How do you communicate with someone you disagree with?

Seth Godin posted an interesting blog this morning title "What do you call things you disagree with?" Well, since he doesn't have a comments page to discuss what we would call it, I figured I would post about it here and if anyone wants to add to the discussion they are more than welcome.

What I think is most obvious in Seth's post is his comment that when we get annoyed with something or afraid of something, we "lose eloquence and start calling things names." Evidence of this can be seen every single day if you watch any type of news commentary, read blog posts on politics or marketing or listen to AM talk radio. When people disagree with something, they get angry and just delve into name calling. While I think he is talking more about marketing, I see it more often than not in politics.

For me, I call things that I disagree with by their names. If I disagree with someone, I don't delve into name calling and trying to degrade them. What I try to do is see things from their perspective, analyze it and then disagree with them in a civilized manner. Unfortunately, people forget that they are talking to another human being when they are arguing with them and they are passionate about something. This is one of the main reasons why I got out of politics.

It is also one of the reasons that I love teaching debate. It forces students to learn how to see things from both sides of an issue and be able to defend both sides of that issue. This is also why I want to extend my knowledge and teach people that communication is about talking to another human being. They are not someone who you should throw names at and try to disparage them. Disagreeing with someone is a necessary component of our democracy...calling them facists, left-wing radicals, communists, socialists, right-wing bigots or anything in-between doesn't solve anything. All it does is create more hatred in this world.

As Seth Godin says, "there's never a shortage of boogy men available to the people in the community that you're frightening." This is true. But don't get sucked in with them. Raise above it and try to engage them in an intellectual discussion. Be civil. Most importantly, remember that they are just someone who disagrees with you...and that's okay.

Travis

Comments

[Anne]

I think Seth should leave politics out of marketing as the entry seem politically charged to me.

[Turil]

My question is, why are we threatening people in the first place? Why is what we're doing, or suggesting, causing others to be worried? What is it that our ideas and products are doing that is potentially so harmful to others that they feel obligated to defend themselves from us?

Of course, I'm sure that sometimes it's a simple matter of miscommunication - we're just not being clear enough about what we're offering. Other times what we are offering probably really is dangerous to some people. So it seems to me that the best thing we can do is to find out what it is about our offering that seems wrong to others, and sort out what we can do about it, so that we can effectively solve the problem - either by being clearer about how our offering helps these people, or by actually making our offering better. Not only will either of these make us better people (which benefits us directly) maybe we'll even win a new friend in the process. :-)

[Travis Dahle]

Interesting thoughts Turil. I think miscommunication has a lot to do with it. People are usually afraid of the unknown or something new. So if you can communicate clearly what you are doing that would help. Unfortunately, most people don't know how to communicate their ideas effectively, hence the problems.

[Chris]

It's such a coincidence - this blog is right in line with something I tweeted yesterday. A friend of mine called Seth the "Dr. Phil" of marketing. He is a marketing professional and I was disturbed by his dismissal of the baby with the bathwater. Seth's books and blog have really helped me a lot. So I tweeted that and solicited responses, but got none.

The bottom line is name-calling misses the mark on so many levels - you can disagree with what Seth is saying or say that it is simple and anyone could say it (what my friend said), but he is the one saying.

Just because I "could have" written Drops of Jupiter by Train doesn't mean shine-ola. They wrote it, they said it, it's simple, and it resonates. Coveting their Grammy just moves me backwards.