the ask@AAR: Are you ready to agree to disagree?
Currently, I am working a joint review with another reviewer on a book I loved and she did not. Neither is going to change the other’s mind about this work. She’d give the book a C/low B–for me it’s a DIK. We have agreed to disagree.
At the same time, I’ve been deep in conversation with a friend whose son is struggling with his fiancée over the cost of their wedding. He’d prefer to have a very low key wedding and have the families help with buying a house. She has her heart set on a big wedding. The couple, previously happy together, is struggling to find a middle ground. In this case, if they agree to disagree, someone gets what they want and someone does not. It’s not quite as final as the I want a baby and my partner doesn’t dilemma (You can’t have half a baby.), but it is one of those issues where compromise is unlikely to make either party happy.
How to disagree? As many have complained about over the years, I tend to let anyone express their opinions. I grew up in a big family who spent most of the dinner hour debating any and every issue and it feels normal to me to be unfussed when people say things I think are terribly wrong. That same big family forced so many compromises on me that I tend to deal pretty easily with not getting my own way all the time.
Many think compromises are bad news, that there are lines that should never be crossed, and that giving up on something that matters to you means you have somehow failed. Any and all of those things can be true–and sometimes it’s worth refusing to agree to disagree or refusing to do something someone else wants you to and you don’t. AND, in my experience, those times are rare. Most of the time, if you want to be in relationships with others and in functional communities, if you ask me, it’s probably best to, at the very least, give that inch.
I’m hoping, that in 2025, we here at AAR will continue to work to politely agree to disagree. The coming year will, I’m sure, bring lots of things that make readers nuts/angry/depressed. When that happens, I’ll be working to make AAR a place where you can share your feelings AND disagree with those who see things differently.
What do you think? Is this a pipe dream? Let me know in the comments.
Here’s a quote from the NYT that encapsulates my beliefs on discussing topics with those whom we disagree with:
I want to know what your DIK is!!!!!!
It’s a book coming out later in 2025 called The Listeners.
I actually don’t think this is the place to talk politics. It’s the place to talk books and maybe shows, movies and art. There are plenty of places online to discuss polarizing topics and it would actually be nice to have a place that didn’t.
To answer your question, in real life when someone’s beliefs infringe on the rights of others, if they endanger people, then that person has no place in my life. I can be cordial and respectful, but I will not seek them out. I’m no longer in contact with at least one family member, and have lost more than a few of my former friends from church who have gone down the MAGA rabbit hole. The last time I tried to see my dearest friend I sat silent at her kitchen table in December of 2022 for 45 min while she told me the “horrors” of the COVID vaccine. It made me really sad because she has a master in a scientific field. I didn’t argue with her, and, in fact, I told her she could send me the articles she’d read. I haven’t spoken to her since. (Her husband sat in on our conversation and I think he’s forbidden her to have contact with me. They are now right-wing “Chistians” and he’s controlling.)
But honestly, I don’t know how to be friends with someone who is racist, who wants to erase trans individuals and their rights (very personal for me), or who are supportive of politicians like the ones here in NC who have disenfranchised the state’s Democratic voters with the new laws they passed. I volunteer with them, I talk about shared concerns about the horses or the stuff at the barn, but I have no desire to be their friends.
It can be difficult, as a reviewer, to avoid hot button topics which often appear in books these days. For example, I can remember warning readers that a book I reviewed had a very strong anti abortion message. I know for some readers that is a definite turn off and I wanted them to know that was in the book. People reacted in the comments on both sides of the issue. So politics sometimes come up on the course of a book discussion. Hopefully, we can all keep it civil.
The political is so often the personal and shows up so much in art. And I’d never want reviewers to feel there were issues they couldn’t mention.
