“We appreciate our opponent's arguments and difficulties; show a genuine interest in its logic.”
"One must find a middle ground between insulting, rigid contradiction and flattering, immediate surrender of one's opinion.
Páter Fáber, the English spiritual writer, has a very excellent rule about this. Of course, he applies it to religious debates with Anglicans and other denominations, which is common in his own situation, but he is also good at other issues. »We appreciate, he says, the arguments and difficulties of our opponent; show genuine interest in its logic. Whenever we are dealing with a thinking person, we can always do this without being a hypocrite, because his thinking is always interesting, even if the edge is turned against us. With this, we will win his goodwill and make him inclined to pay attention to our counterargument.« However, if it is not a question of faith, that is, not one that we can't let go of, but some political and social problems are put on the carpet, for me it is my point of view is that our understanding in this area should not be rigid.
Most of them are white from one side and black from the other. Therefore, if we are not convinced from the outset that an opinion contrary to ours is downright unreasonable, but instead realize that the matter can be understood in any way, then our opinion will never be offensive to others. Unfortunately, many people are too convinced of the absolute certainty and infallibility of their own convictions, and even if they engage in an argument with us, they do not listen to our argument, but while we are talking, they think about how they could come up with an even more decisive argument in addition to theirs. It's not worth getting into a fight with something like that."
(Excerpt from the book by the Carmelite monk Ernő Szeghy [1872-1952] Thoughts of life in the late twilight )
Photo: Tamás Kemenes
