My good friends Royal Winchester, Rob Lefferts and I like to talk about things. Eventually we realized there were  some things, mostly political, we were afraid to talk about since they’re often polarizing topics that make everyone involved hate each other. Since we like each other, we wanted to avoid that. By going meta, which we are fond of doing, we came up with the following rules, which can help friends talk about contentious issues with each other:

1. We have bad data. Confirmation bias is the tendency we all have to find one piece of data that supports something we already believe and then stop looking. We say “I studied this thoroughly”, when really all we did was find one supporting source, something the web makes possible for any claim or belief.  This bias even influences the sources we pick for news and the articles we choose to read, making us blind to the diversity of opinions and data out there. Objectively, we know we don’t know everything, but we easily convince ourselves we’ve been objective when arguing. Everyone should admit they don’t have all the data, and the data they do have is  biased because they had a belief before they started looking for data.
2. We don’t really care – if we did,  we’d do something more than argue. Most Americans do almost nothing to support the causes they are willing to argue with for hours with their friends. If you really feel so passionately about whatever this topic is, what are you doing for that cause? If you do little or nothing, step down from your high horse, please. If we really cared, we could at least agree to invest the time to read the other sides data, and then get together to review. That takes commitment, but if there is no commitment, why are we arguing so passionately?
3. We’re arguing about being right. Often with friends there is more ego in the room than people admit. Once things get heated, no one wants to say “I’m wrong” or “That’s a good point” or “Maybe I need to rethink my position”. If you note from the beginning that everyone wants to be right, it helps diffuse that motive, increasing the possibility people might actually listen to each other. A truly wise person is capable of growing. They can incorporate new ideas into their thinking and change their mind. Wise people are more interesting to talk to, compared to people who endlessly, and thoughtlessly, defend the same position their entire life.
4. There are smart people on both sides. For highly contentious issues (abortion, religion, taxes, war,etc.), there are smart people on both sides. To portray one point of view as obvious is denial, and to make ad-hominem attacks on people with opposing views denies the complexity of the issue involved. Smart people can be wrong of course, but that doesn’t mean the way they’re wrong is as trivial to avoid as you assume, or that their ethics and morals are less noble than yours.
5. What would convince you that you are wrong? If you have no answer to this question, you haven’t thought very hard about your position. There must be some set of new facts or conditions in the world that would make you take a different point of view, even if they are unlikely or improbable.  It’s not much fun to talk to people who have complete certainty that they’re right about everything.

What do you think? We eventually came up with a version 2.

Anyone who makes progress in this world makes compromises.

In the case of the U.S. Government, every gear and cog in the system is based on negotiation. Power is divided into three rings, each ring given a degree of power over the others. Why? To force compromise. Inside Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, each has the power to reject new laws. Why? To force compromise. Even the executive branch has its power muted by many other forces the population likes to pretend aren’t there. It’s much simpler to point to a singular parental figure, than admit that despite the president’s power, he or she is merely an important cog in a huge, complex system of debates, partnerships, rivalries, and deals (or bribes), with many influential players involved in anything that happens, or does not happen.

One foundation of the entire system is that longevity comes from continual compromise, based on what the population supports. No one ever gets their way without a bargain. Nothing ever happens without some price or consequence. It is not a system designed for innovation, instead it’s designed to slow change  until enough support exists to motivate people to overcome their self-interests. This is part of the design of democracies and republics of all kinds. It was true in the Golden Age of Greece and during the American Revolutionary war. It was in the air at the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and has been true on every day since. The chaos you see in the crisis of the day has more to do with the fact you are paying unusually close attention, rather than a shift in the longstanding nature of representative government itself.

John F. Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage, about senators who stood on principle against their peers. They achieved important legislation, but were not reelected despite how right they were (retrospectively) in their stands. This is not a failure of government, it’s another form of compromise. Arguably one that has been lost in the dominance of career politicians who put their longevity in office above all things.

These brave people were willing to sacrifice their political careers for an ideal, something any politician is free to do at any time. Most of us make the opposite kind of choice every day. We compromise our principles to keep a fancy job, or stay in a marriage, or stay in our parents-in-laws’ good graces. And since so few of us are willing to make the sacrifices to retain perfect ideals in our own lives, why do we expect more from politicians? They say what they need to to get elected, but to be effective in any way in office demands compromise.

The only people who take true hard lines in this world are the spectators. Fundamentalism of most kinds is the mark of someone on the sidelines. People unwilling to compromise can never take the first step towards power, since they fail to see that all things, including the traditions they see as immovable, were themselves products of compromises made long before they were born. And it’s their own ignorance they are fighting against, not anything of meaning in this world.