I get that, but I think it’s one thing to talk about a hot topic in the context of the book, without needing to argue about how you feel irl. I don’t know if I commented on that thread, but if it were today, I wouldn’t comment at all. I might tackle comments about disability rep, or trans erasure, but even then I’m done trying to chenge anyone’s mind. I don’t mind presenting ideas someone might not have considered, after all, that’s what changed my thinking about so many things. But these days if I get pushback, I’m done.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with regard to people and what they are or or are not willing to change their minds on. I would classify myself as having some very fixed beliefs that I will not change come hell or high water. I have agnostic beliefs that I could go either way on and then there are topics where I am very open minded and have no fixes beliefs. Happy to be persuaded either way. When fixed belief meets fixed belief generally only two things can happen, explosion or one side shutting up and going on their way. I think a true good faith exploration of the other point of view is very very rare and as you say if it offends your personal morality then most aren’t going to be willing to engage.
I would also say that I’m willing to tolerate a lot of things in books but vaccine denial and misinformation is not one. I’ve ditched two authors including Lucy Monroe for out and out misinformation regarding autism and vaccines. Possibly that’s hypocritical considering I have a good friend who blames vaccinations for her child’s cancer but I have more tolerance there because I view it as her way of making sense of an intolerable situation – something has to be to blame rather than bad luck
I too struggle with vaccine denial, especially around the MMR and polio vaccines.
That makes sense to me. No one has to engage if it doesn’t work for them. My goal is to create a space that, if people wish to engage, they can do so in a way that allows for disagreement without contempt or namecalling.
I hope that will be the case in the future, but for that to happen, contemptuous comments need to be consistantly called out or removed. Laissez-faire moderating isn’t going to work.
I think the tough call is what is contemptuous. I look at every comment at AAR. There are those that never get published because I think they are inappropriate. The rest, that do make it onto the site, are screened and meet my definition of non contemptuous.
Judging everything by the thickness of your skin isn’t being very empathetic. I personally think you should listen to the person who’s been hurt. What was said about me on that thread last summer was not ok.
I know you feel the site failed you and I am sorry for that.
I know. Thank you. Since we don’t quite see eye-to-eye on how moderating should be handled, I’ll simply be careful about which discussions I engage with in the future. And that’s just fine. There is plenty here for me.
Ding!
I grew up in a family that liked to argue. Also since my youth I have tried to read things I disagree with, which I have found to be an excellent way to clarify my own thinking and even make me change my mind a bit. It only works with things that are well-reasoned and clearly written, however. William Buckley or Christopher Hitchens were very useful that way.
I still enjoy a good discussion, and family gatherings frequently get heated, except when one family member is present. Then we just avoid arguments that touch on politics because her idea of a valid argument is call those who disagree with her “fascists” or “racists”. Sigh.
Ah yes–we have a few of those in our family too.
Very well-put, Lil. I do find it sad when conversations and discussions are ended when someone who disagrees with you calls you a “fascist” or “racist” or anything else, e.g. ignorant, right-wing, left-wing, whatever. Putting a stop to discussions in such a manner is very arrogant but then the world is full of all sorts of folk and, like you, I try to read both sides of things so sometimes my POV will be altered when I stop to consider another’s take on something. Life is far too short to think that you know it all; better to know that none of us are 100% right, none are 100% wrong: we just differ on things. Even “facts” can sometimes be shown to be untrue as knowledge and understanding grows and changes. Think of those who once maintained, to their “factual” understanding, that the earth was flat. They never had the opportunity to look at Earth from space, only from the prow of a tiny wooden ship when the Earth does indeed look flat!!
The buck stops for me when my humanity is questioned, period. That’s when there’s no compromise and no both sides-ing life.
What does that mean to you? I’m not sure get it.
Basically, what Carrie said. “Go home and be in the kitchen” talk.
Yeah, that’s uncool, for sure.
“Make me a sandwich” is a common line when men troll women’s accomplishments online.
I’m pretty sure no one at AAR has ever said anything like that to anyone here. At least not in my time.
Or “your body, my choice” feels like an existential attack on women’s humanity.
YEP
100%.
Disagreeing about books is low stakes and therefore easy. When arguments escalate from books to politics, the best recourse is to disengage.
I hope that isn’t true but I can certainly understand why people feel that way.
