6 minute read
The Lost Art of Disagreement
from Oct 2022
By Ishan Singhal
At some point or another, we have all wished that school taught us some life skills that we lack in the real world—paying taxes, how to manage and invest money, or how to replace/repair everyday things. I am sure you would have felt this way or heard someone else saying this at least once. “I wish school had taught me this.”
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One life skill that school did not teach us that I wonder about is how to look at disagreements or even how to disagree. I know this seems trivial right now, but in this article, I’ll try to make you think about the lost art of disagreeing. What happens when we don’t have these skills? Is there a way to learn them? And from where?
Think back to a disagreement you had in school. Maybe someone sat on your favourite bench in class and refused to get up. What did you do? Rather, how were you taught to make sense of this disagreement? Most people either complained to a higher authority (class monitor or teacher) or ended up in a fight. The same pattern you’ll see repeating over and over in your life. Today, instead of fighting over your bench in class, you are arguing about a parking spot in your residential complex. Or arguing with your neighbour about noise, garbage disposal, or cleanliness.
We disagree with people around us every day on issues ranging from minor things like parking spaces to more significant problems like political preferences. But when faced with disagreements, what do we do? We either get a higher authority involved, or we fight. We have learned no other way to handle it. This leads to anger, confusion, and bitterness. Moreover, involving a third party creates more work or nuisance than necessary. Creating an even greater distance between the people who were already disagreeing. This basic principle holds for anything, from fighting siblings calling on their father to the numerous cases in the Supreme Court. We cannot seem to be able to handle disagreements ourselves.
"But when faced with disagreements, what do we do? We either get a higher authority involved or we fight. We have learned no other way to handle it."
We live in a world today where we have more interactions with people than we have ever had in human history. Not just the number of people we end up interacting with but also the number of our interactions is uncountable. And with more interactions come more disagreements. And with more disagreements, more distance, and more frustration. How do we learn to disagree? Here, we take a look back at when disagreements were a part of education. Some forgotten lores from Indian philosophy.
Wisdom From Indian Philosophy
Before we discuss specifics, it is important for me to state that this article is only a teaser. There is an immensely vast literature from various Indian philosophical schools that I cannot cover here. I hope to inspire in you a curiosity to follow the breadcrumbs I leave for you here. Across philosophical schools in India, three fundamental pillars of thought exist, which are supposed to teach us how to disagree with each other. For the sake of simplicity, I would ask you to apply it to the disagreement case of your childhood where a classmate of yours has taken your favourite seat.
The first one encourages a person to take a bigger picture view of the problem at hand. It urges individuals to see similarities between themselves and their environment, society, and community. It is built on the principle of Oneness, where there exists this belief that there is something common between everything in this universe. From rocks, plants, neighbours, rivers, societies, and ethnic groups to nations. Everything has something in common with you. Thus, if there is a disagreement between you and another, this principle first asks you to see yourself in the other. This is not to be mistaken as empathy, where one tries to see themselves in others. The idea here is that there is actually something real that is similar to everything that exists. This advice is perhaps best captured in the Isa Upanishad read as:
Translation: One who perceives all the beings in his own self and own self in all the beings does not hate anyone anymore.
Moving to a second important principle, we look at the focus on duties. In comparison to Western philosophy, Indian philosophy has been less focused on individuals but rather on how individuals interact with societies. This is apparent in Western ideas focusing on ‘rights’ vs. Indian ideas focusing on ‘duties’. The Indian concept of dharma encourages one to resolve conflicts based on duties. Dharma urges you first to consider whether the disagreement stems from an unfulfilled ‘right’ vs. an unfulfilled duty. For the example of your seat being taken, what ownership do you have over a bench in class in the first place? More importantly, does your duty as a student allow you to spend time disagreeing on seating space? Dharma is again a common concept across Indian philosophies with a different version in each, a short quote to capture its advice is given in the Mimasa school, which reads:
Translation: Our duty is primary and abiding.
For the last one, we look at a combination of advice from the Nyaya and Yoga schools of Indian philosophy. These related ideas call for weighing multiple pieces of evidence for a meaningful resolution or search for truth. Nyaya opines that we cannot conclude disagreement without first exhausting all possible alternatives to the present situation. If someone is sitting in your seat, and you do not like it, first think about all possible reasons why they did so. Maybe they like the seat as much as you do, or they did not know you preferred the seat in the first place. Alternatively, Yoga requests you to consider the true value of the disagreement. If the disagreement is about “your” seat being taken, is there a meaningful reality in which a seat in a common classroom can be “yours” to begin with? These two quotes from Nyaya and Yoga schools of Indian philosophy capture these principles.
Translation: The reality of the situation should be tested with the help of various pieces of evidence.
Translation: Total confusion follows from words having no (corresponding) reality.
In writing this article, my intention was twofold. One, I wanted the reader to consider how they are dealing with disagreements they face in their lives and how they are dealing with them. And two, to make the readers visit the teachings of Indian philosophical schools that spent considerable time trying to make us lead better lives. There was a time when education involved these teachings. And I hope there is a time like that again.
