Thanksgiving fight

An argument stems from a place of love.

I love Thanksgiving. It’s a time as a country when we give thanks for our countless blessings. We gather with friends and loved ones. We eat great food. 

And one tradition in the Paprocki household is to always discuss politics and religion during dinner. 

I do it every year. 

This has been met with, what I would call, “mixed results.”

Usually the friction is with my sister, who has been known to cry about the work her younger brother is so passionate about. Apparently, not everyone is pro-freedom.

Family lore includes one Thanksgiving when we sat down for dinner and my sister attacked the “sexism” of home schooling. She argued no man would ever home school their own kids. I then defended home schooling fathers and took a position that, “I WOULD HOME SCHOOL MY KIDS RIGHT NOW!” 

My over-the-top yelling and hitting the table caused her to abandoned this argument. 

But despite our fights about politics, or more specifically, policies, I love my sister. 

In fact, what we’ve discovered is we both have so much in common that our differences almost never come up. But every time we get into an argument, I walk away feeling exhausted.

I realized metaphors are largely to blame. 

Let me back up. 

We regularly use metaphors as a creative way to make arguments more interesting and compelling. But more importantly, they help us make sense of the world. 

The way we think and act are built on metaphors. 

Take for example the metaphor: argument is war. This metaphor is so pervasive it is reflected in our everyday language. Look above to the story about my sister:

·      She attacked

·      Me defending

·      Taking a position

·      Over-the-top response

·      Abandoned her argument. 

Ultimately, we say: I won the argument. 

These are all metaphors taken directly from the concept of war. 

But are arguments actually like war? I may have won the argument, but she didn’t change her position. 

Because in war the loser does not walk away and think, “Well, they got the best of me! Maybe I should join their team.”

Instead, if you’re like me, you go home and stew and think about all the things you should have said differently. Usually I’m thinking, “I’ll get her next time.” 

But what happens if we recast our metaphor as “argument is education.”

Instead, I might:

·      Gain a better understanding of her perspective; or

·      Agree to find data to provide insights;

·      Learn from our research; or

·      Find a mutually agreed upon solution.

This metaphor frames a conversion rather than a confrontation. 

Education is a journey. You challenge assumptions. You test hypotheses. And often times you realize you were wrong. 

You don’t go home and stew. You go home and seek to learn more. 

Our goal is not to win arguments, it is to win converts. 

I love my sister. If I were not trying to convince her about the importance of Christ and the value of the free-market system, then I would love her less.

I know she loves me enough to try to convert me, as well. It would be a sad world in which she didn’t.

And because we love one another so much, we will always talk politics and religion at Thanksgiving. 

Matt