Well, I’m afraid there’s no choice really, whether you disagree with the people you love or accept that they think differently and make some concessions just like them or…what? force them to adopt your opinion? Force them to let you get away with it all the time? and if they are people you don’t know or groups of people at most you can ignore them or decide that it is not worth dealing with them you will not force anyone to change their mind or adopt yours, even if someone has opinions that are usually rejected as Maximum, you can get them to shut up because he learns that his way of thinking is not well regarded, but if that person doesn’t want to, they won’t really change their mind.
Let’s accept that the only way we can live in this world without tyranny or aggression is if we all resign ourselves to thinking differently about various things and that ALL of us are going to be the villain or the idiot in someone else’s story.
And maybe stop sneering at those who have opinions we struggle with?
It is an excellent idea but the truth is that I have resigned myself to the fact that when people are in resonance groups where they find their peers, they usually resort to laughing at groups that do not agree. I may be a pessimist but the culture of “I refuse to accept that anyone disagrees with me” that I have seen a lot lately transforms respect for other people’s opinions into something public, something that is okay to do when everyone is watching but the truth is the people don’t care.
Well, I’m hoping that at AAR we will be able to do better than that. It’s a challenge, but I am an optimistic realist.
Agree to disagree only works if the stakes are low. I have no problem if people disagree with me about books, movies, music, tv shows, etc. My problem is when the stakes are literally people dying (for being unvaccinated, for having a miscarriage in a red state) or having their rights ripped away and having their bodies and sexualities criminalized with the swipe of a pen, I find it impossible to say, yes, we’ll have to agree to disagree about whether my gay nephew can marry his boyfriend or whether my trans friend can get access to estrogen or whether my own children can continue to get birth control pills or if a woman has reproductive control of her body or if we can dismantle the social safety net that millions rely upon. Agree to disagree just doesn’t work when lives, rights, bodily autonomy, and simply the right to lead your own life is on the line.
You can vote however you choose. That seems to me to be different than talking/interacting with others over issues.
I *think* what Dabney is talking about is whether or not AAR can be a site where a discussion of a book has us talking about abortion/LGBTQ+ rights, etc., without one reader vilifying another for their position. Or where a reviewer can write a DIK review for a book that has nuanced characters who take questionable political positions – for example, a woman who marries (and loves) a NAZI officer, leaves Germany after the war, and finds new love in America (that was some Danielle Steele book I can’t remember the name of because it wasn’t a DIK for me. But it sold well, they may even have made a TV movie out of it at some point.) without posters telling them that a book like that can’t be any good.
Yes. Or that they are idiots for liking it. I’d really like for AAR to be a place of tolerance for differing ideas and perspectives.
Oh, well, I apologize for misinterpreting. I thought your comment was broadly more about agreeing to disagree in a political/social context. When it comes to books, music, art, etc., I’m perfectly happy to agree to disagree.
No, you are right. I would like us to able to discuss any matter of things at AAR.
My favorite reviews here the ones where a book is reviewed multiple times and the ratings differ from one another. I am always interested in different viewpoints or how people arrive at their opinions. So, I am looking forward to that book’s review.
I adore the fact that this site “allows” all kinds of different opinions, it gives me as a reader a better picture of a book’s content which is obviously the reason this site exists. So, yes I am ready
I do hope the couple you mention can work their way to a compromise they can both live with, otherwise I fear for their relationship…
Thing is, a review is subjective and one opinion is as valid as another.
Facts, on the other hand, are not, and I have no patience with the stupidity and selfishness of parents not vaccinating their kids because some idiot comes out with a load of unsubstantiated and/or debunked claptrap.
Having differing opinions is not the same as someone disputing hard facts, I think.
Unfortunately, people these days don’t agree on facts, even ones that shouldn’t be controversial. When facts become subjective, you cannot have meaningful discourse.
But facts can seem hard to come by. I’ve spent my adult life working in around medicine and things that were once “facts” are replaced by a better understanding. I tend to think it works best if we can agree on who knows the most about something and trust their interpretations of data. As a cancer patient, I know the field is constantly evolving and it can be frustrating because the oncologist’s take is different than the surgeon’s take is different than the radiologist’s take. But, I’m going to listen to them all and ask questions of them and believe that working with the experts is the best way to understand my disease.
