argument
Graphic by Mitchell Atencio and Candace Sanders. Original photo courtesy Jane Coaston.
“I think there are aspects of people attempting to discuss politics in Christian terms, or people interpreting their politics through a Christian lens, that’s always going to lead to terrible arguments,” she said. God cares about politics, Coaston said, but not in such a literal way that God has an opinion on something like Medicaid expansion. To those using God-talk to drum up votes, Coaston asks: “Why would you want God to be that small?”
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SO YOU WANT TO HAVE a chat with someone on the other side of the gun control debate, but you’re worried that it could quickly go south, descending into interminable and acrimonious debate. Well, fear not! Here are a few simple guidelines that can help avoid that outcome.
1. Resist false dichotomies
There are a wide range of positions that Americans hold on issues related to gun control. Polls consistently show that most gun owners support some degree of gun regulation. Similarly, few of those who choose not to own a gun believe that, therefore, no one should be allowed to own a gun. Given this, why does the debate so quickly deteriorate to: “You and Obama wanna take my guns!” on the one side and “You folks just don’t care about the gun violence epidemic!” on the other? The first step toward mutually respectful dialogue is to get rid of the false dichotomies.
2. Don’t caricature the other side
It’s an unfortunate part of our everyday discourse that we often attempt to dismiss our opponent’s position by creating an absurd caricature of it. You know the drill. Someone makes a sympathetic comment about gun regulation and the response is: “Oh, so you want to repeal the Second Amendment!” This sort of caricature avoids serious engagement with the issue by recasting it in terms that exaggerate or misrepresent the other’s position. Serious engagement on this issue, or any other, for that matter, requires careful attention to what the person actually says. Resist the temptation to cheapen the discussion by caricaturing the other’s position.
Child eating noodles, Chubykin Arkady / Shutterstock.com
So my son comes marching into the kitchen, and says in a demanding tone, "Make me snacks now!" My first reaction is to think that this is simply unacceptable behavior, and that he needs a good talking to. But I also notice that I am quite triggered by this, and that before I do anything, I need to reflect.
So I start boiling water for some pasta (I do have enough sense to know that when he asks for a snack that what his body really needs is some healthy food and not junk). As the water boils it dawns on me why he was so rude. In a word: metabolism.
It's amazing to me how much of our spiritual and emotional problems have clear biological and physical causes. The reason he was so demanding is that his body was hungry, and so his brain went into alarm mode:
I need food NOW .
The problem is not that he is a rude kid, it's that his metabolism was flooding his brain. If I had scolded him this would have had the effect of riling up his brain even more, which was already in freakout mode (I'll leave it to a neurobiologist to explain this with big $10 words like amygdala and cerebral cortex, but the basic science here is quite solid).