict. ‘Let’s agree to disagree’ means let’s not get into it. Instead of a greater sense of connection, it’s rather a keeping of the status quo. I know that in some cases, opinions are so charged that this is the only way for a certain relationship to survive. But it does nothing to deepen a connection.
If we stopped seeing agreement as the only way to connect, or rather faced our own fears of losing connection, we would be much more free to express ourselves. We would not have to worry about belonging or being left alone, and our perspective could be free to ebb and flow. We wouldn’t be bound by one ideology but could fluctuate and cross borders to taste different beliefs. This is a gateway into empathy, that we could understand and empathize with the life of another, without necessarily agreeing. Accepting, but not agreeing, is a powerful distinction. From there, we could find more creative solutions when disagreements turn into conflicts and war.
What if we could be resourceful enough to use every disagreement as a trigger towards greater connection? This does not mean that we have to go hug our enemy, but we use the other’s stance to observe what feelings come up in our own bodies. What is being threatened? What does the dissonance feel like? If there is one available resource these days, perhaps even unlimited, it is disagreement. So let’s exploit it – it’s free and widely available.