But evolving science is one thing, outright denial of irrefutable facts is another. Many facts that are being questioned today are not hard to come by. They are well researched and documented. For example, the fact that Jan 6 was at the very least a sometimes violent protest on Capitol Hill is a fact, not a conjecture (and is on video for anyone to see). It wasn’t a guided tour through the building as some people still claim. Crime rates among immigrants is objectively lower than the rate (per capita) of American-born citizens. The autism-vaccine connection has been thoroughly debunked by repeated international studies. Tariffs are not paid by the country being targeted. Etc.
A better way to treat cancer patience is definitely changing and the older, often toxic methods have been reduced as we learn more. But I don’t think that’s a topic that comes up much in conspiracy theories, although I could be wrong.
I grew up in a family that was weirdly data-driven.Even in a time before the internet, whenever there was a discussion about anything, you had to back up your opinion. Our encyclopedia set was used regularly, and the librarians all knew us. It has been a struggle for me to learn to agree to disagree with people who simply don’t know the facts or who don’t use empirical data in their evaluations. But I think in this day and age, in America and especially on-line, it is extremely valuable. Especially since these days the conversations seem more centered on feelings than facts. I hope we can all find a way for this site to be a place for all opinions, even unpopular ones.
I too grew up fact based. But if you think that the facts themselves are manufactured by a system stacked against you, facts don’t make you support or not support an issue.
I read an interesting thing yesterday in the NYT that was talking about why so many people buy into unsupported alternative medical theories. The writers believed that a big piece of that was that the traditional medical system is doing a shit job of making people feel listened to and valued. So, even if the guy telling you to not vaccinate your kids is telling you things not supported by the NIH or the AMA, if he’s making you feel seen and heard, you’re likely to buy into what he’s saying. So, if I’m trying to convince anti-vaxxers to give their children the MMR, it’s not going to work if I just say THE STUDIES SHOW. I have to figure out how to tell the story of vaccines in a way that validates that person’s worldview..
That’s very true. I would add that many people feel lied to – the issue with Montelukest/Singulair is a good example of that. The company knew the drug had problems and yet fought against having those problems listed since it was a lucrative pharmaceutical. So some would say their behavior proves drug companies are willing to kill us for money. Vaccine manufacturers will be painted with the same brush and I believe that the company behind Singulair actually does make vaccines so . . .
I don’t know if you have ever read The Righteous Mind, but while I didn’t love the book I did appreciate one of his major points. Most people are more feelings driven than information driven. Who presents the information and how matters a lot. Take the issue of abortion – you would think it would be fairly easy to prove when life starts, but some people argue it begins before conception, with birth control destroying the natural result of sex; others that it begins at conception, others that it is a baby only once it can live independently outside the womb, etc., etc. The facts don’t change, but how we interpret them definitely differs.
Yes! For example, if you think that the whole system is rigged, than people who have broken the law could be seen as heroes. It all depends on your perspective. It’s not a winning view to simple say I AM RIGHT.
That said, I think it is good to acknowledge the other party’s feelings while not yielding the facts. The fact is that vaccines have saved millions of lives. We have the historical numbers that prove the before and after of this. And I often tell people that their feelings about gravity don’t change the fact they can’t fly. The world works how it works.
Yes AND if the goal is getting people vaccinated, how we talk about vaccines and how others see them might have to change.
Unfortunately, you can’t deprogram people who have been brainwashed into believing that black is white.
Watching this argument from 3000 miles away (and seeing it happening here also)… I’ve read many comments and articles saying that the “liberals” have shot themselves in the feet by being tolerant and accepting, because those on the other side see that as weakness – they go in with the sledgehammer and don’t care for the feelings and opinions of others. Obviously, I don’t agree with that approach either. But I fear the idea that we need to reframe – for example – a discussion about vaccines, is only going to foster that belief – that the… shall we say, more reasonable among us are weak because we try to empathise and see all sides etc. etc.
