To the editor:
Monty Python once addressed the nature of arguments, an assessment which I feel is much needed in our generation. After paying to have an argument and finding the correct room, Michael Palin’s character walks into a room where John Cleese greets him. They begin bickering, John simply contradicting everything Michael says. Michael finally breaks down and says, “This isn’t an argument. You’re just contradicting me — an argument is a series of connected statements to establish a definite proposition.”
Moving on with this premise, conversation has become just the contradiction found in that sketch. Michael goes on to define contradiction in contrast with conversation, “conversation is an intellectual process, whereas contradiction is the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says!” Our intellectual processes have diminished into gainsaying anything that we disagree with.
This saddens me to a very deep extent. As someone who has been confined to only my ability to converse for years, I find that we all just want to butt heads when we disagree. Why though? Why do we feel the need fight when we feel the slightest bit threatened by words? Simply put, we are still just another species of animal on this planet.
We fight it a lot, but all of us have an animal brain. We, as humans have evolved to have cognitive processes which allow us to not give in to our animal brain, yet we still do. Having lived with mental health issues for years now I’ve found that all conversation is completely relative. We can learn all we want from traditional methods but experience doesn’t always follow reason or tradition. We all come from different perspectives, just because someone’s opinion seems wacky to you doesn’t mean it has no relevance.
Though we may try intensely to establish a norm for all things, we cannot. We can accept the chaotic nature of life and still have structure. Not everything needs to be black and white, we are starting to accept this more and more. This does not give people the right to bend any aspect of life to their own liking, it means leaving elbow room for your fellow man.
Though we may take one side and someone else the other, we can still be civil.
