Brown encourages its students to challenge others, question what a professor tells us in class, critique theories of our peers and inspire other students to rethink their positions. While this community — one in which we constantly challenge each other and progress towards truths — sounds very nice, it is simply nonexistent. Unfortunately, these challenges have become impolite and ineffective. At times they actually encourage us to fight against rethinking our positions and developing new theories. It would be much more effective for everyone to listen, understand the other point of view and question his or her own positions instead.
Besides appreciating the greater civility that comes with listening, one should consider this: It is a more effective way of changing minds. I have never changed someone’s mind by lecturing or yelling at them; I have never had my mind changed by being patronized or ignored. This would likely prove true for many anecdotally. Further, from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” to Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” there is a bevy of works on the benefits of listening and being friendly during a discussion if one’s goal is to persuade. Becoming belligerent offers no such benefits. Listening, avoiding bickering and understanding someone’s point of view make individuals more likely to change the minds of others. Listening to someone and questioning our own point of view facilitates growth on both sides of a discussion and makes us more likely to actually make progress. This is smart, and we should do it more.
While listening can help us change minds, it also leads to personal growth. As things stand, disagreement among students too often leads to yelling and belittlement rather than actual discussion of issues. Someone gets frustrated that the other person disagrees, then — rather than listen — sits there thinking of a counterpoint. Even when it does not end with raised voices or name calling, this rarely accomplishes anything. Too often we listen with the intention of poking holes in people’s arguments rather than understand their points of view. Most people have probably been guilty of this. I definitely have. We should stop.
Admittedly, it can be very difficult to look for the pros rather than the cons of someone else’s opinion, especially when it leads us to rethink our own. It is always scary to admit we may be wrong about beliefs we have held for a long time. But we should be brave, and we should try to truly understand someone’s point of view before questioning it. Aggressively arguing with someone does not help ideas move forward and can instead further ingrain listeners in the beliefs that one is ostensibly trying to change. Trying to make people feel silly about their beliefs puts the aggressor in a negative light. We tend not to listen to or agree with people we see negatively. Only the speaker becomes convinced of his or her argument. It is always easy to convince ourselves that we are right.
This is dumb and slows down progress. We are too smart as a community to do this. I write about this because it scares the hell out of me. I see posts on Facebook about Congress never achieving anything; I hear people speak about the dangers of partisanship. Yet at Brown — a campus filled with fewer than 10,000 students who possess some of the most brilliant minds on the planet — we fall into the same traps. This behavior drives people to extreme ends of spectrums (Donald Trump’s popularity demonstrates this pattern on a national level) and creates resentment on both sides. There are serious problems that we face as a community, both on campus and on the national level, and we will not solve any of them acting this way. I have been as guilty of this behavior as anyone, but I am no longer okay with it. Starting right now, I will make a concerted effort to listen to someone’s entire opinion on an issue and understand it fully before questioning it. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
George Reynolds ’17 can be reached at george_reynolds@brown.edu, but if you are not civil and polite, your email will be deleted.
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