As DDD says above, if we’re talking about art, then of course, there is room for amicable disagreement. But when it comes to saving lives, in whatever capacity, then I’m with her.
I hear you. But we have to be able to not only talk to those who define things differently but, if we want to change the direction of the culture, we have to be able–or at least I want to try–to move their perspective closer to ours.
Here’s an example–I am a very strong right to die advocate and believe passionately that we should have the right to decide what kinds of lives are worth living. AND I understand how disability activists are threatened by the idea of a culture that says some lives aren’t worth living. If I want to pass laws that would allow for me to chose death if I had, oh, Parkinson’s, I have to figure out how to talk to disability advocates in a way that makes them believe I’ve considered their perspective and that I will work to make sure any laws that are passed at least try and take their views into consideration.
I feel there are many issues like this–even hot button issues like abortion, medical treatment for trans kids, even bike lanes replacing cars.
I see a few different issues with all of this. The first is that while I agree that at AAR we should make room for all readers and their vast array of takes on any book we might review, our site isn’t a bubble. My personal experience from having been here for a couple of decades is that MOST not all but most of the time we discuss things fine. But when something said here gets carried over to Twitter or when a book we reviewed favorably here becomes controversial there, things become a lot more difficult. That’s happened at least twice that I can think of. So while I totally agree, in principle, that this should be a place for all opinions I know from personal experience that in practice that is a lot less easy to do than say.
Politics for me confuses this because my conversations about a political issue don’t have any impact on what the politicians actually do. And I say that as someone who was a member of a group that got policy changes through the government and as someone who recently worked as a volunteer for a campaign. Learning to have dinner table conversations (or even social media conversations) with people on the other side is good from a personal perspective. It teaches us a lot about ourselves and how others view the world and gives us a better perspective on what it means to live in community. It can show us how to approach an issue so that others feel heard and seen, too. But I agree with DDD and Caz that when we move beyond just a relational moment -like a conversation with someone who differs from us – and move into the realm of politics there are lines that we should take a hard stand on. The trick is discovering lines that effectively do what is needed (such as arresting someone who shoots the CEO of an insurance company) AND hearing why they did it (the system is broken and is literally destroying lives while those men live like kings.
I will also add that not all players are acting in good faith. The whole trans bathroom issue was created. It wasn’t a problem concerning people until someone needed a talking point in an election and made it a problem.
OK, but people like to talk and say how they feel. It’s not always about trying to do anything.
And I tend to believe that at AAR all players ARE acting in good faith. I can think of very few times I think anyone is just being a troll.
I think most of our discussions at AAR have indeed gone well. And I agree that our regular posters are all acting in good faith. If this discussion is just about here, I think we are doing a decent job already. But of course there is always room for improvement.
Here’s my feeling these days: I don’t care what happens on other sites. If we get trashed on Reddit or X or anywhere that isn’t here, that isn’t my problem. And if people show up, full of piss and vinegar, looking for a fight from what they read on another site, well, we’ll just be nice and make sure they abide by our rules.
Really, my days of living in fear about what meanies say elsewhere are over.
I get that others are more careful and everyone needs to be true to themselves. But I’ve reached a point in my life where I trust that what we are doing here is just fine.
This is how I was raised and find it weird when people just deny obvious, easily checked facts (and often not even on ‘controversial’ issues). I wish there was a way to actually reach people who are operating in this way, though. Because otherwise we’re in a pretty grim place as a society.
Yes. AND I think there’s a huge difference between saying “The Holocaust didn’t exist.” and “Tariffs on China will be good for American workers.” The former is fact and if you can’t convince someone of that, there’s not a lot a room for discussion. The latter, however, is a more nuanced discussion and I am more hopeful that I could change minds on that.
Good luck, Dabney. Online is the Hunger Games and the odds are not in your favor. Too many meanies.
Here’s hoping we all realize that the path to any future involves listening to the views of others even if we don’t like them. I’m an optimist!