Agree to disagree.

[conuly]

I hate that phrase.

For one, we're already disagreeing. We don't have to set a formal agreement to start disagreeing with each other.

For another, if I care enough about an issue to argue with you about it, it's likely to be important enough to me that I'm not going to just shut up about it. Okay... not really - I do get into a lot of silly arguments... but many times they're not. And I'm not going to shut up about it to avoid making you feel bad if it's that important.

Because if you're wrong, you need to know. And you need to STOP BEING WRONG. Like, five minutes ago. It's not healthy.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Heh, precisely!

I'm willing to 'agree to disagree' on issues of individual preference, because "there's no accounting for taste". I love dogs, bizarre cult-classic sci-fi movies, fried chicken, enormous crashing thunderstorms and The Silmarillion - none of which my daughter likes. She loves 'chick flicks', shrimp, laying on a beach in the blazing sun, Mercedes Lackey's books and a really stupid anime show called Demon Diary - all of which I am happy to live without. Neither of us try to talk the other around to our point of view in such matters.

Matters of faith also come under the 'agree to disagree' heading, because nobody can prove the truth of their beliefs or the error of someone else's. Some of my friends think that Jesus of Nazareth is/was the only-begotten Son of God; some think astrology provides valid and useful information about a person; some think UFO sightings are alien spacecraft; some think George Bush won the Presidential elections fair and square. I don't hold any of those beliefs, but I can't logically refute them nor present evidence to demonstrate that they're not true, so... "agree to disagree".

Grammar and punctuation are borderline. There are some hard-and-fast rules, like agreement of tense or person, or the use of apostrophes in contractions and possessives, but there are also a great many variants in common usage. Some people think that whatever their grade-school English teacher told them is The One True Right And Only Way, but those people are wrong, and the fact that they are wrong can be demonstrated. However, the fate of the world doesn't hang on the use of standard English, so I'm often willing to let people just go ahead and be wrong if that's what they want.

Hypothetical ethical questions are borderline. Under what circumstances is it right to have sex, get married, have (or not have) children, lie, cheat, steal, kill, take away a person's liberty, use force to compel compliance against a person's will, refuse to obey authority, depose a person in power and take over their power for oneself? Well, I think all those things can be right in some situations, but wrong in others. Whether I'm willing to 'agree to disagree' or am willing to argue to the death about such matters also depends on the specific circumstances.

Matters that can be proven by logic or demonstrable evidence are not borderline, though the validity of a specific premise may be. "Intelligent design" is not science; discrimination of any sort is not Constitutional; psychiatry is not a legitimate branch of medicine; 'Christian' dominionists are not Christian; rape is never acceptable; the war in Iraq is not justifiable; obesity is not healthy; neurological diversity is not comparable to cancer; cutting or starving oneself is not a functional coping mechanism.

On these points and a number of others, I'm not willing to 'agree to disagree', if what that means is "agree to accept that the other person's viewpoint is as valid as my own". However, I do have a life outside my computer, and more interesting things to do with my time than argue endlessly with logic-impaired idiots, so often I'm willing to accept the fact that they are idiots whom no amount of logic or evidence will convince, and move on to other things.